It really is hard to believe that there are some ICOs who are intended to scam people. There are all hypocrits and rely on the weakness of people especially those who are new to bitcoin. So sad.
And that is the more reason why potential investors most be on the look out for these scam projects that has nothing to offer than cart away with innocent contributor's funds. No matter the number of years one has been involved in crypto business, one can still fall victims of these scam projects because they will surely come in form of a real project.
This is true. The best scam projects look good and feel right at the beginning, some can keep up the facade for months and months (think LightPay / Logis coin). The "cheap" scam projects are usually easy to spot. Flashy graphics with little to no substance, no real plan other than "large profits for early adopters". Often they throw in a lot of catchy words. For example, right now, DEX is a popular catchword, so that will be thrown into the imaginary roadmap.
The best thing to do is ask, "does this SMELL fishy? does it LOOK fishy?"
Then ask what makes this project different from all the other projects being released right now.