During the current economic climate, it’s only natural that people are turning to alternative ways of making money, and there are no shortage of opportunities out there on the internet. Unfortunately, although there are plenty of people looking for legitimate ways to boost their income and make more money, a minority are seeking to exploit the situation in order to scam people for quick financial gain by setting up online forex broker scams.

These scams can be anything from the selling of information, all the way through to elaborate schemes that aim to get users to send over large sums of money that they’ll never see again. Although there are many different types of forex scams, three main ones crop up time and time again. Here are the three most prolific forex broker scams:

1. Signal seller scams

Signal seller scams are usually based on some form of notification service that claim to aim users in the right direction of financial market growth. Whilst there are many legitimate sites and services that provide indicators of where the markets are going and give users hints and tips, scammers set these services up in order to direct users to falsified information that will only benefit the scam brokers.

They send out signals to those who are signed up, directing them to send money into places that have no viability, and may even be owned by the scammers. Once the money is transferred by a number of users, the profiles are then usually closed down and the money disappears.

2. Fake Trading Funds

Whereas the signal selling scams focus on providing users false information to direct them to bad trades, some scammers are going to the extent of setting up completely fake funds. These scammers are a bit more sophisticated and can even go as far as offering to set up your profile for you.

After a few trades are made and money has been put into the account, they will then wipe the account and withdraw all of your funds before disappearing. These scams can be difficult to detect as they often claim the difficult market has resulted in the disappearance of the funds rather than straight theft.

3. Automated Robot Scams

The most sophisticated forex scams are now completely automated, using a series of algorithms via a ‘robot’ to open and close trades when users have directed their funds into them. Similar to some of the legitimate platforms that are available for trading, these automated scams operate by asking users to deposit money into the platform where the trades will then be done for them without any input from the user. Unfortunately, they are then programmed to transfer all your cash into their own accounts.

Although these are the most common forms of broker scams, there are a large number of them out there and new types of scam are popping up all the time with new and innovative ways of stealing your money. If you think you have been scammed by a rogue trader, there are some places that may be able to help you recover your funds, or at least trace where they’ve disappeared to