How to Spot a Scam ICO

ICOs are all the rage. Free money for everyone! You get money, you get money you get money... WE ALL GET MONEY!!! YAY! Right? Oh... only the ICO team gets money--your money. Then they disappear, their ICO token never exists and your money is gone. Since most ICOs are scams, the SEC is cracking down on them hard and in this rare instance, I think this government regulation is a good thing. The SEC is trying to protect potential victims from what are, in most cases, scams. I will do the same here.

Ok, so you want to invest in an ICO. I guess you have a lot of money to burn. You could send it to me instead... But if you really want to invest in the ICO, vet it first. Go to the ICO web site, and click on the "Team" link. Pick a person's picture, and right click / open in a new tab. Open another new browser window (not a tab, a window) and drag it off to the side. Go to https://images.google.com in the new browser window. Drag the photo that you opened a new tab into the google image search. See if this person is who they say they are. If not... you have almost certainly found a scam ICO.

Prime example: Dinero Coin is a real coin, there was no ICO. Totally legit, and up-an-coming. Check it out at https://www.dinerocoin.org. Now... put your seat belt on and go to https://dinerocoin.io, and click on "Team". You'll see this guy, supposedly Wagner Berger.

Then use the method above... and we find out that Mr. Berger the programmer is a fiction. Fake Linked In profile and everything. The man in the photo is actually Maik Timmermann, the musician.

You'll also note in the case of the fake dinero coin ICO scam, they have no product, no ERC20 token, no blockchain, and they are merely soliciting donations to BTC and ETH addresses. This is another clear sign that it's a scam. Try this with the rest of the photos there, or on any scam ICO site, it's fun to see how stupid people think you are! I found one that used a picture of Karl Rove... Seriously?!

Hope this helps you protect the money that's burning a hole in your pocket.