Trading 212 shows a sample "Your earnings" widget from share lending, under a risk warning

The psychology

Why it nudges

A concrete, easy-to-picture earnings example makes the outcome feel likely (availability). Zero commission is a strong price hook, and the review count adds social proof. The required risk warning is not counted as a nudge. Whether these lift sign-ups for Trading 212 is not public.

Company claim: The Trustpilot TrustScore and review count are the company's own claims, as shown on its page. We haven't verified them.

● Strong evidence (provisional) · More on availability heuristic, with sources →

Context

A UK investment app. The earnings panel is illustrative; the page does not say whose figures they are.

Honest nudge or dark pattern?

Grey area

Grey area: an unlabelled sample earnings panel can read as typical results. The risk warning is prominent.

Sources: Captured by Nudgeswipe, 16 Oct 2026 (logged out)

Steal this, honestly

Label example figures as examples.
Keep the risk warning above the fold, as here.

What to test: Sample widget vs plain explanation. Measure sign-ups and understanding of share lending.

Next: run it on your product

Take the steps above into your own flow. The prompt carries this teardown, the honest-vs-dark line and the steps.

You are helping me apply a behavioural-design pattern ethically.

Pattern: Trading 212: Trading 212 shows a sample "Your earnings" widget from share lending, under a risk warning
Bias: Availability heuristic: We judge how likely or common something is by how easily examples come to mind.
Why it nudges: A concrete, easy-to-picture earnings example makes the outcome feel likely (availability). Zero commission is a strong price hook, and the review count adds social proof. The required risk warning is not counted as a nudge. Whether these lift sign-ups for Trading 212 is not public.
Our verdict: Grey area. Grey area: an unlabelled sample earnings panel can read as typical results. The risk warning is prominent.
Source page: https://nudgeswipe.com/examples/trading-212-sample-earnings-widget/ (JSON: https://nudgeswipe.com/api/teardowns/trading-212-sample-earnings-widget.json)

Rules: say a brand "uses" a tactic, never that it "worked"; outcomes are not public unless the company published them; no invented uplift estimates; flag mixed evidence. Honest nudge = true, visible, easy to reverse, and in the user's interest. Dark pattern = hides costs, fakes scarcity or popularity, shames, or makes leaving harder than joining. Quote company-published results as "X reports", with the source link, and don’t generalise them. Don’t cite retracted or failed-to-replicate studies as support (e.g. Ariely & Wertenbroch 2002). Don’t state study figures unless they’re on this page or in a source you can link. If an idea crosses the line, link the matching deceptive.design pattern.

Tasks:
1. Ask me for my product, the flow (URL or screenshots) and the goal.
2. Audit where this pattern already appears, or could, in that flow.
3. Propose 2-3 ethical experiments: hypothesis, variant copy or UI, primary metric, and a guardrail metric (refunds, complaints, cancellations).
4. Flag every dark-pattern risk and say how to stay on the honest side.

Open in ChatGPT Open in Claude Open in Grok Open in Cursor

ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Cursor open with the prompt filled in (it is also copied, in case the prefill doesn't load). Gemini and Codex don't support prefilled links, so the prompt is copied and the app opens; paste it in.

Sources

Our capture of trading212.com, 16 Oct 2026
Tversky & Kahneman (1973), Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9
Captured by Nudgeswipe, 16 Oct 2026 (logged out): trading212.com

Trading 212 shows a sample "Your earnings" widget from share lending, under a risk warning

Why it nudges

Grey area

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