1. Fake/Non-existent team
It is an increasingly common trend for scammers to invent fake founders and biographies for their projects, and stick it o their websites. Some don't bother at all. Having said this, some legit DeFi projects have anonymous team members. This point shouldn't be a deal breaker though.
One of the hallmarks of a scammy project is a hastily concocted whitepaper. Even with the Google Translate, the website, whitepaper and blogs are bloated with poor or elementary English.
This one is a no-brainer. From copied whitepaper content, blog news these guys copy content from successful projects and gleefully slam it on their whitepaper. Many times they are successful with this ruse.
I have made it a point of duty to always check if any DeFi project I associate with has an audit with a reputable and well-known firm. Audits simply mean if there actually is a real project and whether such tokens exist.
Final Thoughts
Never take my word as gospel. Some DeFi can still exit scam or rug pull even after fulfilling these conditions. Remember: ALWAYS DYOR