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Damn that is big news, thanks for sharing about it. But it is make me speechless, the disclosure able to share some proof tho.
Above articel has opened our eyes / those investor to do some reseach before do investing. Give a fake information for something that are purpose of crime.

Everything i've read about icobench the last few days was not good.
That's why i do not trust the page anymore. They all just want our money.

I still trust ICOBench, I have heard a lot of bad news about this site. But they really choose the best ICOs. Never have any problem when I invested into ICO with good rating on ICOBench.

Yeah those big ICO rating websites are making serious cash, shouldn't be trusted.

I do not trust cryptorating sites at all. I think everything is bought and sold there. I believe that basically all these evaluations of projects are lies.

You really think that they are the exception and that all of the ico rating sites dont ask for money and in return they will hive high status for that ico?Its called shilling and its part of the marketing,a lot of popular crypto youtubers are also payed for shilling icos

In my opinion almost all such rating sites are involved in suck commercial activities as paid overviews. They allowed to do this because they dont give the exact assessment of project but their rating based on their opinion. And sadly, money influences their opinion :-\

I never trust this ico rating these are the modern or the replacement of the hyip monitor, which accept payment, so they can get a good status on their site, it's still better to do your own research, it's your money if the coin that they rate high go scam they are not going to refund your money anyway.

Wow, I heard something previously, but i didn't know exact amount you should pay for expert status and now i definitely lost trust to ICOBench. If you don't want to lose your money, don't consider their ratings at the moment of investment decision!

I've heard a lot of bad things about ICO bench and I'm disappointed about that, cause earlier I believed this site and relied on its estimates. Now rating on ICO bench could be bought so I advise nobody believe them.

In icobench its becoming all about money, you can see many crap ico have paid reviews better to join some free telegram group for ico news

It become very hard to trust the ico rating websites of today, because of this news. It is unbelievable that a 5 star rating cost 500 dollar on a website. With this news people will more use other indicators to know or a ICO is worth to invest or not instead of ICO rating websites.

There's always the risk of any platform providing biased or totally one sided reviews especially if it is just run and moderated by people. That said, I am anticipating the launch of Menlo One, a decentralized ICO marketplace that aims to solve all these issues we encounter with ICOs and ICO websites.  It's basically like ICO bench, but offers features such as being able to invest in ICOs with just a few clicks, management of your token portfolio, incentivized community discussions rewarding top contributors who help sniff out scams (with validation) or those who place the spot light on projects with great potential.

This is an interview video of Korean Jew with Menlo one's CEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw1QBpBYE6o&feature=youtu.be I highly suggest checking it out.

Eh, not surprised. I have thought that this must be the business model for every ICO rating site. Never trust these sites 100%, assume that their rating is not independent, and do the review of the ICO yourself. Isn't that the whole idea behind crypto? Don't trust, verify!

But I gotta say that these sites are still useful to look up for a potential project. Just don't trust their rating, do the research yourself.

This portends a damming danger to those of us that always check for reviews and ratings of latest ICOs for investment using icobench, I always check out for reviews via icobench but with this report I am really disappointed with them.

what is icobench? icobench is platform rating ICO free and communities blockchain supported by a variety of experts gives insight into the analytical, legal, and technical to investors.
ranking is the language result of an analytical assessment carried out by benchy BOT and experts. this is not an investment advice and is intended to be used only for your information purposes. ratings are based on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 to 5 - where 1 is the lowest and 5 is the highest. the icobench rating system differs from other ICO ranking platforms, since: calculated using a combination of ICO objective profile analysis and subjective expert ratings; dynamic and updated at least once

Luckily there are many new ICO listing sites coming up where experts can rate ICOs. Perhaps they will be more transparent.

So those only who paid high will get 5 star rating? this is bad, I never trust these kind of rating ICO website, the rating are already fixed by paying better to research ICO by yourself than looking high rating ICO with no guarantee if it is legit.

For me ICO bench can be paid by a higher team of an ICO project to make attractive to invest in their project.But then again at the end they scammed with us that's why I'm not totally trust ICO bench rating.

I cannot agree less that they are simply there for the money, but who wouldn't? Moreover, why should anyone even trust any page or ICO rating website before they can make any decision rather than relying totally on their own due diligence. This whole judgmental statements to me is kind of uncalled for and even though I am not disputing the fact that the fee for most of their services is huge, but some are paying for it and those who simply could not, should find what they can afford. It is unfortunate those who are making use of them are happy being exploited, but our complaint would actually not travel that far.

Nevertheless, in my honest opinion, paying for an expert status is a way too far and for that amount is even way too much! What makes it impossible then for a scammer to spend as little as few bitcoins to get expert status for different account so as to deceive investors. I still wonder why people pay so much attention to these guys as everything here is simply bought.

I am not sure how that should be related to being trusted. The fact that they are making a lot of cash or the fact that they are not screening what they are putting on the website? You guys should leave ICObench alone, and I do not know why we keep criticizing them when some are paying for their services. If no one is paying for it, I can bet it would not take them long to reduce their fee but it is what it is and trying to take pain killer for someone else's headache is simply not my thing.

Anyone who makes investment decisions based on the ICO rating sites deserves to lose their money. They do not do any analysis and from this article it is obvious that the expertise of their "experts" is negligable. It only really shows the ability to make a BitCoin Transfer. I imagine that these so called experts also rent out their services to potential ICO's offering them a high ICO rating in return for cash or tokens.

data analysis for ico bench and ico rating any ico analysis need lot of in-depth research on data and many combinations before rating so they will charge nice chunk of payments in the coming days

not all ico with high rating will be successful or provide no scam warranty. rating sites are not a good reason to be an indicator or recommendation of an ico option. stay on the analysis or research we do and expand the discussion with all communities or investors.

So who can you trust? Can you trust the team? Now it seems that you can´t trust anyone - it is true in real life, but there should be the possibility to inspire...

They are not satisfied by the money they get to sponsor the ICOs and write a positive review of them, now they also want users to pay to get their correct opinion. No thanks, I'll make opinion of my own.

Well I am not so surprised because most times you will see a project which is not so good but it will have a high review for ico bench, Like I have always said, I believe ico drops more than any other ico sites.

It sure looks like that.

Wow. This is a bomb. I have been relying on ico rating websites when choosing ICOs to join and icobench was one of my best picks. I believed at its rating because I thought it was true, or so I thought. This would be the second article that brought realizations to me and this greatly influenced my perspectives toward ico rating websites in general because who knows if other websites also has this kind of anomaly that isn't exposed just yet.

Well I think everyone here knows icobench or any ico review sites are corrupted. There's a post lately of how much would it cost an ICO in receiving a 5 star review from ICObench. I think this needs to be fixed because most of the ICO's right now are scams. Anyways, @OP try cooperating with menlo.one they'll be launching a guild-system review platform where this kind of foolishness doesn't exist.

This is the second negative topic about ICOBench. The first one was about lowing rating for ICOs which didn't buy premium packages... For me it was one of the best places to look for great ICOs, but it's probably good time to look for another one.

I think this was the 3rd issue about it. The 2nd one was buying for a good review on their site. Well i suggest to research about menlo.one you'll find their concept very interesting and on-point to what is happening right now.

So someone has mentioned this already, and full disclosure, I'm actually part of the team - so here comes a mini-pitch.

Check out Menlo One (https://menlo.one) We're working super hard to eliminate the dodginess, pay to play and outright fraud in the industry with our ICO marketplace - I'd recommend checking out the bluepaper, which talks in depth about how we'll use various features to combat this (crap).

Sorry about the shameless plug here guys, we're all pretty passionate about creating a trustless environment where anyone can rate ICO's as a single person or as part of a group (Guild), and your reputation is earned over time, based on the community's reception and accuracy of your calls.

We'd love it if you took a look at our stuff, and we'd love it more if you signed up to create your own guild once we launch! :D

I'm not surprised about that. This has been discussed in so many groups never try to believe with ico bench or any other ico list site right now. They are only getting paid to be listed or give any review to the any ico that has already paid their service. It can't be trusted. it can be considered as a scam too.

So it's true. ICO bench is one the best benchmark for ICO even me i always go there whenever i search for the top ICO's but this article got me. I don't know if trust this ICO bench anymore. 2btc for an expert status that's quite high.

Never rely on some ICO rating sites only. Before investing in any ICP or altcoin always learn about the project, idea, team, product and only if you really see that this ICO can change our life to better, then invest in it)

Are you talking about this one?

https://medium.com/alethena/this-is-how-easy-it-is-to-buy-ico-ratings-an-investigation-13d07e987394

Yes that's quite an interesting article. Impressive that they went through all that trouble and even paid for those fake ratings just to expose them later. Thumb up to those guys!

Not great news.. I still believe icobench is very useful resource but asking money for publishing an expert - not a good sign.

I like this ons, they never ask money for just posting ICO/agency/expert or other information: https://forico.io

It is the service they create that makes them charge what they do and that is simply because they place a lot of value on what they have to offer. A lot of people keep complaining about this platform but I do not know why they have not started theirs to try to make things better.

It could be a huge price, and for sure, it is a whole lot, but they are still assisting those who may want to filter out their research on projects to invest in and if developers feel it is enough to pay for being shown to big investors, then we just have to accept it as it is.

Someone still trusts this web-site? I participated in 4.5 benchy bounty so today i just received 3 dollars for 2 months' work. Can you believe it that after ICO ended and the price went down three times the still hold it's "high" status :)
I try to stay it out.

This is just the height of it to say that their reviews cannot be said to be objective. The fact is they are only relying on the status the community have give them by defaulting assuming that their review is sacrosanct to every ICO project that is launched and based on that determined which one to invest in or not. That singular action is centralising decision making which negates the very essence of crypto currencies.

A lot of people are setting up their own ICO rating platforms because of ICO Bench.

Saying "do it yourself better" is not a very good argument here, because people are going it already.

This is also the reason why people want to expose ICO Bench, so that community will move to use those other more honest platforms.

That is strange.  It means that you someone pay them very well they will give a nice and amazing review without actually looking at the project.

nothing shocking , i saw many paid biased reviews on icobench for many projects , and situation is now even more worse , they are rating 4 to 5 star even a scam project which raised funds and run away with investors money without showing face after ICO .
so no one on that site care for biased rating or manipulation of such kind , everyone concerned for money . Few experts there are part of a same PR company which charge huge money from ICO and then later that group give ratings to them . saying it on basis of my experience .

mostly people only buy token via checking rating and moon dreams , those people are the main target of such sites and so called experts who give high rating to projects which have no intention to work only a cash grab project .
That's why people are always advised to do own research and invest time in learning this market . or at least follow people who give ratings to really hyped potential projects .
Potential ICOs or really good projects don't pay to such people who can rate 5 star to any ICO , they pay to better people and sometimes they even don't need to pay . not all the ICOs on that site are scam or shit projects , but still most of them are .

Well, not big news to me. It should not be for anyone who know how the media works. They always dance to the highest bidder song, that is the media for you. ICObench is a crypto media. No difference.

They are more often hype the project without reading whitepaper some would give false information to their community/investors. This influencers get alot of upfront fee from developers but they should think what's the real use cases of the project before they promote it.

Finally appeared something worthwhile Pro this office , so and felt that there are asking money for listing , and estimates mean nothing

That is the bitter truth of nowadays in crypto-world. Everybody finds sophisticated ways to earn big money from nothing. I think the majority of ICO rating resources do the same. Although I think that the majority of ratings there are true but there are some that are advertised by these platforms according to private agreements with the heads of particular projects. At the same time, the rating of some projects that are not that good advertised is underappreciated. They put rating 2 just because nobody made any reviews of such projects.

My article was republished on Data Driven Investor:

https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/ico-bench-is-asking-for-payment-for-expert-status-93a2870ed3f2

Trust an ordinary platform to make decision ? Why would I ever want to do that ? The thing here is that ICOBench have a service to render and they feel that is the price anyone will have to pay for it, so what is our own business with the people paying for it ? They are not complaining and if they are, they can simply make use of other ones. If the demand is less, I am sure the value will come down, but as much as some of us would like to complain, it seems the demand to get listed on ICO bench is not reducing.

Basically do not trust anyone for making your investment decisions. An investment decision must be based on our own research and analysis. Because no one will take responsible for our hard earned money but only we need to do.

ICObench is over, I have zero trust in their ratings, and TBH was always sceptical about them. I only use it now to see new ICOs, and then I do more research on my own. It's pretty ironic how centralized and corrupted most of those ICO review sites are, considering they are in crypto space, which should be transparent and decentralized.

I always know that ICObench is not that good enough in doing reviews they all just after the payment of ICO project to fake ratings. The bigger the payment the good the rating is. But I do use icobench to check the progress of finished ICO

Well I am not so surprised because most times you will see a project which is not so good but it will have a high review for ico bench, Like I have always said, I believe ico drops more than any other ico sites.

With that, we can't trust their ratings anymore. How would we know that the one who rates from ICO bench is legit or not? Seriously? Greed can make a person cheat this way.
Maybe it's time to find a more trustworthy ICO rater now or maybe it's time to let ourselves rate an ICO base on our experience here in cryptoworld.

It is funny though that some are paying for this when they could simply make use of lower fee rating website. However, we also have to understand that ICOBench have a lot of bigger investors that makes use of the site and trust it, so the fact that they collect huge fee simply does not mean they just post total bullshit on their platform.

One way or the other, as we keep complaining, some projects keep using them and what just baffles me is why spend that huge amount of money on promotion when you can just use it to build the project?

Like I am surprised ? It is not like ICObench was ever there for the community, and it is totally a money making venture without them bothering about the community in anyway. The earlier people started realizing this is a money making venture than trying to count on it in making good investment decision, the better.

I do not know why such a huge amount is going to be charged but it is what it is. Some are paying for it, and they are simply trying to render a service anyway.

I think ICO Bench has been doing this for a long time.

When investing in an ICO, ICO rating should only be one of the factor to consider before investing  and not solely the reason for buying a specific ICO because if you rely on just checking the rating in ICO Bench or any ico rating website without reading the roadmap and whitepaper then definitely be ready to lose some money.

ico rating just one of a kind promising business, they just gain a lot of money from ICO and maybe they just give fake rating from how much you can pay them

That is demand for a service , i don't think a team that is not disparate won't pay or dance to their tunes by playing for EXPERT status
There are other credible website where that could be dome, so it is a matter pf choice.

This is one big revelation if this is true that some of their personnel or the company itself made that move! They belong to a group of scammers for doing so, because it triggers the investors to invest because of a review site and most of us knew that this Ico-bench is also famous when it comes to giving reviews and some people are relying on them on their ratings for each ICO. It's hard to trust this review expert and this will surely make chaos to other review sites and gives people doubt to trust them it could damage their reputation of course.

Who among the team made this must face consequences and it must be taken action!

I like this site and I use it very often. It seems to me that it is not necessary to inflate the situation. Everything is much easier and if you constantly try to find a catch, you will not trust anything. ICObench is a great and useful site, so do not talk about it in this way

I don't think "Trust but Verify" is strong enough for crypto. You have to assume everything, no matter how legitimate looking, is a scam and has to be proven otherwise, which isn't easy.  Too much easy money for scammers, so they are constantly coming up with clever ways to get take your assets.

There's nothing wrong with that. Moreover, it may not be ICObench ordered this comment, but simply a person who is interested in it. I do not understand why so categorically and sharply disgrace such a popular and useful site. Think it's wrong