In the world of forex, some phrases just set off alarm bells. You know the ones that go… “I never lose,” “I found a guaranteed strategy,” or “My signal provider has a 99% win rate.”
Whether it’s overconfidence, unrealistic expectations, or blind trust in strangers on Telegram, these red flags often say more than a full trading journal ever could.
As traders, we learn to spot these danger signs not just in the markets, but in the way people talk about trading too.
Anything that looks to me like it’s trying - between the lines - to say “My advice is worth listening to”, and has a link to anything commercial or incentivized, is a really big red flag for me.
Long experience has taught me that it’s enormously easier for “advisors” and people who want customers and people who want online traffic and many others pretending to be “experts” to make money from struggling traders than it is for them to make money by trading themselves, which almost all of them have previously tried and failed to do.
Truly successful traders aren’t marketers.
If people look like marketers, there’s a 99% chance that they’re marketers. Not successful traders. Not without real, objective, verifiable proof, anyway. And you’ll almost never get that.
It’s right to be very skeptical.
On any websites related to anything financial, generally (not just forex) my big red flags are lack of owners’ names, lack of a real street address and lack of a customer service phone number.
My biggest red flag is reviews that look fake.
It may be subjective but it’s often surprising what you can discover just by putting whole sentences from them into a search engine.
That and checking the domain registration and details with a “whois” search. Is it ‘anonymous’? Why?
Good question!
My biggest red flag, that gives me a kind of instinctive, almost visceral reaction to forex-related stuff online is weather forecasts of a bright, cloudless sky income claims. Many countries’ advertising laws have forbidden them, in many contexts, but online they’re all over the place, in countless trading-related areas, and they’re never a good sign.
Poor spelling and bad grammar also put me off, and make me wonder whether (like the “Nigerian prince email scams”) they’re deliberately trying to attract specifically people who aren’t educated enough to notice or care, or maybe even whether they just didn’t notice or care, themselves, which would also be offputting but in a different way. If they can’t run a simple spellcheck on their own website before putting it on the web, then I don’t want to do business with them. Period.
Mine will surprise nobody who’s been here for long and read many threads: it’s offshore, high-leverage “brokers” (i.e. counterparty market-makers) claiming to be “regulated” when in fact they’re just paying a subscription-fee to a fake regulator, to fool potential customers.
I think it’s absolutely fraudulent and “ought” (somehow?!) to be illegal. 
People saying stuff like “it will work for you, too” ring alarm bells for me. Those with the skills to trade for a living don’t need to persuade anyone of anything, and they also know that whatever they’re doing may well not work for everyone else. So this is always a red flag for me.
I can do without people who appear anxious to refer me to a Youtube channel (their own or “someone else’s”).
There are thousands of forex marketers all over Youtube.
People need to ask themselves why so many people with reliable enough skills to trade for a living are spending so many thousands of hours filming videos to post on Youtube. The solution to that fiendish mystery isn’t actually lost in the mists of obscurity to those few who are willing to ask themselves the question.
Very good responses, above. 
If any kind of forex related or crypto related website gives a physical address and you send an email (maybe to “support” or “admin” or “sales”) and the IP number of the remail reply you get doesn’t match the address on the website, you might wonder why.
That’s a red flag, for me.
I would probably stay away from a business that doesn’t give a physical address at all, too. Might depend on “what for”, though.
There are a couple of very horrible, dishonest forex brokers who are Russian but pretend not to be, on their websites. But the responses from “support”, when you complain about something or have a big problem (which of course you do!) arrive very slowly and from Russian IP numbers.
Some great replies, above.
A big red flag, for me, which I’ve seen a few times is “I’ll disclose the whole system to you, free of charge, with a PDF and backtested results, in exchange for you opening an account at XYZ broker under my affiiate link”.
Needless to say it’s always a high-leverage offshore broker without proper regulation which you wouldn’t normally touch with a bargepole and shouldn’t this time, either - it can’t get customers any other way! 
When I hear “Click the link on my bio to join my signal group I post signal everyday, Subscribe to my YouTube channel to support me,
”
When they say “I will pass your prop firm test for you, for $300,” it’s not great.
I’m thinking, if they can do this easily, then why they don’t do it for themselves and get the funded account and use it and earn a lot more than the $300 they ask me to pay.
Why do they need my $300 if they trade so well?
It does not really smell good?
So it’s my red flag, and greetings from a new member here, I am Osip.
Hi Osip, welcome to Babypips. Thanks for a very good first post: you’re absolutely right!
Same! Whenever I see “click the link”, I click the “x” 
One big red flag in forex for me is when people promise easy profits without emphasizing the importance of learning and understanding the market.
It’s tempting to follow advice without question, but blindly trusting others’ trades without knowing the reasons behind them is very risky.
Without understanding why a trade is made, it becomes difficult to manage losing trades, and losses can quickly add up.
Building a solid foundation of knowledge and skills, even if it takes time, is essential to becoming a confident and successful trader instead of relying solely on others.
A red flag for me is when someone says, “I don’t need risk management, I just know where the market’s going.”
That’s not confidence, that’s a shortcut to blowing the account. Markets don’t care how sure you are.
Alarm switched ON! 