Sixteen flagged firms are still open for business today. Defunct ones are left out on purpose — you can’t sign up with a company that no longer exists, and padding a list with dead names makes it look longer than it is useful. Two of these were paying us affiliate commission until we removed them, and one entry we got wrong and have corrected.

A list of firms to avoid is only worth reading if the author loses money by publishing it.

Withheld payouts

The most serious category: traders earned money under the firm’s own rules and were not paid.

Alpha Futures flagged July 2026

On 12 July 2026 Alpha closed its Premium plan and converted pending, already-earned payouts into refunds of the account fee — traders who had qualified received their evaluation cost back instead of the money they had made. The same week NinjaTrader terminated Alpha’s contract after Alpha launched a competing platform, forcing a migration. Premium was the second plan retired in roughly ten weeks. Prop Firm Match, PropFirmWise and PickAPropFirm all delisted the firm within days. It had paid more than $25 million on that plan in the preceding two months — a firm generous enough to be unsustainable is a warning, not a recommendation. Trustpilot still reads 4.4.

My Crypto Funding flagged late 2025

Multiple traders have publicly reported payouts marked approved and then never paid, with claimed balances running from roughly $1,400 to over $8,900. Separately, Trustpilot’s moderation removed fake positive reviews from the firm’s profile. Approved-but-unpaid complaints combined with documented review manipulation is the governance pattern that preceded several crypto prop collapses.

Fidelcrest flagged 2025

Flagged for retroactively changing rules and withholding payouts without giving traders any route to dispute or appeal. Retroactive rule changes are the mechanism worth watching here: a firm that can rewrite the terms after you’ve traded has no fixed obligation at all.

The Funded Trader flagged March 2024

Paused all operations in March 2024 after a wave of payout-denial complaints, freezing roughly $2 million in withdrawals while publicly dismissing the criticism. It has since relaunched, but as of 2026 was still clearing the backlog, reporting only partial completion of payouts owed with hundreds of traders still waiting. A relaunch does not clear an outstanding debt.

Why the dead firms aren’t here

Eight more firms sit on our flagged list as collapsed, ceased or wound down — True Forex Funds, SurgeTrader, FundingTicks, Seacrest Funding and others. They’re excluded here because this list is meant to be actionable, and you cannot be harmed by a firm that no longer takes payments.

One residual risk is worth knowing about: defunct brands get resold. A name you half-remember from a video two years ago is exactly what a reseller offering “accounts” is counting on. If a firm isn’t currently trading, nobody can legitimately sell you an evaluation for it. The full historical list, including the dead firms, is on our live flagged page.

Brand impersonation

FundedFirm flagged February 2026

Exposed in February 2026 for publishing roughly $85 million in fabricated trader-payout figures on a website built as a near pixel-for-pixel clone of FundedNext, with no verifiable legal registration. This is an impersonation operation and is not affiliated with the legitimate FundedNext.

Velotrade flagged early 2026

The velotrade.com crypto prop division launched in early 2026 with no verified prop payout history, while its marketing leans on a “founded 2016” date and a multi-billion-dollar payout figure belonging to an unrelated Hong Kong invoice-factoring business with a similar name. Borrowing a legacy entity’s statistics to imply stability is a governance red flag on its own.

These two are the cheapest to spot and the easiest to fall for. A fabricated payout counter costs nothing to build and is the most persuasive element on a prop firm homepage. If a payout figure isn’t independently verifiable, treat it as marketing copy — and that applies to the firms we recommend as well.

Cannot verify

Not an accusation. These are firms where we don’t have enough to form a view, and we’d rather say so than pad a recommendation.

Funding Pips flagged January 2026

Shares ownership with FundingTicks, which retroactively changed its rules in December 2025 and shut down the following month with only partial refunds. Funding Pips itself still operates with strong Trustpilot metrics — but a sister firm collapsing with unpaid balances is a governance question, not a performance one. Verify the corporate structure independently before funding.

Goat Funded Trader flagged January 2026

Trustpilot suspended the firm’s rating across 2025–2026 for suspected review manipulation. That isn’t evidence of payout misconduct and the firm continues to operate, but when the independent review data can’t be trusted, the firm can’t be assessed to the same standard as the others. A candidate for re-inclusion if the rating is reinstated.

DNA Funded flagged September 2026

Only 86 Trustpilot reviews at 3.3 — too thin a record to judge in either direction. This was an affiliate partner until September 2026; we removed the link because 86 reviews is not a track record, not because of anything the firm did.

AquaFutures flagged 2025

Launched in late 2024 and currently around 3.1 on Trustpilot, below our floor, with multiple reviews citing payout delays and rule-enforcement complaints. May warrant a fresh look if the rating stabilizes as the trader base grows.

Use caution

Firms that still operate and still pay most traders, but that fall below our bar or show a pattern worth knowing about. Our rule is a Trustpilot floor of 3.2 for firms with over 5,000 reviews and 3.8 below that.

Blue Guardian Futures demoted June 2026

A recurring “shared device” policy used to confiscate profits and ban accounts, including cases where traders documented a multi-month gap on pre-owned hardware. Still operating, but the payout-denial pattern is enough to remove the affiliate link.

FunderPro demoted June 2026

A recurring pattern of payout denials at the second payout, with profitable accounts flagged for “shared IP / shared environment” on near-identical template emails. Trustpilot has slid toward 3.0. Many traders are paid; the pattern at a specific payout number is what concerns us.

BrightFunded demoted September 2026

3.4 across 570 reviews, below our 3.8 floor. No payout dispute and no collapse — the score simply fell short of the bar. This was an affiliate partner. We removed the link and its published deal rather than keep recommending a firm our own rule excludes, and will relist if the rating recovers and holds.

Lux Trading Firm demoted September 2026

3.7 across 640 reviews — a miss of a tenth of a point, which is inside the noise of a single batch of reviews. We demoted it anyway, because a floor you bend for near-misses isn’t a floor.

Phidias demoted September 2026

3.3 across 326 reviews, down from the level at which we first listed it. Reviews are sharply polarized rather than uniformly poor, and the recurring themes are payout caps in early cycles, slower processing than advertised, and a discretionary route to live capital. Gibraltar-registered, still operating and still paying traders.

The entry we got wrong

Until September 2026 we listed MyForexFunds under withheld payouts. That was incorrect, and the correction matters more than the original listing.

MFF was shut down in August 2023 by an ex parte CFTC asset freeze, and trader payouts were frozen for roughly two years — that part is true. But in May 2025 a US federal court dismissed the case with prejudice and sanctioned the CFTC around $3.1 million, after a Special Master found the agency had made false statements in sworn declarations. The transfer the CFTC cited as evidence of assets being dissipated was a legitimate tax payment to the Canada Revenue Agency, and the agency held documentation confirming that before it filed. Canadian assets were ordered returned in December 2025, and the firm began contacting traders about outstanding 2023 payouts in April 2026.

So the payouts were frozen by a regulator that a court later sanctioned, not withheld by the firm. Filing that under “withheld payouts” put an accusation on a firm that a court had cleared of the basis for it.

Why it’s still on the list

Reclassified to caution rather than removed, for three reasons. The dismissal was procedural — the underlying allegations were never tried on the merits, so it isn’t an exoneration of the business model. A relaunching firm has no current track record by definition. And the name is routinely confused with MyFundedFutures, a completely separate and currently operating firm with the best satisfaction score among major futures firms. Those two get mixed up constantly and the confusion runs in the expensive direction.

Three we can’t confirm either way

Fidelcrest, FundedFirm and MyForexFunds have no live website recorded against them, so we can’t confirm they’re currently trading. They’re listed because a firm with no site today can have one next month, and because two of the three are exactly the kind of name that reappears under new branding. Treat their operating status as unknown rather than as either confirmed or dead.

How to check a firm yourself

Trustpilot lags badly. Alpha Futures sits at 4.4 months after converting earned payouts into fee refunds. A score tells you about the last year, not this week.
Payout counters are unaudited. FundedFirm published roughly $85 million in fabricated figures. Every firm’s counter is self-reported, including the ones we recommend.
Watch for plan retirements. Alpha retired two plans in about ten weeks before the payout conversion. Repeated restructuring of the product is the pattern that precedes trouble.
Check platform dependency. True Forex Funds died from a MetaQuotes decision, and Alpha’s trouble began when NinjaTrader terminated its contract. A firm without control of its platform has a single point of failure.
Read who’s telling you. Every review of every firm in this sector carries an affiliate code, and we found three material errors repeated across every review of one firm, including its profit split. Check whether a site has ever demoted a firm that pays it.
Assume nothing is permanent. The sector removed a large number of firms in 2024 alone, and nine went onto this list in 2026. Treat a funded account as an asset with a finite life.

The honest limits

This list is a snapshot. It’s current as of 9 September 2026 and will be wrong at some point after that. Firms recover, firms fail, and our own flagged page is updated more often than this article will be.

“Cannot verify” is not an accusation. Four firms sit there because we lack evidence, not because we have negative evidence. They may be perfectly good.

One firm is under review and omitted. Our records carry a caution flag on a sixteenth firm with no recorded reason and no date, while its public rating sits comfortably above our floor. Rather than repeat a flag we can’t justify, we’ve left it out pending a decision. That’s a gap in our record-keeping, not a finding about the firm.

We benefit from firms we don’t flag. That’s the structural conflict in every list like this, including ours. The only meaningful test is whether the author has removed paying partners — we removed two in September 2026, and you can check the dates.

The short version

Sixteen flagged firms are still open for business as of September 2026; eight more have collapsed or ceased trading and are excluded here, because a firm that takes no payments can’t take yours. The most serious category is withheld payouts, led by Alpha Futures, which in July 2026 converted already-earned payouts into refunds of the evaluation fee and was delisted across the sector within days — while its Trustpilot score still reads 4.4. Two firms were flagged for fabricated payout figures and brand-borrowing, four cannot be verified in either direction, and seven sit in caution, including two demoted in September for falling below our rating floor. One of those was paying us affiliate commission. And one entry has been corrected: MyForexFunds was listed under withheld payouts, but a court dismissed the CFTC’s case with prejudice in May 2025 and sanctioned the agency around $3.1 million, so the freeze was regulator-imposed rather than firm-imposed. It stays listed as caution because the dismissal was procedural and the relaunched firm has no current record.

Frequently asked questions

Which prop firms should I avoid in 2026?

Among firms still operating, the highest-risk category is those that failed to pay earned payouts: Alpha Futures, which converted pending payouts into fee refunds in July 2026, plus My Crypto Funding, Fidelcrest and The Funded Trader. FundedFirm and Velotrade were flagged for fabricated payout figures and brand-borrowing. Four more can’t be verified in either direction, and seven sit in caution for falling below our Trustpilot floor. Eight additional firms are on our historical list but have collapsed or ceased trading.

What happened to Alpha Futures?

On 12 July 2026 Alpha closed its Premium plan and converted pending, already-earned payouts into refunds of the account fee — traders who had qualified received their evaluation cost back rather than the money they had made. The same week NinjaTrader terminated Alpha’s contract after Alpha launched a competing platform, forcing a migration. Prop Firm Match, PropFirmWise and PickAPropFirm all delisted the firm within days. Its Trustpilot score remains 4.4, which illustrates how far public ratings lag events.

Is MyForexFunds safe now?

The legal position is far better than it was. A US federal court dismissed the CFTC’s case with prejudice in May 2025 and sanctioned the agency around $3.1 million after finding false statements in sworn declarations — the transfer cited as evidence of asset dissipation was a legitimate tax payment the CFTC had documentation for before filing. Canadian assets were ordered returned in December 2025 and the firm began contacting traders about 2023 payouts in April 2026. Two caveats: the dismissal was procedural rather than a ruling on the merits, and the relaunched firm has no current track record.

Can I trust Trustpilot scores for prop firms?

Only as a lagging indicator. Alpha Futures still shows 4.4 across 5,864 reviews months after converting earned payouts into fee refunds and being delisted across the sector. Scores reflect the last year of experience rather than the current week, and breached traders review at different rates from satisfied ones. Use the score to rule firms out, never to rule them in.

How do you decide which firms to flag?

Withheld payouts, collapse, impersonation or ceasing operations are automatic. Beyond that we apply a Trustpilot floor — 3.2 for firms with over 5,000 reviews, 3.8 below that — and demote firms that fall under it regardless of whether they pay us. In September 2026 that removed BrightFunded, an affiliate partner, along with DNA Funded and Lux Trading. Firms we can’t assess go in a separate “cannot verify” category rather than being accused of anything.

Current as of 9 September 2026. Flags reflect our own editorial judgment applied to publicly reported events and Trustpilot data refreshed on 6 September 2026; firms change, and the live flagged page is updated more often than this article. Nothing here is financial or legal advice. Futures trading carries substantial risk of loss.

Tagged:due diligence flagged firms payouts Prop Firms scams