Bitcoin Forum

A lot of ICO's are pure scams these days.  In fact I'm starting to assume most are...  Now where do you start to look when you want to find out if an ICO is a scam or not.

Start by getting in the mind of the scammer.  The scammer knows he's a scammer.  So what does he want?  Money and not to get caught.  The first one is easy for the scammer since everybody just throws their money at anything that moves with the words 'ICO' and 'revolutionizing' in it.

The second one, not get caught, is exactly the way to catch them!  They want to be unknown.

How do you get unknown if you know that people want to know you and trust you before they give money to your so called project?

You make a Linkedin.  Then you create enough fake people to follow you so the magic number of 500+ appears.  Then you need to gain trust as a scammer.  How do you gain trust?  By giving examples of your so called expertise. You went to this university, you were CEO of that project etc.  A whole list!

But how do you discover fake linkedins?

Easy!

Start Googling...

Look for these things:

IF there is some company mentioned in the linkedin, google for the name of that person + that company, go to their website and look for him/her
IF there is actually a company with the person involved, is it a real company or some cardboard company?  The 'waybackmachine' could help you, did the company exist 2 years ago?

 

too many scam ico in china now!! I hate it

Oh and don't forget to Google the person apart from Linkedin

Is this person mentioned/referred to in ANY way prior to the launch of the ico?  Did you do an images search for his photo?  Does he have a facebookaccount that was there years ago?  

Did you fid any addresses?  

If you CAN NOT find information about the TEAM (and not just one person) PRIOR to the linkedin created for this ICO there is only one conclusion:

DO  NOT  TRUST  THEM!


Oh and there's more!

It's NOT because a 'company' is located in Switzerland that they're to be trusted.
It's NOT because they CLAIM they have investors aboard that this is true.
It's NOT because the ico is only during a short period that the ico is 'hot'.
It's NOT because there is a max. contribution per person that the ico is 'hot' or 'fair'.
It's NOT because there are 4k people on telegram that there are 4k people on telegram (if you catch my drift)

yes you are right for now it is very difficult and for linkedin also very easy to make instant with fake follower better if deeper into investor an ICO you have to see actual information in google also including expertise they have ask to institute that ever know the ICO developer team, or the easiest you can see at https://icobench.com/ I see they provide KYC for the ICO leaders and they have a mark if it has passed verification that prove the founder is genuine or not.

Yes, most of the time, if not a big bull market, then I would avoid ICO project in China, because China's ICO project looks more like a speculation, is more like a ponzi scheme.

You can spot them very easy. Join their telegram channel and ask meaningfull questions about their project.
If they cannot answer logic way the project will lead to a scam.
Also if they have not a discussion channel this will lead to scam too.

I just participated in Denaro, they scammed people for 10 million dollars, its very sad to see this things happen, thats why im all for KYC and regulations, i know a lot of people think we should not go that way, but crypto world is really bad without regulations

That's the way to find stupid/lazy ass ico's  ;D  But you're right.  But don't forget that tehre are some high profile scams too.  I'm on to some (not calling names yet) but there are some ico's that go far in their scamming.  They create multiple fake websites, they act like their idea is well thought through.  They have WP that actually mean something so they can answer your questions.  They have very very active telegram moderators etc  One big show in order to gain trust and earn millions.  And they will, there will even be token distribution and trading.  The only thing that will never exist for these coins/ico's is a working product.  There will just be moving around of money.  And I'm afraid this is the case for 90% of the ico's today.

What I mostly do is verify the pictures who they use on the team page. Sometimes I see pictures who they have picked up from websites like Pixabay. That means for me that the team is mostly fake and a simple reason to not to invest in that ICO.

People have to earn money somehow, why don't they earn money on fools who's investing in obvious scam? As they say "There’s no such thing as a free lunch".

I found your submission very much educative and helpful in this forum. Likedin would be very much useful if we can without saying is a waste of time put this to practice. However, we should also be very careful now about those ICOs using just Telegram as a base. Most of them are also scammers. I saw an article where Telegram moderators are giving serious warning about this that hardly does this allowed on their media for nonentity. So, we should equally double check on this.

Telegram is like a totalitarian regime controlling their media.  They allow who they want, they can kick out who the want without motivation.  A Telegram group can be a place where there's nothing but good news.  They can create as much puppet accounts as they have cellphone numbers.  They can shill an ICO and give the impression that there's a big 'buzz' around them while it is all one big bountyshow.  They try to lure you into their telegram groups because they have full control over them.  Once you start asking critical question they ban/delete you or warn you they will do that. 

Unmoderated BTT threads are the only way to be transparant.

I don't trust ICO-review sites either.  The guys behind them are often 'advisors' (read= they get part of the pudding) of the ico's they so called critically approached. 

I like the idea of a hard KYC verification including address check to make it possible to chase these scammers. It shoudn't be a 'bonus' feature like on icobench, it should be obligatory.

Yes there are also scammers who are good in plotting their project that even if you ask about their project they will spit to you their awesome roadmap and whitepaper with complete details. Ive seen ICOs like these, I even think that some ICOs have legit plan but were tempted by the money raised and just decided to run away and call it quits.

That is why China forbids ICO.
This country always makes trouble, and does fud. but China has a big influence on the crypto market. maybe 20% of them controlled Bitcoin.

Scammers are every where , so why they are in the Cryptomarket ? This is where you should use your brain to stay away from them. I recenlty got involved in a ICO . That's CVProof, I hope it has a good future, project main purpose is to stop lying on resumes by job applicants.

There are lots of instruments to identify what's scam and what's not. Firstly you must do your own research by reading whitepapers, looking at the projects and team members. A good sign if you can find team members especially CEOs on Linkedin or Rocketreach. And also check the ICO status on icobench, icostats, look if their coin is listed on exchanges and so on.

I'm agree with you. It is not hard to find good project, also the first of all I will advise to look at the team, if there are real people, with real prfoiles, or even videos made with their faces inside - then it is not a scam, because nobody will show his face and then run away with money.

That doesn't mean a thing, being on linkedin.  Did you even read my initial post?  That's the whole point.  We've come this far that scammers KNOW investors look at linkedins.  They ALL have linkedins, the problem is that they are FAKE.  You can claim anything on a linkedin.  You can put fake expertise with real firms, you can put fake degrees on any college/university/institution.  You can put fake photos, fake followers, fake posts fake anything.  I can make you a linkedin that looks like you're dealing with the next Elon Musk without the actual person existing whatsoever.  Linkedin doesn't mean a thing.  You need PROVE from stuff that can be found MONTHS or even YEARS before the ICO took place.  I'm not even into (official) internetstuff/programming/ict/blockchain/wahetever and even I can be found on several plaves on the internet just by googling my name. 

Then HOW on EARTH is it possible that most CEO's of blockchain companies with years of relevant experience in the IT/financial/tech-field CAN NOT be found whatsoever on the internet?  I'll tell you why: either they don't exist or they're faking it.  That's why... ::)

I used to spend a lot of time analyzing ICOs, but then I decided to delegate this task to professionals. There are many useful ico-ratings that evaluate projects and make analytics on them. If the majority puts a high rating, then this is an excuse to look at ico.

I recommend:
https://icobench.com
https://icomarks.com
https://icobazaar.com
https://foxico.io

I totally agree with you on this. I have had some experiences on this same LinkedIn, where people come to meet me in pm to tell me about a particular project. They come with different proofs - YouTube videos on the project, different accompanying documents to back up their claims. If you are not careful, you may easily fall for it. Care needs to be taken on some on these platforms. Before i make any move to invest into any project, i do thorough findings, to know those behind the project. If you have not had any good reputation in time past, i will think twice before investing.

Scan ICOs are really hard to spot because they're too good to be true.
The very first bounty campaign that I joined is Tangerine Exchange by Mandarin company but until now after 7 months still they haven't bumped on coin exchanges.
The latest scam ICO that I participated is Denaro, is website, white paper, social community and other factors do have higher score but they only spotted they're scam because they suddenly vanished and their Telegram Channel was erased.

Well you can image search these people so that you would know if they're using the real indetity,googling would be excellent because if they are claiming to be someone and you found nothing that is surely a scam because if these people really are exisitng there will be a lot of information about them in the google.

Scammers are constantly evolving. They will find new ways how to cheat people. It is sad, but ICO investing is not best idea now.

The problem is that many ICO are made not qualitatively! Even if they do not scam. And when many do not think about quality, it is difficult to determine which product is a scam and which one is not.

Well I think it is getting easier by the day to discover scam ico's.  There are so many scams around I stopped investing money in them since last summer (which was an excellent choice since last summer was ico heaven  ;D).  IF I'd actually buy anything now (I still do bounties but I'm not investing money/eth/btc) it would be ONLY when these things are ALL turned to green:

- Low profile ICO (more room to growth) with a good plan.
- Low profile team that can be TRACED, that has actually proven something and doing something else but keeping their telegram alive

OR

- Low profile tech project with killer devs (they don't even need to be known/public/traceable) who are obviously producing at a high pace but don't care about marketing (yet).

You WANT to be part of the next XEM/PRL/ADA/... from day one and you don't want to be part of some 'revolutionizing some field with 40% pre-sale discount, ico will end after 6 stages with 80 million marketcap blah blah' ico/scam that MIGHT be pumped to x2-x5 once before it dies IF it even ever hits the exchanges...

Actually it’s very easy to find a scam ICO. You just need to get in a random ico and it has a very high chance to be scam. Unfortunately that’s the fact for icos lately. If you want to avoid investing in a scam , do your own research about that ico. Find e every bit of information about them and check if they are trustworthy.

Agree ! Linkedin profiles check can give a lot of info. E. G. If profiles of team/founders created few months ago, that mean definitely scam.

It has come to the point where I don't invest in ICO's anymore.  I turned and I only invest in projects that actually deliver something before they start asking money.  One of the rare investments I just did was Speedcash (SCS).  It has a really low supply (470k), has an active dev and -most importantly- it is NO ICO.  It's a coin with its own blockchain, which is being developed all the time.  That sort of projects are far better.  If the coin delivers, people get interested and they buy.  If it doesn't, they don't.  Not an ICO where investors put millions in the hands of people who just promise to do stuff AFTER they get millions.

scams are be more profesional nowaday.
but I think some research would be best way to know. :D
most important is what people're saying about that ICO. I think it's not too hard to find.