Short answer: ask for every signal the provider has ever published, with the time it was posted, the levels, the outcome and how that outcome was checked — and walk away if you only get screenshots of winners.
Regulators keep warning about the same pattern. The CFTC's forex fraud advisory reminds readers that the forex market is volatile, carries substantial risk and is no place for money you cannot afford to lose. ESMA's investor pages list pressure to act quickly and unrealistic promises among the typical signs of a scam. A real track record is the opposite of both: slow, complete and boring to read.
Below are six checks you can run on any signal provider, including us.
1. Was each signal timestamped before the outcome?
A signal published after the move is not a signal. Look for a record where each entry has a posting time, and where the levels (entry, stop-loss, take-profit) cannot be changed later. A daily cryptographic fingerprint of the record — a hash — makes silent edits visible: if any past entry changes, every later hash changes too.
2. Are losing trades in the record?
Every strategy has losing trades and losing months. If a provider's record shows almost no losses, either the record is incomplete or the sample is too small to mean anything. Count the losses. Then look for the worst run of losses in a row and the largest drawdown.
3. Are results in a unit you can compare?
"+3,000 pips" says very little. A pip on gold, on the DAX and on EUR/USD is a different amount of money and a different amount of risk. Ask for results in R — the result divided by the risk taken. A trade that risked 50 pips and made 100 pips is +2 R, whatever the instrument.
4. How was each outcome checked?
There is a difference between "the trader says it hit take-profit" and "1-minute market data shows the price touched take-profit before stop-loss". Both can be legitimate, but they should be labelled differently. Be careful with results on index CFDs: prices differ between brokers, and there may be no neutral reference feed.
5. Is there a corrections log?
Mistakes happen: a wrong close time, a disputed fill. What matters is whether corrections are visible. A provider that never corrects anything is either perfect or hiding changes.
6. Can you download the data?
If you can download the full record as CSV or JSON, you can check the statistics yourself, compare outcomes with any price source and spot gaps. If the only evidence is a picture, you cannot.
Where to check the provider itself
Before paying anyone, search your national regulator's warning list. In Poland that is the KNF list of public warnings; ESMA links to the national authorities of every EU country. A provider that is not on a warning list is not automatically safe, but one that is on it should end the conversation.
What we do at WICKVIPER
We built WickViper to pass all six checks: every VIP signal goes into a public ledger when it is posted, losses included; results are in R and pips; gold and forex outcomes are checked against reference market data while index CFD results are confirmed by the trader and labelled; there is a daily hash, a corrections log and full CSV and JSON downloads. Once the first signals close, a data block taken straight from that ledger appears under each article. Judge it with the same checks.
Questions
Is a screenshot of a trading account proof?
No. A screenshot shows one moment and can be selected, cropped or edited. A track record needs every signal, with the time it was published, in a format you can download and check.
What does publicly auditable mean?
That anyone can download the data and check it against market prices and the published method. It is not the same as an independent audit by a third party.
How many signals are enough to judge a provider?
There is no magic number, but a few dozen closed signals over several months is a minimum before results say much. Fewer than that is mostly noise.
Sources
- Fraud Advisory: Foreign Currency (Forex) Fraud — U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)
- Investor Corner — European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA)
- Public warnings — Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF)
Terms used here
- Drawdown — The fall of an equity curve from its previous peak. Maximum drawdown is the largest such fall over a period, measured in our ledger in R.
- Pip — The conventional smallest price step of an instrument. Its size differs: 0.0001 for EUR/USD, 0.1 USD for gold and 1 point for index CFDs in our ledger.
- Stop-loss — An order that closes a position at a set price to limit the loss. The distance from entry to the stop-loss defines 1 R.
- Take-profit — An order that closes a position at a set profit level. It fixes the target before the trade, for example at 2 R.