ICOBench Adviser Douglas Lyons:asking 3 ETH for fake rating.

[Patatas]

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.

[ICOEthics]

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

[morvillz7z]

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.

[olegraran]

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.

[ICOEthics]

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.

[ICOEthics]

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.

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

[morvillz7z]

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.

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.

[olegraran]

(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

[ICOEthics]

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.

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

LOL, yes I think that is what happened.

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.

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.

[CoinClarity]

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.

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!

[ICObench]

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!

[ICOEthics]

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.



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

[ICOEthics]

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

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

[th3nolo]

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.



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

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.

[ICOEthics]

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.

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!

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

[olegraran]

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.

[wwzsocki]

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!

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.

[tmfp]

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 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" 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?

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!

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?

[ICOEthics]

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.

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.

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



OUR response



Their final message

[IconFirm]

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.

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.