how to identify ICO scam ?! some important tips !

[Tharel]

Before joining an ICO, it is best to have a thorough research about the team behind the project.There are certain team or people which are really non  existent. That's what you need to identify first. Discover the concept and the related competitors of the project and of course study the future plan and the token itself.By doing so, you can lessen the chance of joining a scam ICO.

[kryptqnick]

Good list, but it doesn't really end there. Since there are ICOs that start off legit, but end up being just a scam because the developers just don't do anything anymore to develop the token. Or that after the ICO it just straight off losses the value and the developers again stop developing the token because of that fact. It still takes luck even if you exercise utmost diligence in checking the ICO, so pray you get it right.

I think that if the team stops following the plan the project cannot be called a scammy one. Investors are likely to lose money, but at least they have chances to sell everything on some exchange when something starts smelling fishy. It is especially unfair to call it so if the project is not developed out of the tems despair. They might not have enough funds to keep going, you know.
As for the points on identifying a bad ico, well, the team is usually hard to evaluate. I look at ico projects every day and most of them have the team of about 10 people who have some IT degrees or work experience. You can never know whether such a team will manage to develop the project. At the same time, if you pick icos with top tems only then you will not find many of them. I only saw a couple of icos with some team members who are already famous for other projects.

[Cybercrypt]

ICO founders should have some publicity - take part in conferences, meet investors in real world, etc. Of course, this will not guarantee that the ICO is not scam, but at least you will always know where to find those guys, if they decide to run away.  And if the ICO team is online-only, and nobody ever saw them, such project is 99% scam.

[NestDoe]

It's all about intuition.....
Or you can learn all about it and draw conclusions. And still read the forums and opinions of others about it less, because you can often meet people who panic for no reason. Peace!

Not intuition, but practice and logic.

[Ninellechka]

That's extremely hard to identify ico scam. Really, I've met a lot of projects with a perfect plan, a beautiful website, an explicated whitepaper, an active team, which ended up with a total scam. And also I've met plain unpresentable projects which brought good profit to their investors.

[smartdealmaker]

Take on the "4T" scheme: Theme, Tech, Team, Token !

1.Theme
To begin with, you need to evaluate the promise of the very idea of ICO. If you are not an expert, it will be difficult to do this. But it is possible to find signs of fraud even without profound knowledge in the field of blocking:
Go to the ICO website and see if White Paper developers have posted a project roadmap. If not, the startup can be immediately struck out.
If there is documentation, study it carefully. Honest developers try to explain in detail their idea and ways of its implementation, using not only text but also tables, graphs, charts and other demo material for this purpose.

2.Technology
It is even more difficult here - one needs to evaluate the promise not of the idea itself, but of the technology created for its realization. And even a well-written road map or White Paper will not help you to objectively assess the strengths and weaknesses of the advancing technology.
Lack of contacts for communication, ignoring your appeal or a template response not on the topic - alarm clues, indicating fraud.
After all, developers who plan not only to raise money, but also to start the project, are themselves interested in the fact that potential investors received as much information about the startup.

3.Team
always look for information about the team on the ICO website. Most often it is placed in a separate section ("Team") or placed at the bottom of the page in the format "photo-name-post in the project".
Good teams themselves talk about themselves. On their sites you will find short biographies of developers, information on their education, career advancements and experience with blockade projects.
Check out all the specified contacts of team members
Find the legal address on which the company is registered and verify its authenticity

4.
Open the appropriate section (most often called "Token" or "Token Economy") and find the information
And be sure to pay attention to the main thrust, due to which many investors lost their money. Is there any information on the site that issued tokens are not a digital currency and do not carry any real value, and developers are not obliged to change them on crypto currency or fiat money?

If you find such an announcement, save your money for another project.

GOOD LUCK !!!

Some great advice.

I have been following a new ICO that did a recent pre ICO SALE. Around a week ago before the sale they had around 40 people in their community Telegram group, then over a week it went to just under 30,000, they have been offering a bounty giving away coins FREE but around 95% of the posts were happening every second on the second 24 hours a day with hardly any variation on the posts, as if it was a script running making the claims... Having a large group seems to indicate part of the value in a ICO but there are plenty of sites offering to create followers very cheaply and write scripts to do this... Is this likley to be a scam, can you check some how?

[olubams]

You want to burst a scam ICO, focus on the team. From the community manager to the campaign and bounty managers then the liaison with the entire team that is the key. Also, follow the trend of events. A lot of people are equally interested and they could discover what an average internet users can get based on searches on Google or the technical components of what the entire project is all about and that is what makes a difference in someone who will lose his money fast and the one who will have made the right investment.

[BlockchainTalksInfo]

Helpful tips. I think that the number of followers from the community helps as well to tell if an ICO is a scam or not.

Community size is an important thing to take into consideration, but also the quality and the level of discussions on a telegram group for example is important. If they are talking only about airdrops, price levels and exchanges then this is their main focus, only the profit. So we return to quality of the community

[btcmegastar]

ICO founders should have some publicity - take part in conferences, meet investors in real world, etc. Of course, this will not guarantee that the ICO is not scam, but at least you will always know where to find those guys, if they decide to run away.  And if the ICO team is online-only, and nobody ever saw them, such project is 99% scam.

Yes, the project should get more awareness about the blockchain conference because many people will start attending the conference. ICO project should prove themselves to become most familiar and they should attract as many people as possible to raise the fund in the ICO.

[Crimzon]

You should understand that it’s always important to do your own research, do not rely on other's opinion. I prefer to look very attentively at all aspects of ICO before investing in it or taking part at their bounty campaign. My strategy is to look at:

1. The idea (and ask yourself - does the project really need blockchain technology and their own tokens?)
2. Team and advisors
3. White Paper and Road Map
4. Softcap and Hardcap
5. Token Metrics and Prototype
6. Social pages and site

[investgeek]

You should understand that it’s always important to do your own research, do not rely on other's opinion. I prefer to look very attentively at all aspects of ICO before investing in it or taking part at their bounty campaign. My strategy is to look at:

1. The idea (and ask yourself - does the project really need blockchain technology and their own tokens?)
2. Team and advisors
3. White Paper and Road Map
4. Softcap and Hardcap
5. Token Metrics and Prototype
6. Social pages and site

How you compare softcap and hardcap?
For examples:
1. 2 mln (soft) and 60 mln (hard);
2. 20 mln (soft) and 60 mln (hard).
 

[TUSHAR@1908]

If they are forcing you to buy that's the most important tip to recognize a scammer.

[maarx]

If they are forcing you to buy that's the most important tip to recognize a scammer.

I had to face and participate in a scam ICO in December and would say be aware of those, Who just speaks too much of the company,  it's project and it's investment in it. Be aware of the projects, team members' profils, and the amount the invest in the project will confirm you if they are scam ICO or legit ICO.  

[Crypto Sway]

These are great points to lookout for thanks for sharing! This link has some fantastic things to look for in the marketing of a legit ICO. Enjoy the reading.

https://medium.com/suncontract/marketing-strategies-in-the-world-of-crypto-e6dcf3b5f4e3

[Supercrypt]

This is really important indeed and can help anyone who is still starting up in this business. And as you said, we should always consider the theme and how everything is being explained by the developers. Scammers don’t really take their time in explaining their project. They just do a rough work, and you can sight lots of errors in their work due to their carelessness (not in all, some of them do explain properly, despite being scam).

One thing that does matter a lot to me is the support team. I don’t like a business that has slow support team that can take up to a month to reply your mail. Good support teams are always fast and can resolve your problems quickly. They will always be there to support their customers.

I believe lots of people already filtering out scam ICOs in fractions of seconds due to their immense experiences with many past ICOs. Some people have shared about their skills on this but after years of working on different ICOs. Hence, this kind of discussions are really essential for this community for bringing changes by safeguarding our capital amounts.

[Pool0x]

I think that team, advisors, partners are very important

[Danstan]

Take on the "4T" scheme: Theme, Tech, Team, Token !

1.Theme
To begin with, you need to evaluate the promise of the very idea of ICO. If you are not an expert, it will be difficult to do this. But it is possible to find signs of fraud even without profound knowledge in the field of blocking:
Go to the ICO website and see if White Paper developers have posted a project roadmap. If not, the startup can be immediately struck out.
If there is documentation, study it carefully. Honest developers try to explain in detail their idea and ways of its implementation, using not only text but also tables, graphs, charts and other demo material for this purpose.

2.Technology
It is even more difficult here - one needs to evaluate the promise not of the idea itself, but of the technology created for its realization. And even a well-written road map or White Paper will not help you to objectively assess the strengths and weaknesses of the advancing technology.
Lack of contacts for communication, ignoring your appeal or a template response not on the topic - alarm clues, indicating fraud.
After all, developers who plan not only to raise money, but also to start the project, are themselves interested in the fact that potential investors received as much information about the startup.

3.Team
always look for information about the team on the ICO website. Most often it is placed in a separate section ("Team") or placed at the bottom of the page in the format "photo-name-post in the project".
Good teams themselves talk about themselves. On their sites you will find short biographies of developers, information on their education, career advancements and experience with blockade projects.
Check out all the specified contacts of team members
Find the legal address on which the company is registered and verify its authenticity

4.
Open the appropriate section (most often called "Token" or "Token Economy") and find the information
And be sure to pay attention to the main thrust, due to which many investors lost their money. Is there any information on the site that issued tokens are not a digital currency and do not carry any real value, and developers are not obliged to change them on crypto currency or fiat money?

If you find such an announcement, save your money for another project.

GOOD LUCK !!!

To add additional tip, if the team says or state that their project will be a big and successful event for ICO then you just have to double check Media who covers their project to advertise it, since most ICO are starting to published their project on  a serious Media Channel.

[Smarty14392]

I think that team, advisors, partners are very important

But to figure out who is legit and which is having potential, you must gain experience. Without experience  you will never able to differentiate even you will be analyzing team, advisers, partners and any other aspects of an ICO.

I believe lots of people already filtering out scam ICOs in fractions of seconds due to their immense experiences with many past ICOs. Some people have shared about their skills on this but after years of working on different ICOs. Hence, this kind of discussions are really essential for this community for bringing changes by safeguarding our capital amounts.

Yes, I must appreciate you as you are pointing our the real truth. After coming through OP's long tips, even I am aware of all these already and have read them many times in this forum, still I could not make use of any such tips just due to the reason of lack of experience. OP's tips are just knowledge but we need more experience to fight against scam ICOs to protect ourselves.

[hugeblack]

Far from whether the product is real or scam, the profit is the most important reason for speculation
The idea of the project must be revolutionary, solve real problems, motivated to help more than profit with real and future plans.
The team is not required to be famous but at least have experience with proving their competence(github, youtube,...etc).
An open source project with an openness to answering questions and contributing to its development(not just copy/paste).

[Crimzon]

You should understand that it’s always important to do your own research, do not rely on other's opinion. I prefer to look very attentively at all aspects of ICO before investing in it or taking part at their bounty campaign. My strategy is to look at:

1. The idea (and ask yourself - does the project really need blockchain technology and their own tokens?)
2. Team and advisors
3. White Paper and Road Map
4. Softcap and Hardcap
5. Token Metrics and Prototype
6. Social pages and site

How you compare softcap and hardcap?
For examples:
1. 2 mln (soft) and 60 mln (hard);
2. 20 mln (soft) and 60 mln (hard).
 

First of all I am looking for the goals which they've defined for themselves when they get softcap and hardcap. You should ask yourself - why softcap / hardcap (especially for hardcap) is 20 mln? why not 1 or 30? Why do they need that amount of money, why not more or less? for what goals? Keep asking yourself and looking for answers in their WP.
But if you do not want dive too deep, if the projects' idea is not a new and revolution they will not reach the high hardcap point.