Scam project - Isikc.io ISIKLAR COIN[SCAM]

[Rohan Kotkar]

This is my first time finding out a scam project. Please do let me know if i missed something.

What happened:: Fake Team, Plagarized Whitepaper, Recently created website using themeforest template and mentioning partners without even knowing them. (Basically, they were inspired and copied useful information such as logo, etc from their so-mentioned partners.)

Scammers Profile Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2734195

Website: https://www.isikc.io/
Archive: http://archive.md/QnOhp
ANN thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5210369.0
Archive: http://archive.md/dkmwF

Fake Team

What happened:
Firstly, they didn't even bother to mention images of their team members. By digging each of their team members details on LinkedIn i found out that only one of them(Hale Demirman) who is their legal advisor is actually related to their project but only has 12 connections which basically is a dummy profile. I can't search alternate image of that profile so it would be great if any one of you can dig out about her if she is real. Rest all of the team members have no actual connection with their project.

Links to LinkedIn profiles of the team:
Nikolay Momchilov (CEO): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikolay-momchilov-90442830 (Has no relation)
Yaman Parar (CFO): https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaman-parar-596439 (Has no relation)
Volkan Girisken(CBDO): https://www.linkedin.com/in/volkan-girisken-3100a012 (Has no relation)
Hale Demirman(Legal advisor): https://www.linkedin.com/in/hale-salgirboyu-demirman-946a0691 (Fake profile)

Plagarized Whitepaper

What happened: Most of the Whitepaper is Plagarized. (Mentioned few sources below)
Whitepaper: https://www.isikc.io/assets/wpen.pdf
Archive: http://archive.is/7MyVK (I tried to archive it but perhaps it isn't working. Can anyone help me on this?)

From their Whitepaper Page 3 and 4

2. ISIKC Mission - Customer Loyalty Programs Need an Upgrade
In commerce , it is usually quick and easy for a consumer to sign up for a retailer’s loyalty program. But how many of your customers are actually becoming a loyal advocate to the brand?

Traditional loyalty programs suffer from the following issues that we believe that we ISIKC can solve.

2. 1. Low redemption rates.
Perhaps because of the large number of loyalty programs in the market, it’s easy for them to get lost in the shuffle, and points go unredeemed. Surveys show that the average American is a member of 7 loyalty programs, and 30% of American consumers never redeem a single point. Until those points expire (if they ever do), they just sit there as a liability on a brand’s bottom line, having failed at earning repeat business.

2.2. High costs.
Large stores and successful ecommerce shops often pay high prices to setup and maintain their third-party integrations or custom solutions for customer loyalty programs. Whether they are making adjustments to an existing app or building their own from scratch, developer  4 and maintenance fees can range from $2K – $15K a month for an enterprise-level solution. Understandably, if you are not seeing a strong ROI from reward program costs, it’s not worth it to keep the program.

2.3. Few customer incentives.
Today’s loyalty programs tend to favor the company providing them, instead of the consumer. For example, customers are forced to make purchases they don’t need in order to reap the rewards. Research also indicates that 33% of millennial consumers dislike reward programs simply because there are too many cards to carry. If your loyalty program isn’t fostering a positive relationship with your consumers, what’s the point of it?

2.4. Security concerns.
Some consumers may be wary of data breaches and the security of the information they give out when joining a loyalty program. A Harris Poll found that 71% of consumers were less likely to join a loyalty program that collected personal information beyond just name and phone number. They are right to have some concerns. In 2017, 11% of attacks on financial accounts were specifically on loyalty accounts, an amount that had risen from 4% the year before.

Original source: https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/customer-loyalty-blockchain/#customer-loyalty-programs-need-an-upgrade

Customer Loyalty Programs Need an Upgrade
In ecommerce, it is usually quick and easy for a consumer to sign up for a retailer’s loyalty program. But how many of your customers are actually becoming a loyal advocate to the brand?

Traditional loyalty programs suffer from the following issues.

1. Low redemption rates.
Perhaps because of the large number of loyalty programs in the market, it’s easy for them to get lost in the shuffle, and points go unredeemed. Surveys show that the average American is a member of 7 loyalty programs, and 30% of American consumers never redeem a single point. Until those points expire (if they ever do), they just sit there as a liability on a brand’s bottom line, having failed at earning repeat business.

2. High costs.
Large stores and successful ecommerce shops often pay high prices to setup and maintain their third-party integrations or custom solutions for customer loyalty programs. Whether they are making adjustments to an existing app or building their own from scratch, developer and maintenance fees can range from $2K – $15K a month for an enterprise-level solution. Understandably, if you are not seeing a strong ROI from reward program costs, it’s not worth it to keep the program.

3. Few customer incentives.
Today’s loyalty programs tend to favor the company providing them, instead of the consumer. For example, customers are forced to make purchases they don’t need in order to reap the rewards.

Research also indicates that 33% of millennial consumers dislike reward programs simply because there are too many cards to carry. If your loyalty program isn’t fostering a positive relationship with your consumers, what’s the point of it?

4. Security concerns.
Some consumers may be wary of data breaches and the security of the information they give out when joining a loyalty program. A Harris Poll found that 71% of consumers were less likely to join a loyalty program that collected personal information beyond just name and phone number. They are right to have some concerns. In 2017, 11% of attacks on financial accounts were specifically on loyalty accounts, an amount that had risen from 4% the year before.

60% of their whitepaper is plagarized. Not mentioning each of them.
Some of the original sources from where they copied the content:
10% : https://crypto.com/chain_whitepaper_en
10% : https://medium.com/@mynrh76/you-must-obtain-all-necessary-professional-advice-82682bec124c
4% : https://www.advfn.com/stock-market/NYSE/CPE/stock-news/79239835/callon-petroleum-company-provides-2019-outlook-and
4% : https://www.linguee.ru/%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B9%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9-%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9/%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B4/does+not+intend+to+update+these+forward-looking+statements.html
4% : https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nadl-chapter-11-plan-effective-181201333.html

Website details

What happened: They created their website on 2019-10-16 which is few months ago. Also the domain is registered for a year which is the minimum while purchasing the domain and only fake/ponzi projects do so.

source: https://who.is/whois/isikc.io

Code:

Domain Name: isikc.io
Registry Domain ID: D503300001182008714-LRMS
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Updated Date: 2019-10-16T10:49:38Z
Creation Date: 2019-10-16T10:49:37Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2020-10-16T10:49:37Z
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registrar IANA ID: 146

Another most important factor: They are using cheap themeforest theme as their website. Isn't this really cheap? Using a 12$ theme for such a huge project? They can't even afford hiring a web developer to develop a unique website. (it was hard finding this theme )

Website: https://www.isikc.io/
Archive: http://archive.md/QnOhp

How i found it?: I digged their website source code and from their stylesheet i found this

Code:

/*!
 * Theme Name: ICOCrypto
 * Author: Softnio
 * Author URI: http://themeforest.net/user/softnio
 * Version	 :	1.8.0
 * Updated	 :	10.21.2019
**/
/**

This is where they bought their theme: https://themeforest.net/item/ico-crypto-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrency-landing-page/21352715?s_rank=6
Check out this image: https://s3.envato.com/files/258387972/08_home_jasmine.jpg

Using fake partners

What happened: They are using fake partners on their website. What i think is that they were motivated to launch this fake project from their partners and mostly copied important phenomenons like logo, etc from their partners itself. If they were really supported by their partners then why didn't any of their partner mention about them on their platforms?

Them mentioning their partners:


None of the partners mentioning them: (click on the image for source)

[Rohan Kotkar]

Is my accusation wrong or misleading? Because i could see no response and also the project is yet running. Won't it cause harm to the peoples joining the project? Might be they even invest in the project without actually knowing the accusations.
I even sent a message to the ICObench in order to delist them from there but perhaps my accusations aren't strong enough to be considered.

In this case, do i need to dig more? These kind of projects seriously harm the community as Investors loose their faith from ICO projects only because these kind of scam projects ruin their capital.

[Rohan Kotkar]

Are my allegations wrong which can't prove that the project is Scam??

[tmfp]

This is my first time finding out a scam project. Please do let me know if i missed something.

Looks fairly comprehensive to me.

Are my allegations wrong which can't prove that the project is Scam??

Trying to "prove" something is understandable newbie enthusiasm, but simply presenting your research and information then letting the reader make up his mind is the preferred approach imo. There is no need to yell "Scam" repeatedly, the research should speak for itself.

You have also posted in their [ANN] thread, which is good and gives them the opportunity to reply, as well as speaking directly to potential investors who may not read Scam Accusations..
My goal when I post a Scam Accusation is the widest possible exposure for my findings, both on forum and in Google keyword search.

Have a merit for your effort.

[Rohan Kotkar]

This is my first time finding out a scam project. Please do let me know if i missed something.

Looks fairly comprehensive to me.

Are my allegations wrong which can't prove that the project is Scam??

Trying to "prove" something is understandable newbie enthusiasm, but simply presenting your research and information then letting the reader make up his mind is the preferred approach imo. There is no need to yell "Scam" repeatedly, the research should speak for itself.

You have also posted in their [ANN] thread, which is good and gives them the opportunity to reply, as well as speaking directly to potential investors who may not read Scam Accusations..
My goal when I post a Scam Accusation is the widest possible exposure for my findings, both on forum and in Google keyword search.

Have a merit for your effort.

Thankyou for your kind words. I was scrolling some [ANN] threads and found some scam projects. Those really are messed up and spoil reputation of the ICO/IEO Industry which made me dig about some of those and expose those to keep the markets clean.

This was basically my first try and hence, I found some complications which made me ask for opinions here whether I missed any major step, or which things should I consider,etc.

The main reason for me to post in their [ANN] was to make their potential investors aware about the project background which I guess was successful. I would try to create more informative threads henceforth and would also try and follow each of your suggestion.

[JeromeTash]

Good Job carrying out the findings OP. I am going to leave a tag on their profile. Having a fake team and plagiarized white paper should be more than enough to justify that the architects of the project are with no good intent other than just after scamming people.

Supported the  newbie flag you created against them too.

[d.kevin29]

I am not affiliated in any way with the Isiklar Coin team or anything Isiklar-related. I do not support, nor am I against them. My position is neutral so far due to the lack of my Turkish language knowledge.
Please keep in mind I've done this research while I was very, very tired. Don't mind any mistake or nonsense, please. I will try to pay as much attention as possible to the writing of this post.

After a reverse image search, I couldn't find the picture Hale Demirman has on LinkedIn anywhere else but there and on cryptoknownmics.
I took every name from the alleged members of the Isiklar Coin team and below you have what I found so far. A big issue about my research is that most websites are in Turkish and even Google Translate wouldn't translate the text well enough to English for me.. I also cannot verify the legitimacy of the websites I found.. but anyways, maybe this will help:


Volkan Girisken:

Pictures of him, his name and the company name "Işıklar" all appear on the following two articles:

• https://www.ekonomist.com.tr/aysegul-sakarya-pehlivan/grubun-basina-gecti.html
• https://www.enerjigunlugu.net/volkan-girisken-isiklar-holding-grup-ceosu-olarak-atandi-33200h.htm
• https://www.dunya.com/gundem/isiklar-ambalaj039in-yeni-genel-muduru-volkan-girisken-oldu-haberi-144084

He seems to be part of Isiklar Holding. This company is also on Google Maps. I've done a quick lookup on Street View but couldn't find a prominent logo on the street it sent me to, but that was a very quick lookup. Maybe someone else finds it.

The company is also present on Bloomberg. The location of the company is shown on Bloomberg as being in Istanbul (LinkedIn shows the same location of the company too). The Google Maps result shows a location very close to Istanbul.

Here is an article mentioning the following statement: "Volkan Girisken was appointed as the CEO of Isiklar Holding.". Here goes another article mentioning the same statement.

Here is an article from 2014 mentioning him.

Isiklar Holding has a page on their own main website where he is present.

The research about Volkan will stop here at the moment. So far to me he seems to be linked to Isiklar Holding.


Yaman Parar:

On his LinkedIn profile I could find that Volkan endorsed him.

Except this, I couldn't find any other information for now about him. He is, however, linked with Volkan one way or another (remember I have never used LinkedIn before so I'm not sure how accurate and legit this information is).


Nikolay Momchilov:

I found his name on this recent article about Isiklar Coin. In the second paragraph of the article, they mention Isiklar Holding: "Isiklar Holding company has started a new venture namely, Isiklar Coin."

Here I found an article about the creation of the company Işıklar Coin Bulgaria EOOD in Bulgaria. If the crappy Google Translate did a job decent enough for me to understand the article correctly, it says that Nikolay was brought to Isiklar Holding in order to create a Bulgarian company.

Bulgaria is known as the most dangerous country in the EU according to a 2017 study, and I think it's a pretty fishy country choice for this coin.


Hale Demirman:

This is a blog post from 2012 where I could find both her full name and "Isiklar Holding". Google translated the phrase where she was mentioned for me in English as following: "1-In the voting, it was unanimously decided to elect Sebahattin Levent Demirer to the Presidency of the Court, Hale Salgırboyu Demirman to be the Vote Collector"

I have no idea if this PDF will come in any help, but I believe her signature is present at the bottom of the last page (Hale S[...] is legible imo).


My research will stop here for now. The team seems to be linked to Isiklar Holding if I did not miss anything in what I have written above.
If they are linked to Isiklar Holding, I do not see why it would be sketchy for Isiklar Holding not to promote the coin on their main website.
Now I don't know what you think, but I don't see buying a cheap ThemeForest design for a website fishy at all. Why bother spending thousands on a website when you can do it for under a hundred?

[d.kevin29]

Users are contacting me with links to Turkish threads, telling me to read the posts and check myself it is a scam. I wanted to do a little research but it's very limited because I know 0% Turkish.

As I mentioned in my post, I am not affiliated with Isiklar Coin or any of the Isiklar companies, nor do I support them. I only checked whether the team members are affiliated with the project or not, and I think my last post proves there is a link between the team members, but I cannot prove more than that. I only investigated the alleged fake team as far as I could.

I cannot call a scam something I have no idea about. Just thought my little research would ease the job of proving whether it truly is a scam or not.