6 Things I Learned Exposing the AIOS ICO FRAUD.
It was an interesting “adventure” yesterday as I exposed the All In One Social Network (AIOS) as an** ICO FRAUD** as detailed here.
I learned a few lessons I will share.
The Steemit Community Will Come Through.
I will admit I had my doubts. When I posted the initial post I did not realize the extent or the number of posts that were out there. I had seen a few. Last tally had over 40. However, it was an exciting day. I did get about 60 people upvoting my post. I managed to hold my own, the posts on Steemit promoting the ALL IN ONE SOCIAL NETWORK (AIOS) as a FRAUD have stopped. This is two days before the ICO so I think I can claim success.
Some Paid Promoters Thought it Was Legitimate
At first I thought the writers were all in on the scam. They were not. Some of them were being fooled too. When I offered proof, some of them turned around confronted the organizers with my proof in a public way.
A Little Truth Goes a Long Way
It only takes a small amount of light to defeat darkness. When I publically raised the flag on a bunch of posts and brought people to sound logical reasoning and to look at the facts themselves, the truth became apparent. It is really hard to defeat a fraudulent ICO. Now I know that most people don’t do the research. But it also took one easily provable false claim – in my case that the marketing head was not real but rather stock photography- to blow the top off this scam.
Always Act Professionally and Politely
While I habitually do this, I am aware of several attempts that saved my skin, in this exchange, that I did not learn about to later. I found my words quoted out of context to prove points. People looked at my words, attitudes and interactions in judging me. By politely and appropriately reacting; I won honest people to my side. So just keep your cool.
Scamming scammers might be a good business model
During this exchange, an accusation was made that I was blackmailing the scammers and would only take down the post if I paid 2 BTC to a bitcoin address. That thought never even occurred to me. Interestingly enough, that is about $8,000 to $10,000 USD. This is what the scammers thought was "an appropriate blackmail amount." They posted a faked screenshot of me in their forum demanding payment. Well. I didn’t do it. I didn’t even know about the forum until later. That said, it was a good lie. Morally, I object to blackmail. So I can’t do this. I also object to fraud. However, if someone else wants to do so -it might be a profitable business model. A military analyst once explained why at times a government does not get involved. They said, “What do you do when your enemy is fighting your enemy? …Sell them both guns! Let them destroy themselves.” It is possible that one of their own, who was fast thinking, attempted to blackmail them while impersonating me. If that was the case. Well I am impressed by your fast thinking. But needless to say, if the scammers start fighting the scammers, we would all be better off.
Flagging Works
Whenever you are looking at an ICO to invest in, look at all the comments –including flagged ones that are hidden. Also flag these frauds, as I did. When you flag a post several things happen. The post will be hidden. The pictures can be hidden, the comments can be hidden, money is not paid out on flagged content. In this case there are 40 posts out there I found. I flagged them, commented and linked them all back to my exposing post. That said the scammers down voted my exposing comments so many are now hidden.
Note: if some reputable individuals wants to go back and upvote these comments on all the posts it would be appreciated. It would make the comments visible again. I don't want money paid out or other misled.
Also some of these scam posts promoting AIOS still have a payout – in some cases as high as $70 because they were not flagged by a person with high enough reputation. Flagging the posts can stop the payout.
If enough people flag these STEEMIT payouts will not be made to the scammers.
Anyway thank you to everyone who stood up with me against this scam. Thanks for exposing people. I hope we have stopped lots of people from losing their money.
Follow up:
I am not quite sure how to monitor this ICO. Since most of this stuff is blockchain, and open I would also like it if someone could direct me how to see how much money they raise. I would speculate they have promoted this ICO in other places as well.
Thanks Everyone!