Fake Profit Screenshots: Easier to Fake Than You’d Think

Screenshots feel like evidence. Felix Bick’s How Not to Get Scammed by AI Trading Apps explains, in Chapter 15, exactly why that instinct is misplaced — and why screenshots are among the easiest forms of “evidence” to fabricate in the entire fraud toolkit.

Bick notes that fabricating a convincing profit screenshot requires nothing more than editing a number in a browser’s developer tools, using a fake trading-screenshot generator — multiple such tools exist openly online for exactly this purpose — or simply photoshopping an image. None of this requires advanced technical skill, which is precisely why it’s so widespread.

One of the book’s more striking observations is that scammers frequently reuse the same fabricated or stolen screenshots across multiple unrelated marketing campaigns, sometimes with only the platform name changed. Bick notes that reverse image searching a suspicious profit screenshot occasionally reveals it circulating under several different scheme names entirely — a genuinely useful, low-effort verification technique any reader can apply themselves.

The chapter draws a useful contrast: real trading account statements from regulated brokerages include specific formatting, account numbers, regulatory disclosures, and trade-by-trade detail that a marketing screenshot rarely replicates. Bick’s guidance is direct — when a screenshot is the primary form of proof being offered for an investment claim, treat it as effectively no proof at all until it’s backed by an independently verifiable account statement.

This chapter pairs well with the book’s broader message about verification: proof that can’t be independently traced back to an accountable, regulated source isn’t really proof at all, no matter how convincing it looks on screen.

For anyone who has ever been swayed by an impressive-looking profit screenshot shared in a chat or social media post, this chapter of How Not to Get Scammed by AI Trading Apps offers a genuinely useful reset.