Sometimes I find myself being added to Telegram groups where they are doing bounty campaigns for new coins but at the end of the day, people will start complaining that the project is dead. In most cases I exited from the groups immediately I find myself there because I feel they are prone to defrauding people.
This makes me to wonder if bounties really pay.
It heavily depends on the bounty and the bounty manager (that's why bounties on bitcointalk are somewhat safer than the ones on Telegram).
Clearly there are many projects that don't intend to pay, hence only the ones with escrowed funds or reputable bounty managers worth any attention.
Then, no matter how good they pay, you bear a huge risk anyway because they most probably pay with their own coin/token which in most cases will never become valuable.
So yes, if you already have that feeling, flee as soon as you can and don't look back.
And as others said, in the vast majority of cases you'll do free advertising, since you'll end up with nothing or with nothing valuable.