The best deals, chosen by the community

Here, every deal goes through our moderation before it appears. But the “good deals” circulating elsewhere — messaging groups, social media, private messages — are a scammer’s favourite hunting ground. Before following a deal from somewhere else, check these warning signs.

A single one of these signs is enough to make you pause; several of them together and the answer is no — however polished the pitch in front of you.

• A “guaranteed” return, or fast gains with no risk

  An investment that is both highly profitable and risk-free does not exist. Any promise of a certain, “secured” or “guaranteed” gain beyond the French state-regulated savings passbooks (livrets réglementés) is the most reliable sign there is of a scam.

• Manufactured urgency

  “Last chance”, “reserved offer expiring tonight”, a countdown timer… A real investment can wait: urgency serves one purpose only — stopping you from thinking, from checking, and from talking about it to the people around you.

• A contact you never asked for

  An “adviser” who calls you, writes to you on social media or by messaging app without you having asked for anything. Regulated firms do not approach people that way — and a caring stranger who eventually brings the conversation round to an investment is not a stroke of luck, it is a script.

• A transfer to a private individual, or to an unrelated account

  You are asked to send the money to a private individual’s account, to a foreign IBAN with no connection to the platform, or to convert it into crypto first. A serious institution collects funds on its own accounts, in its own name.

• A platform missing from the official registers

  The company appears neither on REGAFI (the French register of authorised financial firms), nor on ORIAS (the French register of insurance and investment intermediaries), nor among the authorisations and registrations of the AMF (the French financial markets regulator) — or worse, it appears on a blacklist. Without an authorisation you can verify under the company’s EXACT name, you do not deposit a single euro.

• Impersonation (cloned website, fake adviser, deepfake)

  A fake site imitating a real bank, an “adviser” using the name of a well-known institution, a doctored video of a celebrity or of a TV news bulletin “recommending” an investment: scammers borrow other people’s credibility. Always check through the official channel that YOU find for yourself, never through the one you are handed.

• You are urged to borrow in order to invest

  Taking out a consumer loan to “seize the opportunity”, paying more in to “unlock your gains”… Never. If an investment requires you to go into debt, or to add money in order to get your own money back, walk away: that is the very mechanism of the fraud.