A managed account is one traded by someone other than its owner. In the retail market this takes two main forms. A PAMM account pools investors' money under one manager, who trades the pool and shares results in proportion. A MAM account keeps each investor's money separate but lets the manager trade all of them at once through a master terminal, with allocations set per account. In both, the manager decides everything and the investor watches.
The regulatory position
Managing other people's money in the UK is a regulated activity requiring FCA authorisation. An individual offering to trade your account for a fee without it is committing an offence, whatever platform they use. Most retail "account managers" found on social media are not authorised, and an investor who hands over a broker password or sends funds to a manager's account has no protection and usually no recourse.
Fees
Managers usually charge a performance fee, a share of profits, sometimes with a high-water mark so that fees are only charged on new highs. Some also charge a management fee on the balance. A performance fee on a strategy that holds losses open, the grid and martingale pattern, pays the manager on paper profits that later disappear.
The scam patterns
Guaranteed or fixed monthly returns. Requests for the broker's trading password rather than a read-only one. Requests to deposit with a specific offshore broker. Screenshots instead of verified records. Pressure to add funds after a good month. Withdrawals that are delayed, then conditional, then impossible. Each is familiar to anyone who has read the pages on verification, and together they describe most managed-account offers a retail trader will ever see.
An account manager offers 8 per cent a month, shows two months of screenshots, and asks for the MT5 master password. The investor deposits £5,000 with the recommended broker. Month one shows 9 per cent. Month two shows 11 per cent and a request to add £10,000 to "scale". Month three the account holds fourteen open losing positions and the manager has stopped replying. The broker is offshore and the manager was never authorised. There is nobody to complain to.
An EA you run yourself has a structure a managed account cannot match. The money stays at your regulated broker under your name. The trading password stays with you. The system's rules are described and its record is verifiable. You can switch it off. Nobody charges you a fee on profits that have not been realised, and nobody can leave with the account. Where a managed account asks you to trust a person, an EA asks you to inspect a record, and a record can be checked.