How to know if the project is fake?

[Nesbee2]

 Although for a well planned fake project its difficult to detect but some of them are so fake that they will plagiarized website and whitepaper . I once saw a project whose developer copied and pasted another project word to word . that is one way of detecting a fake project.

Another one is faceless team or impersonation , when the team decide to be faceless be careful about such projects it's likely to  be fake.

[X-ray]

That's a good way to start. The first thing we should do is search about the team members and verify if they are really involved in the project. Most of the fake ICO uses fake names and create new linkedin Ids with those fake names. If you encounter no other reference of the member and just a number of social profile that seem to be made recently than they are surely scam.
You can also try calling the phone number and inquiry the person who picks it up to find how serious they are about the project.

They will also Plagiarised the whitepaper, and most likely it will be a newbies Account which they will go extra miles to buy (A Copper Member) they will use to create the thread on bitcointalk here.

To be able to post the picture and a new account needs to buy a copper member. In my opinion mostly scam projects were posting the fake team and anything that have already mentioned by scam projects were fake e.g like partnership, roadmap, idea, team and many more.

[Bezobraznike]

Although for a well planned fake project its difficult to detect but some of them are so fake that they will plagiarized website and whitepaper . I once saw a project whose developer copied and pasted another project word to word . that is one way of detecting a fake project.

Another one is faceless team or impersonation , when the team decide to be faceless be careful about such projects it's likely to  be fake.

   You are right Nesbee2, while some scams are well disguised, others are easy to notice. There's no some special formula for recognising the scam, except to check
the entire project, their team, and to follow every step they make. And in the case you
see something suspicious to investigate it and spread the word so others can investigate it as well, what you miss to see others will not.

[Dr.Osh]

Although for a well planned fake project its difficult to detect but some of them are so fake that they will plagiarized website and whitepaper . I once saw a project whose developer copied and pasted another project word to word . that is one way of detecting a fake project.

Another one is faceless team or impersonation , when the team decide to be faceless be careful about such projects it's likely to  be fake.

when a team or white paper becomes a problem, there will always be people who find the error. which is quite difficult to find is, when a project is scam when the sale has been completed. like BCNEX which is said to be a scam. however, no one expected that the project would scam when the project was running.

[Aqib Sarwar]

To identify the fake project we need to have an Idea of what is fake project and signs. Basically, fake project doesn't have real base headquarters and more of the time they are not going to give updates about their CEO, manager, dev, etc.

[404edson]

Many of us had been victimized of some ICO's that are just playing safe for the pre sale and crowd sale stage then suddenly run after they got the crowd fundings. Lesson learn for us to be more aware and put a deeper research about what you been doing because if you're too careless of everything you have, the time will come you will lost it all.

[Jannyh]

I have never tried Checking address before of any project, normally what I do is to check the team behind a project,check how active their social media handles are,also to know the people backing the project and the the project use case. with these being ascertain I can conclude the project will succeed.

[JHORN]

It's really not that easily to detect fake projects, there more you spend times in crypto space the better your eye gets opened more and more, some scammers are too cunning and hard to expose, not after they grab their aims completely, all you need is doing research but it can't be accurate 100%

[Aqib Sarwar]

There are several ways to know if a project is right.Among them you must first notice the website.You have to keep an eye on whether the roadmap is right there.Then you have to take care whether the picture of the team is right or not.Then they have to keep an eye on whether the white paper is right or not.There are also a number of things that can be done to see if the project is right

[Avirunes]

First easy of trick is to always check what project is developing and how well they have described about their project. There are lot of projects who doesn't write straightforward and just add some keywords and stuff to make it look like legit and professional but it isn't . Secondly always check for if the whitepapaer is plagiarized or not. Check their team as well , like if they are legit. There are lot of ways but I think these three are the crucial ones.

[carriebee]

Actually I never check it's address what I do was checking in what's their mission to improve and develop their project. It is very important to always check their development since these days there are many scam. Good at first providing the needs of the investors but in the end they are there to collect money so a lesson learned in this crypto industry.

[ohyeahhaha122]

It is difficult to identify a fake project, but it is better to just join ieo on reputable exchanges because they have verified for you, and certainly when you invest, you will gain profits such as binance, okex , ...

[Akash Crypto]

Check the identity and legality of the project, also the identities of the team members. These are the main factors to analyze in order to avoid fake projects. Also, we can learn its whitepaper and social media.Lots of red flags are always there. One they won't be transparent with team members information, their whitepaper is always plagiarised, their IEO or ICO is always held on shitty exchange lastly they don't have any legit project investors or partnerships.

[southerngentuk]

It is difficult to identify a fake project, but it is better to just join ieo on reputable exchanges because they have verified for you, and certainly when you invest, you will gain profits such as binance, okex , ...

Okex is not really safe, recently they browsed a scam project. But it was quickly discovered and they were removed from the exchange. Be careful when joining IEO in this exchange because I don't see any really good project

[Akoldi_ibk]

There is no fit it all method to identify a fake project. The process involves series of factors which is centered on adequate research on every subject of the project, leaving nothing unattended to. Key points and useful tips had been highlighted on this thread. No need going over the same points. However, it is very important to know that these scammers get smarter every day and easily come up with new scamming method.

[CryptoDost]

Very interesting to know that. I haven't thought about checking the location of the project to verify whether the project is real or fake. While I only check WP and verify whether the WP project is plagiarism or not

[The cure]

We're the same actually, I don't even give time to check their location if it's real or just wasting our time and effort.Anyway thank you for reminding us.

[Poppy_ALTStrader]

We're the same actually, I don't even give time to check their location if it's real or just wasting our time and effort.Anyway thank you for reminding us.

Sometimes the location which is mentioned on the info of the project -fake. So I think it's just a way that someone can make money, just start new projects

[TimeTeller]

We're the same actually, I don't even give time to check their location if it's real or just wasting our time and effort.Anyway thank you for reminding us.

Sometimes the location which is mentioned on the info of the project -fake. So I think it's just a way that someone can make money, just start new projects

That's the power of google earth/google map.
If you are lucky, you will get the recent street view of the place.
And you will verify if the place is existent or not, especially if they are saying that they will develop a real estate project or similar properties.
But sometimes, if it is an office building, hard to say, if they have office inside.
One thing though, is to contact the number shown in their contacts, if you want to go in that extent of surveillance.

[bbcolex]

Fake project is really frustrating if you're one of the victim especially for investors and bounty hunters.
I had read an interesting way to make sure the project is real. You can identify the project is fake by it's address of the company who is running IEO/ICO. Fake project would be indentify with this way because they put fake location. You can check it with google maps to verify if it's real.

So how do you indentify if the project is fake?

You really need to be vigilant and do due diligence, some of the fake project I've encountered even deceived us investors that they own an energy plant, they video their selves posing they own the plant, in the end the real owner of the said plant denied any connection to the company who scammed us. You really cant tell, if its too good to be true then maybe its scam.