The Financial Conduct Authority first warned about a fake AvaTrade on 21 November 2013. It updated that same notice on 11 August 2025 — nearly twelve years later. One warning, still being amended, about an operation that never stopped.
A correction first
An earlier version of this page put scare quotes around the word “regulated” and treated AvaTrade itself as the problem. That was wrong, and we have rewritten it.
AVA Trade EU Limited is authorised, firm reference number 504072, registered at Dockline, IFSC Dublin. The FCA names it on the warning notice as the genuine firm being impersonated. Nothing here is a criticism of it.
Twelve years on one notice
Most clone warnings are published once and never touched again. The operator moves on, the domain lapses, the notice becomes history.
This one is different. Ava Capital Markets (clone of FCA authorised firm) was first published on 21 November 2013. Its “last updated” date reads 11 August 2025.
The FCA amends a notice when new details arrive — a new domain, a new mailbox, a new address supplied by someone who was contacted. A notice carrying an update stamp from last year is not a record of something that happened; it is a record of something still happening, reported by people twelve years after the first victim.
Two domains, one hyphen apart
The notice lists three websites: avatradecoins.com, avacm-ltd.com and avacmltd.com.
Read the last two again. They are identical except for a hyphen.
Then look at the mailboxes. Six of them, three on each domain: info@, accounts@ and admin@ at avacm-ltd.com, and info@, accounts@ and admin@ at avacmltd.com.
That is a deliberate structure. “Accounts” writes about your money, “admin” handles your paperwork, “info” answers your questions — three departments conjured out of one mailbox provider. And the whole set exists twice, so that when one domain is reported and taken down, the correspondence continues from an address that differs by a single character most people would never notice in a reply chain.
A business park and a Kowloon tower
Two addresses appear on the notice: Cambourne Business Park, Cambourne Road, Cambridge CB23 6DW, and International Commercial Centre, 11th Floor, 1 Austin Road West, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Both are real places. That is the point of choosing them. A Cambridge business park sounds like a serious British technology firm; a tower in Kowloon sounds like an international operation with an Asian desk. Neither address has to have anything to do with the people sending the emails, and neither can be tested by looking at it.
Compare that with the genuine firm’s entry on the register: one company name, one firm reference number, one address in Dublin, one telephone number. Regulated firms are boring on purpose, because every detail they publish is one they can be held to.
All three domains are dead
We checked on 11 September 2026. avatradecoins.com, avacm-ltd.com and avacmltd.com all return no DNS record — DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN, the answer for domains registered to nobody.
That is worth holding alongside the update date. The websites named on the notice are gone, and the notice was still being amended in August 2025. Names outlive their domains, which is exactly why a warning stays useful long after the site behind it disappears.
Verified evidence — checked 11 September 2026
- FCA clone warning “Ava Capital Markets”, first published 21 November 2013, last updated 11 August 2025.
- Genuine firm named on the notice: AVA Trade EU Limited, FRN 504072, Dockline, IFSC Dublin, Ireland. No connection with the clone.
- Clone websites: avatradecoins.com, avacm-ltd.com, avacmltd.com — the last two identical but for a hyphen.
- Clone emails, six in total: info@, accounts@ and admin@ at both avacm-ltd.com and avacmltd.com.
- Clone addresses: Cambourne Business Park, Cambourne Road, Cambridge CB23 6DW; and International Commercial Centre, 11th Floor, 1 Austin Road West, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
- All three clone domains return no DNS record on 11 September 2026.
- Clone firms are not authorised: no Financial Ombudsman Service access, no FSCS protection.
Our verdict
Twelve years is the number to remember here. Not because the same people have necessarily been at it since 2013, but because the name has been worth reusing for that long — and because reports kept arriving recently enough for the regulator to keep editing the file.
So treat an old warning as current until you have checked otherwise. A notice dated 2013 is not stale if its update stamp says 2025; read both dates, every time.
And check the entity, not the brand. AvaTrade’s authorised entity is AVA Trade EU Limited, FRN 504072. “Ava Capital Markets” is not it, and neither is anything at avacm-ltd.com or avacmltd.com. The same duplicate-domain trick appears in six fake Admiral Markets, and a near-identical mailbox structure in the Coinbase clone that built itself an Irish identity.
If you sent money to any of these addresses, tell your bank today and report it to Action Fraud.
Sources: FCA clone warning notice “Ava Capital Markets (clone of FCA authorised firm)”, first published 21 November 2013 and last updated 11 August 2025, read directly at fca.org.uk on 11 September 2026, including the genuine-firm details it records for AVA Trade EU Limited (FRN 504072); DNS lookups for avatradecoins.com, avacm-ltd.com and avacmltd.com, 11 September 2026.
