How to Protect Yourself Against Cryptocurrency, ICO Fraud

[Nfp]

A booming topic such as cryptocurrencies and ICOs draws not only many newbies but also plenty of scam artists who want to cheat participants. Here are some tips on how you can protect yourself.

1.Telegram / Email
Almost all companies that do an ICO have established Telegram groups, which are an important information medium for a token sale. There you can communicate with employees of the company (they are the admins of the Telegram group, and it is clearly indicated next to their name with the label “admin”) or chat with other token buyers. Access to these groups is not filtered. Scammers masquerade as admins and contact you via personal message (PM) to send you their own wallet address with a request to send the money or coins for the token there. For example, they claim that the official wallet is down or that there is a special bonus if you use this wallet. They also ask you for your email address to send you fake emails later on, with the same type of requests/fake opportunities.

What you should do: Use only the official wallet of the company to pay. These can always be found on the website of the company. There are usually no other wallets and there is also no bonus for using special wallets.

2.Google / Facebook / Website
Scammers spare no effort: Some place paid ads on Google and Facebook, where they announce a real, ongoing ICO. However, these ads link to fake websites, most of which you can see in the endings of the links (.in, .pw, .id, etc.). If you buy something, your money is most likely lost, and if you even just log in, your password will be used to log in to the real ICO website and change the wallet address you want to have your tokens minted to.

What you can do: Pay close attention to what the real website of the ICO you want to participate in is. Most of the time, it is a website with a .com ending – also check for the https – that is the sign for a secure connection.

For more information you can go and visit this site https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-cryptocurrencies-and-icos-how-you-can-protect-yourself-against-fraud/

[CryptoAlphaStar]

There are so many things that has to be mentioned.
But the problem is that the field is developing so fast and so much money are involved that more and more scammers are attracted to it. As a result, the schemes are constantly developing as well and new ones emerge. So it is a topic in constant development.
What is true today, may not be enough tomorrow.
We have to constantly update our knowledge on security.

[3dyx]

I will share the tips, have this ico real project and no scam.
1. Read the whitepaper of that project.
2. Check the team
3. How many community for that ico project
4. Try to search who review that ico project
5. Famous people on blockchain technology is better reviewer.

If you need watch any ico project. Try daneel project.
whitepaper: https://daneel.io/whitepaper
Website: https://daneel.io/
ANN Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2376203

[Space32]

First is the idea of an ICO, imho. If it's something new and revolutionary than it can be easier to understand is scam or not. I doubt that revolution ideas will be used in scam ICO in total with other parametrs you should check.
You should check it's Whitepaper and Roadmap, evaluate the activity of developers and promotion in different social media. Search info about developers (maybe it's on linkedin). Invest only the money you are ready to loose.
Also for the those who are willing to go in ICO with big money - you need to order Audit from special companies and check is it worth or not. Without real audit - every ICO is not more than an ordinary lottery.

[BitcoinGuruOne]

Yeah, malicious actors are becoming more and more sophisticated over short period of time.
If you already know right url for a project - always double check that there aren't some strange looking Unicode characters.
Here will be an example: adidas and adidas are not the same. look closely to the first letter.

[Akiko]

I will share the tips, have this ico real project and no scam.
1. Read the whitepaper of that project.
2. Check the team
3. How many community for that ico project
4. Try to search who review that ico project
5. Famous people on blockchain technology is better reviewer.

If you need watch any ico project. Try daneel project.
whitepaper: https://daneel.io/whitepaper
Website: https://daneel.io/
ANN Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2376203

Good idea is that but need to make research also to if they dont understand what is the project about and get idea.

[ac2eugenio]

A lot of things should be considered like product/services that the ICO has to offer,the credibility of the team,founder and the partners of the porject,doest the community shows positive support to the project?whitepaper and roadmap should be considered too,there will be less fraud when all of the people are aware on how to spot these ICOs scams.