Guide
Clone firms are the fastest-growing door in beginner losses: a copied site, a copied licence number, a WhatsApp 'account manager' — and a deposit that goes to a company that does not exist on any register.
Facts checked on October 22, 2026
The FCA adds clone firms to its Warning List daily. A clone does not need to fool everyone — it needs to fool people arriving from social media, messaging apps and search ads in the thirty seconds before a first deposit. The defence is not spotting fakes by eye; it is a two-minute register routine that works every time.
A clone copies the real firm's name (sometimes one letter different), its logo, its office address and — most convincingly — its real licence number. Every copied detail is genuine except the domain and the bank account your deposit goes to. Beginners meet clones through Telegram and WhatsApp groups, 'signals' sellers, and ads that outbid the real firm's own name.
Take the entity name and licence number from the site in front of you. Open your regulator's register yourself — type the regulator's address, never follow the site's link to it. Search the entity. On the genuine register entry, the regulator lists the firm's own contact details and website domains. If the domain you're on is not the domain on the register, you are on a clone, whatever the page says.
First: the register's listed website differs from yours. Second: the 'firm' asks for deposits to a personal account, a crypto wallet, or a payment agent — regulated entities take deposits to accounts in the entity's own name. Third: contact begins or stays on a messaging app. A real broker's compliance department has never once onboarded a client over WhatsApp.
Stop adding money — clone losses grow through 'withdrawal fees' and 'tax payments' that are simply more deposits. Screenshot everything, save chat exports and transaction hashes, report to your home regulator and your bank or payment provider immediately, and file with local police where your country asks for it. Speed matters more than the amount.
The licence number being real proves nothing. Clones copy real numbers precisely because beginners check the number and relax. Check that the register's website matches the site asking for your money.
The free check gives you the verdict for one country and one broker. The Deposit Safety Kit gives you the complete walkthroughs: how to verify the entity in the broker's own legal footer, where on your regulator's site the register and the warning lists live, how to read a compensation scheme, and the first-withdrawal test protocol — deposit small, withdraw first, then decide.
Included in the $39 Deposit Safety Kit
Sources: the brokers' own legal and entity pages as published on the check date; the Reserve Bank of India Alert List; the UK Financial Conduct Authority Register and Warning List; the Australian Securities and Investments Commission registers; Bappebti (Indonesia) licensed and blocked lists; CVM (Brazil) declaratory acts; the FSCA (South Africa) FSP register; the Capital Markets Authority (Kenya) licensee list; the Securities and Exchange Commission (Philippines) advisory list; SECP/PMEX (Pakistan) membership; SEC Nigeria and Central Bank of Nigeria publications. Affiliate bounty figures from the programs' own published terms (Exness, XM, Plus500, eToro affiliate pages). If a fact has moved since our check date, the regulator's or broker's own publication wins — and write to help@doogex.com so we can correct ours.