Oh! Topic seems to become a bit confusing -
started like more about theft when people asking for pre-payment and just disappear
ended with scam ICOs
I expected to read more on the last one
Any "ICOs black-list" available???
That's because a lot of people are concerned with ICOs, theses times
I'm pretty sure there's a list somewhere, on the web. However, you shouldn't make your decisions over a single source of information, I advise you to make your own analysis of the ICO you're planning to invest in. Just get a look at the community besides it, who are they, why they joined in... Usually, theses are the prime indicators of an ICO's health. Try to get information on the creator: if they try to hide their identity at all costs, then it's obviously fishy.
No one can hide its identity, nowadays: even Satoshi Sakamoto's true identity has been discovered by the NSA, using only his public emails and posts on forums, so, there's no point to do this anymore.
Anyway, people creating ICOs should be proud of what they are doing, and who they are. That's a sigil of trustworthiness, he gives you all the necessary infos on him to sue him if it goes sideways, ahah
To get back to our discussion, yeah, lots of scammers. The thing is, scammers are just thieves connected to the internet, and thieves likes money. What this forum is about? Future's money. Of course they are drawn here, that's easy money !
However, it has been proved that you can trace bitcoin transactions from one person to another, using only the blockchain explorer. Some shady ad-schemes has been shat down thanks to that new kind of data analysis.
To put it in another way, if you really get scammed by a lot, you might be able to arrest the person who did this to you, by simply calling the police and explain what happened. (I hope your country allow bitcoins, though)