Forex Scams in the UK: How to Report Them to Report Fraud

If you have been caught by a forex scam in the UK, act in this order: contact your bank straight away (dial 159 to reach most UK banks' fraud teams), then report the crime to Report Fraud at reportfraud.police.uk or on 0300 123 2040, then tell the FCA on 0800 111 6768. Action Fraud no longer exists. It was replaced by Report Fraud, run by the City of London Police, in December 2025. If you live in Scotland, report to Police Scotland on 101 instead.

Speed matters more than anything else. Banks can sometimes freeze money that has not yet left the receiving account, and the clock on reimbursement claims starts with your last payment. Below are the main types of forex scam hitting UK consumers, exactly where to report, what refunds are and are not available, and the second wave of fraud that targets people who have already lost money.

The main forex scams in the UK

Forex scams change their packaging constantly, but a few patterns account for most of what the FCA and police see. The FCA published 2,329 warnings about unauthorised firms in 2025, up from 2,240 in 2024, and a large share involve trading and investment offers.

The FCA's own forex scams page makes a point worth repeating: most victims report that they initially received some returns. Early withdrawals of small amounts are often allowed to build trust before the larger deposits come in. A first successful withdrawal proves nothing about a firm.

Clone firms deserve extra attention in the UK because they hide behind real authorisations. The check is simple: find the firm on the FCA Register yourself, not via a link they send, and confirm that the website, phone number and email match. If the Register has no contact details, call the FCA. Our guide on how to check a broker on the FCA Register walks through it.

What to do in the first hour

1. Stop paying. Do not send any further money, whatever you are told about releasing withdrawals, taxes, insurance or verification fees.
2. Call your bank. Dial 159 from a phone you trust, or use the number on your card. Ask for the fraud team, explain it is an investment scam, and give the dates, amounts and recipient details of every payment.
3. Secure your accounts. If you installed remote-access software such as AnyDesk at the scammer's request, uninstall it, change your online banking and email passwords, and tell your bank.
4. Report the crime. Use Report Fraud (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) or Police Scotland on 101. Note your crime reference number.
5. Tell the FCA. Report the firm through the FCA's website or on 0800 111 6768 so it can publish a warning and protect others.
6. Keep everything. Screenshots of the platform, chat logs, emails, call records, bank statements and the website address, before the scammers delete them.

Where to report: Report Fraud, the FCA and the platforms

Report Fraud is the national reporting service for fraud and cyber crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, run by the City of London Police. It went live in December 2025 and had its full public launch in January 2026, taking over from Action Fraud. Old Action Fraud links now redirect to it. Many websites, including some that rank well for this topic, still tell you to call Action Fraud. The service now has a new name and website, reportfraud.police.uk, while the phone number, 0300 123 2040, stayed the same.

The FCA is not a police force and cannot recover money, but your report helps. It adds firms to the FCA Warning List, feeds its work against unauthorised promotions, and gives it evidence for prosecutions. Report scam adverts to the platform they appeared on as well, and forward suspicious texts to 7726, the free spam reporting number used by UK mobile networks.

Be realistic about what happens next. A police report creates a record and may help investigators link your case to others, but most victims do not get a personal investigation, especially when the fraudsters are overseas. The report still matters, because your bank may ask for the reference number when it assesses your claim.

Refunds: what the APP reimbursement rules cover

Since 7 October 2024, UK payment firms have had to reimburse most victims of authorised push payment (APP) fraud. That is where you were tricked into sending money yourself, by bank transfer, to an account controlled by a fraudster. The Payment Systems Regulator introduced the rules, and these are the main points:

If your bank turns you down, ask for a final response in writing. You then have six months to take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. It looks at whether the bank should have spotted warning signs or intervened, even in cases that fall outside the APP scheme. Our Ombudsman guide explains the process.

The FSCS will not help with a scam. It covers you when an authorised firm fails and money it held for you is missing, not when you sent funds to fraudsters. See our FSCS guide for what it does cover.

What not to do: recovery scams

Victims are often targeted a second time, and the second approach can be more convincing than the first. The FCA warns that fraudsters may contact you with an offer to get your money back or buy back your investment after you pay a fee. Callers pose as a "fund recovery company", a "solicitor", a "blockchain investigator", or someone from the FCA, the police or an international regulator. Some of them know exact details of your loss, because they are the same criminals or bought your data from them.

• Never pay an upfront fee to recover money. Genuine public bodies do not charge to return funds.
• Assume unsolicited contact is hostile. Legitimate help does not find you; you go to it.
• Do not install remote-access software for anyone offering to "trace" your funds.
• Check any solicitor on the Solicitors Regulation Authority register and call the firm on a number you have found independently.
• Be wary of "crypto tracing" reports sold for large fees that end with a demand for more money to release funds.

Proper legal advice from a genuine, regulated solicitor is a different thing, but be clear-eyed about the odds. A lawsuit against offshore fraudsters is slow and expensive, and in most cases the money is gone long before a court is involved. Your bank and the Ombudsman are usually the realistic routes.

How to protect yourself next time

Almost every scam above fails one of four simple checks. Run them before you send a penny, and treat any firm that complains about you checking as having told you everything you need to know.

1. Search the firm on the FCA Register and confirm its contact details match. Check the FCA Warning List too, but remember that absence from it is not proof of safety.
2. Ignore anything that arrived unsolicited: cold calls, DMs, WhatsApp groups you were added to, or a new online friend with a trading tip.
3. Treat guaranteed or steady high returns as a scam signal. Genuine UK CFD providers must publish the share of retail accounts that lose money, and at the larger firms it sits between roughly 61% and 74% at the time of writing (September 2026).
4. Never let anyone else control your trading account, your bank app or your computer.

Pay a broker only from a UK account in your own name to an account in the firm's own name, never to a private individual or a "partner" company. Our guide to funding a trading account from a UK bank covers the payment checks, and slow withdrawals at a genuine offshore broker are a different problem from fraud, as our look at IC Markets GBP deposits and withdrawals shows.

Our scam broker list and our guide to finfluencers and Telegram signal groups cover more warning signs.

Frequently asked

Related reading

• How to Check a Broker on the FCA Register
• Forex Finfluencers and Telegram Signal Groups
• Financial Ombudsman CFD Complaints
• IC Markets Clone Scams in the UK
• Funding a Trading Account From a UK Bank
• Scam brokers list