An expert advisor is only as good as the account it actually traded, and most sales pages show you something else — a backtest, a demo, or a curve with the bad months quietly removed. Auditing a vendor means answering one question before you pay: can I see real money traded by this EA, on an account I am able to check myself? If the answer is no, the price is beside the point.
Start with a live, verified account
Ask for a live track record you can view yourself — ideally with read-only investor access or a verified third-party link, not a screenshot. A screenshot proves nothing; anyone can edit one. A demo account proves the EA runs, not that it survives real spreads, slippage and swaps. If the only evidence is a backtest, you are looking at marketing.
Check the age and the trade count
A record that started three weeks ago tells you nothing, however good it looks. Look for several months of live trading and at least a few hundred trades. A strategy can get lucky over 20 trades; it is much harder to fake an edge over 300. Note when the account actually opened, not just the date range drawn on the chart.
Read the drawdown, not the return
The return is the number the vendor wants you to see. The drawdown is the one that ends accounts. Find the worst peak-to-trough fall and ask whether you could sit through it with your own money. An EA showing 300% a year on a 70% drawdown is not a 300% EA — it is a 70%-drawdown EA that happened to recover.
If a vendor will not show you the maximum drawdown, they are hiding the single number you most need. Treat a missing drawdown figure as a failed audit, not an oversight.
Look for the hidden martingale
Smooth, near-perfect equity curves with tiny drawdowns often hide a grid or martingale underneath — a system that adds to losers until the market turns, which works until the once-a-year move that empties the account. Check the lot sizes across a losing run. If they grow after every loss, the calm curve is borrowed against a large, rare loss you have not seen yet.
Search the vendor's history
Look up the product name and the seller. Old versions abandoned when results turned, a trail of renamed EAs, or reviews describing a blown account are worth more than any sales page. A vendor with nothing behind them is a risk in itself.
A worked example
A vendor sells an EA for £199 showing 480% over twelve months. The chart is a backtest at 99% modelling quality with no live link. On request they send a demo account. There is no drawdown figure, and the lot size doubles after every loss. Nothing here is a live, verified result you can check — so the honest conclusion is that you cannot value it, and you keep your £199.
The Karnek note
Karnek reads a live terminal directly, so a track record shown through it is the real one — the same trades the account took, not a screenshot. It is read-only and can never trade, which is exactly what you should want from any vendor's proof: something they can show you but can never edit.
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Written and reviewed by the Karnek Research team. Last updated August 2026.
Educational content only - not financial advice. Past performance does not predict future results. Trading carries significant risk.