How to recognize scam

[godrain]

Hello, I want to tell about tools which help you recognize scam.

Fake team
"Recently most of scam ico use fake team from google or some other website and stock image". And you can find out fake photo with help some useful website. List tools for this -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4586576.msg41668514#msg41668514.

How much money the project has raised
There was one case when team wrote that they collected $30 million, but smart contract was called only 10 times, and besides the developers, only 10 ethereum addresses had these tokens worth less than $ 2,000.

You can check how many tokens were sold, so how much they collected money.
Useful web site for this -> https://bloxy.info. Just write the name of the token and you will see all the information about this tokens. How many transactions with this tokens, holders. How many times the smart contract of this token was called. This information will help to determine how much the project has raised at least some funds.
Also you can do it direct on https://etherscan.io/tokens

What is this site
You can use "site analyzers". Its like https://www.cy-pr.com/a (carefully, the site has advertising ) and others(there are a lot of them). You will see attendance of this site, geography of users, server location and more something.

Plagiarism
Sometimes scam just copy the whitepaper, command description or anything. You can use plagiarism checker, there are a lot of them in open access(just google it ).

Thank you for read. In general, what do you think about scam? A lot of them? And how to avoid scams?


Additions...

Usually, one should pay attention to the design of the site. If the design of the site is horrible and boring, it is likely that the creators did not spend their energy, which appropriately means that they are only interested in arriving to then disappear in an unknown direction. I also adhere to the position of always checking team members on social networks. Do the data have any relation to the project at all? I also never pay attention to projects from Russia, but this is probably an erroneous opinion and not all so bad. But the main thing I think is that you need to carefully read the white paper, analyze to understand that it is necessary for the world. If the project does not have white paper, then I immediately leave such projects. I also want to note that you should not pay attention when the project is advertised by a well-known person, it has no value for investors. In any case, this is my opinion, which I adhere to.

There are really a lot of scammers now!
You can also search for members of the project team on social networks, usually they attach Linkedin links.
Maybe they can be contacted and asked more about the project.

Don't be shy and contact members of the project!(especially if you want invest own money in the project)

[grinyaaa]

Very useful advices! Thank you!
I also heard about the fake photos of the project team. It's horrible!
They can just take a photo of someone else's person and process it in Photoshop.
We have to be very careful!

[opg777]

Usually, one should pay attention to the design of the site. If the design of the site is horrible and boring, it is likely that the creators did not spend their energy, which appropriately means that they are only interested in arriving to then disappear in an unknown direction. I also adhere to the position of always checking team members on social networks. Do the data have any relation to the project at all? I also never pay attention to projects from Russia, but this is probably an erroneous opinion and not all so bad. But the main thing I think is that you need to carefully read the white paper, analyze to understand that it is necessary for the world. If the project does not have white paper, then I immediately leave such projects. I also want to note that you should not pay attention when the project is advertised by a well-known person, it has no value for investors. In any case, this is my opinion, which I adhere to.

[ahtsham90]

very helpful post. thank you for sharing yes nowadays its very common to recognize the fake and legit projects many projects are using fake photos to scam our hard earn money

[CuapCuap]

Additional:
You can see the ICO SCAM list at https://icoethics.com

[Rrita]

 great post. I have bookmarked this post link. I hope this thread would be helpful for all of the people. you are doing great, I hope with the help of this post people can detect scam project.

[zlatazema]

There are really a lot of scammers now!
You can also search for members of the project team on social networks, usually they attach Linkedin links.
Maybe they can be contacted and asked more about the project.

[opg777]

I thought a little about your idea at a leisure with a list of fraudulent ico, and thought about the fact that the problem lurks a little deeper, to make a list of projects of moshicheskih not enough. It is necessary to know the leaders and founders of projects in person, names, surnames, any data. I mean, today a man created a fraudulent ico, you put it on the list. Tomorrow this person will create one more, believe him not to be difficult to do it every day. And you will simply have an endless list of projects in which you should not take part. That's the problem. In addition, a solution such as a list with project proxies is also not the best, most likely that person will just change the name and surname on the network, and in the meantime we will not be able to find out who actually on the other side of the screen sells our  futile coins to anyone will not be needed. But since we started, we are all interested in the fight against fraudsters, my proposal is to compile a list of names and surnames or any other people who create such ico. Perhaps in some cases we can help people and themselves.

[godrain]

There are really a lot of scammers now!
You can also search for members of the project team on social networks, usually they attach Linkedin links.
Maybe they can be contacted and asked more about the project.

Yes! Don't be shy and contact members of the project!(especially if you want invest own money in the project)

[brooklynian]

Thanks for sharing this. For me to invest my money in any project, I always like to see the team making presentations in the majority of reputable conferences across the world. This gives a sense that the team members are well known and that the project is realistic. 

[santosmichael]

...
How much money the project has raised
There was one case when team wrote that they collected $30 million, but smart contract was called only 10 times, and besides the developers, only 10 ethereum addresses had these tokens worth less than $ 2,000.

You can check how many tokens were sold, so how much they collected money.
Useful web site for this -> https://bloxy.info. Just write the name of the token and you will see all the information about this tokens. How many transactions with this tokens, holders. How many times the smart contract of this token was called. This information will help to determine how much the project has raised at least some funds.
Also you can do it direct on https://etherscan.io/tokens
...

The info above very interesting, nice share, thank you
Maybe in addition too
roadmap and dev activity (more activ is better)

[pwchan001]

Thank you for the advice, it is very useful especially in these days where so many so-called developers run away with donations / investments from their supporters. Hope this can help newcomers identify scams and stay away from those projects.

[adiouqiue91821]

Too bored, now phishing everywhere and seem to list phishing increasingly long. The advice I give is to always keep ahead in mind before the information on the screen. What are you visiting? Is the malicious web page that the antivirus program detects?

[Insanerman]

It is not just about having fake teams, sometimes we can say that an ICO is a scam project when there is no showcasing of their team behind their promising project. The perfect example of this ICO is Hexcash, you can also visit their website.

Secondly, misspelled word/ phrases inside the whitepaper can be considered also as a sign of potential scam project or ICO. That is why I am impressed by those people who are giving enough time to read the entire whitepaper. It may give you some advantage when deciding in participating ICO as well as their bounties.

[DeluxeJR]

very nice post and very helpful in order I wont get scammed. I am afraid of that as there is a raise in scam projects lately.

[Amarantcoral]

I think if they tell you to give money to them and offer a high profit in a short time then definitely scam.

[MelissaPhillips733]

Currently, several online services have been created to detect fraudulent websites and services. Badbitcoin.org is an example. This is considered a trusted site, which provides a full list of fraudulent or verified frauds. Take advantage of such tools to minimize the risk of fraud.

[Retty]

The scammers are getting sneakier everyday with new methods and ways to try and rip people off.

I just think we should all use our common sense and be vigilant. If need be, ask other people's opinion on something you suspect may be a scam or if there is something not quite right about it.

Well done to the OP for taking the time to make a post which is definitely helpful to newbies on here.

[Hareehs]

This was very informative and helpful thread indeed. Just keep spreading quality post like this, really helps a lot.  Thanks 😊

[maytinhvinh]

Very useful advices! Thank you! We have to be very careful!