Bitcoin Forum

Advisor Douglas Lyons asking 3 ETH for changing ICOBench ratings from 1.1.1. to 4.5.4., but he did it for 1 ETH!

https://coinscribble.com/icobench-adviser-douglas-lyons-how-to-make-money-on-a-fake-rating/2927/icos/21/

Haha ;D
By the way, I didnt make any review on Shitcoin Offering where he was involved in ...  ::)

Hi is involved in many Shitcoin Offerings, when you see the name Douglas Lyons on the board of advisers - the project is 100% scam!
Check this:
https://fixsay.com/cryptocurrency/2018/06/27/ico-bench-extremist-douglas-lyons-giving-fake-ratings-as-revenge/

Thank you for sharing, although I think I'm not surprised at all to hear that you can buy ratings. I recently found an interesting article showing how easy it is to obtain whatever rating you want from these so-called advisors:
https://medium.com/alethena/this-is-how-easy-it-is-to-buy-ico-ratings-an-investigation-13d07e987394

This should serve as an example and remind people before they invest to be careful and not to trust any of these ICO rating websites.

If I were you, I would contact ICOBench and provide them with all the information about Douglas Lyon, who knows they might act on it and remove him.

Submitted already many times, by many people, but they are not reacting.

These Ico rating sites are our new version of hyip monitor, of course, these ICO will have to pay for them to get listed and get a good rating, the bad part is we the investors and promoters are the one suffering from their deceit, I think they are part of the problems.

Thank you for the article.
Here are just a few examples of the so-called advisers at the ICOBench that are probably just taking money to give a good rate.
Including one that was warned about a scam and still gave good ratings for the scammer.

Cryptobike – (TEAM = Stock images) TEAM = 4.0 - is a very high rate for a team using stock photos dont you think?
Cryptobike - 1 expert - http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/cryptobike-rate.jpg
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032861.0 (scam accusation)

Cryptoriya - 1 expert - Someone warned this expert this ICO was a scam on July 31st 2018. The expert gave a review/rating on August 2nd and ICOBench continue with the publication/promotion of this scammer. http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/cryptoriya-rate.jpg

Zantepay - 6 experts and they missed the scam? - http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/zantepay-rate.jpg

Ultrix - 3 experts - http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/ultrix-rate.jpg

UT-PAY – 1 expert – 4 star rating for the team with an obvious photoshopped person. https://icobench.com/ico/ut-pay/ratings#ratings
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5045079.0

OfferZone – 4 experts – 3 star rating for the team - a team that failed KYC
https://icobench.com/ico/offerzone/ratings#ratings
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5026956.0

Vestarin – 32 experts – 5 star –https://icobench.com/ico/vestarin/ratings#ratings
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5026956.0

Aircraft Travel – 1 expert – 5 star for fake team
https://icobench.com/ico/aircraft/ratings#ratings
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032935.0

There are more, but we will stop here...

This is gold....

I've always been skeptical of the different "packages" icobench has to offer. What are the chances of them not giving you a good review if you go with the highest price package?

Good work OP.

I wonder if they will now bribe the author to remove that article from the medium. ::) Don't be surprised if that article disappears within a week.

Maybe the entire team is a part of it and that's how they make money?

Of course mate! This generation takes anything seriously and dwells on these sources as their primary influence. They think their money is in the same hands just because a site has good ratings on another website.

It's the game of deception indeed, sometimes I use Icobench to see the ICO has passed their KYC that's all I looked on but not their rating I am always surprised that some of the ICO that has a good rating are those who have no potential in the market in the eyes of the investors but not in the eyes of these so-called experts because there is money involve

Isn't that guy who is running ICO bumping service https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1268093
Yes.  ;D

---

https://medium.com/@filip.poutintsev/take-the-most-out-of-bitcointalk-when-promoting-your-ico-f0a424add9ba well this is just funny. Man who is payed to create fake buzz around projects is accusing rating site for giving fake ratings to projects  ;D

Oh, wait, and another ICO rating site busted...well...ICO rating site  ;D

So they are really doing this for money and not for people trust, they should then be reported and regulated by SEC because they are part of scamming investors, people look up to them and they deceive them they should be prosecuted and put to jail they part of the project that scam people with millions of dollars.

is Doug the user anobtc which was mentioned in this SCAM accusation in this thread HOT NEWS - “Shitcoinoffering” EXPOSED AS FRAUD! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5062698) ?

its very much interesting to look at the coincedence of the names in these people around you. believe me i'm not accusing its them who did that.

Then they're blatantly making money by breaking their own terms:


https://icobench.com/terms

Either way, its highly unethical behavior and should not be dismissed because they're simply "making money."

This is our report from last week of: SCAMS Currently listed on these sites. We used to alert them, but you didnt even get a thank you back.
Also they dont care to remove the scams from their site because many of them are " featured".
And ico bench sometimes took over 20 days to remove the scam (probably waiting for the paid service to expire).
We no longer inform any of them about scam listed, it is a waste of our time.

http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/scams.JPG

You are doing a great job, your contribution is so great you deserve merits for this, it's not an easy job it's actually hard to catch a scam ICO I used to look on ICO rating but they are also part of the business ruining the cryptocurrency, they should be accounted for.

Interesting statistics you got there @ICOEthics. I suppose these are just the ones that you have found?

As you might expect, our friends at ICOHolder cleary on top of that garbage list of ICO hosting websites. Champs! You should host a ceremony at the end of the year and award the top 3 for outstanding achievements in the support and popularization of criminals, fraud and ponzi schemes.  ;D

No. It includes scams found from other forum members as well.



We are thinking about that with the following titles:

- The mother holder of all scams (probably ICOHolder will win)
- The Sl*t scam holder (probably ICO Slot will win)
- and the last one is open for suggestions.

These ICO rating sites should have been the ones helping to fight scams but rather help scam investors instead by asking fees to advertise scam ICOs.  in all fairness though they have also help some good ICOs succeed but then of course they got the fees asked. They wouldn't be listing anything if not for the fees.

True. There is so much potential for someone to just come up with an open source protocol like ICO-Bench which would be community driven and wouldn't be controlled by sock puppets like Ico-Bench admins.

Not only the ICOBench "experts" are taking money to give a good rating.
Maybe you should read our medium post as well and see what ICOHolder did recently. It is a shame!
https://medium.com/@ICOEthics/tkeycoin-scam-ico-7844729513b8

It says "This page is unavailable." and your account seems to be suspended.

What was the article about? Tkeycoin getting marked by ICOHolder as a scam ICO and then all of sudden popping up on the front page as a featured project with a high rating?

Srsly, why would medium suspend your account? It's pretty weird and unreasonable the least to say.

He is keeping to delete articles about his dirty business.
The story is in the next post.

What kind dirty business are you talking about? what other articles that you are referring that was deleted? We never delete anything that we post.

That is a surprise for us. We dont know what happened, we will try to figure out with Medium.
But here are images of the article published.
Yes the article is about ICOHolder marked an ICO as a scammer and decided to take money from them and feature on their website.

http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/m1.JPG
http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/m2.JPG
http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/m3.JPG
http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/m4.JPG
http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/m5.JPG
http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/m6.JPG
http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/m7.JPG
http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/m8.JPG
http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/m9.JPG
http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/m10.JPG


There is one we posted on Reddit still up:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/9tftxq/tkeycoin_scam_ico_and_a_scam_promoter_listing/
archived here: http://web.archive.org/web/20181111220156/https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/9tftxq/tkeycoin_scam_ico_and_a_scam_promoter_listing/

Steemit post: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@icoethics/tkeycoin-scam-ico-and-a-scam-promoter-listing-agency-icoholder

I think olegraran misread my post somehow and actually refers to Douglas Lyons, not you.

---

If I had to guess some butthurt friends of yours kept reporting articles.

When you receive an official reply from Medium please share here, I'm really interested to know which policies you have breached that have led to the suspension of your account.

(The image of the article suspended by Medium is here: https://plus.google.com/u/2/106995061118247758998/posts/DnZ3ZRbt8qz )
Adviser Douglas Lyons: how to make money on a fake rating.
Profile of ICOBench adviser looks very strange - almost all the projects in his profile evaluated as 1.1.1. and he is not writing reviews, but simply copy/past them.
Two examples, try to find differences:
Project INFRACOINS
https://icobench.com/ico/infracoins/ratings#ratings
Douglas Lyons
Board Advisor- Early Adoption and Strategic Partnerships
Rated on Jul 17, 2018
Modified on Jul 24, 2018
this is just another property rental listing site with no discernable features from others. The competition in this space is fierce, fuelled by huge advertising budgets and name brand awareness. There is absolutely no implementation of blockchain beyond the fund raising.
there is 0 opportunity for any type of ROI to investors.
This is not a good investment.
2.   Project PLACETORENT
https://icobench.com/ico/placetorent/ratings#ratings
Douglas Lyons
Board Advisor- Early Adoption and Strategic Partnerships
Rated on Jul 17, 2018
Modified on Jul 24, 2018

this is just another property rental listing site with no discernable features from others. The competition in this space is fierce, fuelled by huge advertising budgets and name brand awareness. There is absolutely no implementation of blockchain beyond the fund raising.
there is 0 opportunity for any type of ROI to investors.
This is not a good investment.

Another strange thing – advisor Douglas Lyons  does not particularly study information about the project, when rating it.
For example:
He rates with 1 (SCAM) the team of WEMARK.
https://icobench.com/ico/wemark/ratings
33 expert ratings  - 4.0
ICO PROFILE  - 4.9  
TEAM - 4.3
VISION - 3.7  
PRODUCT - 3.7
Adviser Douglas Lyons rating:  
TEAM – 1 (SCAM)
VISION– 1 (SCAM)
PRODUCT– 1 (SCAM)

Let’s look, what people he calls scam:
Lars Perkins - Former CEO & Founder @Picasa, Director @Google
Keren Sachs - Former Director of Content Development @Shutterstock
Miguel Forbes - Co-Founder @Forbes.com
Amir Feder - Token Economy Advisor, Northwestern University
Ismail Malik - ICO advisor, Founder & CEO @Blockchain Lab
And I wondered why ICOBench advisor Douglas Lyons lowers the rating of those projects?
I got in touch with team representatives of those projects which were evaluated by adviser Douglas Lyons and everything became clear:
Shortly before the rating of advisor Douglas Lyons appears or right after it was published, some people turn to them with a proposal to raise the rating at for money.
Price for a better rating by 20 experts is 8 000 USD. Very good income, even if shared with other “experts”, consider to the amount of “scam” projects adviser Douglas Lyons finding every day.
Excellent Business brings excellent ROI (return on investment)
Adviser Douglas Lyons profile ICOBench:  https://icobench.com/u/doug-lyons
Adviser Douglas Lyons profile LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglas-lyons

LOL, yes I think that is what happened.


Yes we also think that is what happened as well.  Especially after we sent out a special Twitter this morning:
https://twitter.com/ICOEthics/status/1061359745494384641

Which was also followed by this other Twitter 1 hour later: https://twitter.com/icoalert/status/1060532152213950464

The article is up on Reddit and Steemit, and we will also create a special page on our website to keep it posted there as well.
We will keep you all informed the reason why our Medium account is suspended once we find out.

Wow, you got the attention of CoinGecko, nice. Hope Medium reinstates you. Good luck!

Hello! We welcome any reports and always consider them when they are sent to us! We follow our rules, but we need direct evidence to take any action!

Hello ICOBench, you should investigate your experts.

here is another example of many.

Someone warned this expert this ICO was a scam on July 31st 2018.
The Expert gave a review/rating on August 2nd and ICOBench continue with the publication/promotion of this scammer.

http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/cryptoriya-rate.jpg

here a few more:


Zantepay - 6 experts and they missed the scam? - http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/zantepay-rate.jpg

Ultrix - 3 experts - http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/ultrix-rate.jpg

UT-PAY – 1 expert – 4 star rating for the team with an obvious photoshopped person. https://icobench.com/ico/ut-pay/ratings#ratings
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5045079.0

OfferZone – 4 experts – 3 star rating for the team - a team that failed KYC
https://icobench.com/ico/offerzone/ratings#ratings
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5026956.0

Vestarin – 32 experts – 5 star –https://icobench.com/ico/vestarin/ratings#ratings
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5026956.0

Aircraft Travel – 1 expert – 5 star for a fake team ?
https://icobench.com/ico/aircraft/ratings#ratings
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032935.0


Also you should read this forum daily and remove the scams from your website. There are +25 proved scams listed there

Yeah, and it is funny how they just ask to send over the scam data. (our hard work to collect them)
They are too lazy to read the forum (scam section) and find the scammers by themselves (that are already posted)
https://twitter.com/coingecko/status/1061475779366682624

Thanks for revealing all of these scams, I used to trust on those websites you have published but now I have lost the faith in all of them.

If these "advisors" accept payments to make a fake rating there's no way I would ever come back to check their websites to check its ICO's.

Most of these listing sites just have one thing in mind = make $$$ doesn't matter where it comes from.



AND ICOBench we provided some direct evidence on this topic. What actions are you taking, because 24 hours later you havent posted one word.

ICOBench has received all the evidence that Douglas Lyons takes money for his reviews (including  1 ETH transfer record to his account ) and that he extorts money from ICO projects that he has put on a low rating. But ICOOBench ignores this. And Douglas Lyons continues his very profitable and very dirty business.

I was an advisor for few ICO's and we have messaged ICO Bench multiple times regarding their experts asking for money in exchange for higher ratings.

Never get any reply and all experts are still working on the site and further ask for bribes in return for a good review.

This goes even further and some of them will leave a bad rating full of accusations if one refuses to pay.

They will make a legit project looks scammy because not paid and write a super review with 5 stars for obvious scam ICO for few ETH coins.

I just stopped to use ICO Bench service because of this. It's a shame because ICO Bench was a great tool and I just don't understand why they haven't been pickier when it goes to experts, they are working with.

If there is any signal that such an expert is not trustworthy should be banned immediately and taken into a deep review. Only like this, You can maybe recover the lost trust ICO Bench.

I don't follow these parasitical so called "rating experts" and "advisors" when it comes to ICO's, they remind me too much of the HYIP Monitor Industry, just part of the whole corrupt infrastructure feeding off the gullible.
There was a very obviously wrong ICO from NELUNS recently, their [ANN] thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4694028.0;topicseen) is still echoing along with bumping service spam, their bounty hunters have been told to fuck off and come back around Christmas, and it's just a generally shit, transparent scam.

ICObench's supposed "experts" (https://icobench.com/ico/neluns/ratings#ratings) bought the NELUNS bullshit hook, line and sinker, wrote their meaningless 50 word precis and out came the glowing reviews.
I mean, who the fuck are these people anyway?

https://i.imgur.com/k2u7M2v.png

---

So, how many instances of paid-to-rate have you investigated, how many of your "experts" have you take action against?
Who the fuck are you, anyway?

Apparently posting anything about a scam is against their rules. SO, basically MEDIUM allows scammers to promote their scam on their platform, but no one can call them a scammer.
Which to us make MEDIUM a scam promoting platform.

1st message

http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/medium%20response.JPG

OUR response

http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/medium%20request.JPG

Their final message

http://icoethics.com/imgs/other/medium%20final.JPG

I've been saying this for a couple of years - it's why scams use their platform instead of BCT, & the scams that do use BCT use self moderated threads.

This is getting really interesting. So a random account with their name just pops-up in this thread and you'll take it seriously? I mean what's the guarantee they are the rightful account holders?

As I stated, they're part of this. They're going to continue doing this. That's how they make money.

Self-proclaimed crypto-experts aka scum of the crypto world.

100% TRUE

ICO Bench, indeed was a great tool.
We all used this website to check new project. After the ICO hype, I dont look at that website anymore and just do my own research. Reading all these accusations dont suprise me. It's not only ICO Bench who want $$$ but those scammers of so called 'expert', they think they know it all but eventually just doing nothing.

BUT there are some good onces between them.
ICO Bench should start doing a cleanup! Aren't they on this forum?

I looked at some Douglas's ratings and something is wrong here:

https://i.imgur.com/1MnNOUw.png
https://icobench.com/ico/bizavest-analytics-platform

https://i.imgur.com/2fKeQLV.png
https://icobench.com/ico/worldwifi

It looks like he is the one reporting ICO's offering to pay money for ratings, not the one who is asking money.

---

OP if you don't mind telling us why are you hiding behind brand new account? Post from your real account.

Check this:
Rating before payment
https://plus.google.com/u/2/photos/photo/106995061118247758998/6624893308083243938
Rating after payment
https://plus.google.com/u/2/photos/photo/106995061118247758998/6624893557632189522

Dozens of companies reported to ICObench that they were extorted money shortly before Douglas Lyons publish rating and / or immediately after that.
Dozen of companies reported to ICOBench that Douglas Lyons does not writing reviews, but copy / paste them.
No reaction.

This is just hard to believe but I think there is something going on in Medium because my account was suspended too. I was Medium user from start and don't think I violated rules. Especially spam rule to which they applied in my case. I was getting paid each month from them and after so many years they shut down my account because of spam and provide no explanation what so ever. Even never replied to my, multiple emails which I leave with no comment.

Please read this entire article and find out more about the other corrupted experts inside ICOBench such as Vladimir Nikitin, Phillip Nunn, etc..
ALso, there are more details about their corrupted rating/listing systems.

https://www.cointelligence.com/content/ico-expert-corruption/

Shame on these guys.  I never really think of someone who passed KYC on ICObench, their profiles are known to people who view them and they still have the guts to ask from teams trying to get themselves on this media.  Do they really passed KYC? People always gets corrupted when the greed for money come.

Correct Vladimir Nikitin, Phillip Nunn, Douglas Lyouns is one big scam ICOBench advisors team.
After getting money they are rating the same projects or entering their advisory boards :
https://icobench.com/ico/ez-exchange
https://icobench.com/ico/axt
https://icobench.com/ico/skychain
https://icobench.com/ico/vestarin
https://icobench.com/ico/safecrypt
https://icobench.com/ico/flogmall
https://icobench.com/ico/timebox
https://icobench.com/ico/cryptopus
and so on
everywhere the same names.

Great article. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Those ICO rating website should all stop and projects should stop posting their ratings on their thread/website/... the more you post the futher I walk away. Really hope they soon shutdown ICOBench.

I don't because their KYC test helps at some point to see if team is real or not, especially when you can't find pictures and names of team members anywhere and especially when they fail that test. They could improve their site and conduct KYC for every project and actually do KYC and video conversation at the same time.
It is just they need to weed out bad eggs.

Correct (KYC + Video conversation = bulletproof)
This will get those scam project out ICOBench but what about those 'experts'? They give a good rating if you pay them enough money.

They need to get that sorted.
But I'm afraid their name is already damaged if I look at LinkedIn, Reddit, ...

Like the one mentioned in the article ICOEthics posted:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6416966802420699136/

As I said, they need to remove them from their site as soon as possible. They have more than 350 experts and as far as I know everyone can apply to become one. It is not like someone can control them all but they can "fire" them.
We already went off topic with this so I will stop here.

Yeah I agree, all those supposed 'experts' and ICO advisors just are part of a new way of scamming people.

I once spoke with a person that was launching some kind of eco friendly mining ICO. He hired a handful advisors after they reviewed the idea. They told they were going to invest themselves and bring in lots of investors from their huge amount of followers.

the team paid the advisory team 3ETH each (700$/eth t that time). After that they just posted on their linkdin they were involved in that project but beside that they never did any effort to publicly support the project, nor to invest themselves or bring in investors funds from their network of followers.

So clearly becoming an ICO advisor these days is a new way of becoming a scammer

It is true that today's advisors are scammers extorting money and not doing anything for ICO projects. Today, in order to become an "advosor" in ICOBench, nothing is needed except personal identification.

There was a big article on the web, discribing Douglas Lyons helped Datarius to collect money. He  gave an interview, convinced that this was the future of the world economy, and then the money simply disappeared. (All articles in medium, reddit and other resources where people write about him - Douglas Lyons deletes.)

EDIT: ICO Bench advised me that Douglas Lyons is no longer one of their experts.


https://archive.fo/3CFrl
https://archive.fo/OpW8V

This interview looks suspicious:
https://archive.fo/drPpz
Rather than an article it is more of an infomercial.

The interview is by Simon Cocking
https://i.imgur.com/pPJICqO.png

But the entire interview is in first person and the contact details are provided at the bottom as
https://i.imgur.com/yDJSZGZ.png

Appears some of them made off like bandits during the crusades... Since exit scammed.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5258384.msg54690987
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5261649.0

The saga continues...