What? You realize that to "come off as a trustworthy guy" is the first thing most scammers have to learn to do, right? Also, there are legions of trustworthy people that do not appear to be so and that only show their value when it is truly needed.

In other words, the only way to determine the real trustworthiness of somebody is to disregard any personal data and things that can be used to buy good will like "but he donates so much to the poor children" (Sorry starfish & wife, I am only pointing something that scammers can and tend to do) and instead pay attention to the hard and cold numbers, business models, market conditions, and results. 

Also, please realize that ponzi schemes not only benefit the scammer but also the people who manage to get in and then out at the right moment. Those people are also interested in making the ponzi run for as long as possible to maximize their own personal gain. Therefore, third party testimonials need to be disregarded too unless they come -again- with plenty of cold, hard numbers to back them up. And for the record "I invested X and got paid Y as advertized" is not good enough because that's precisely how (and why) ponzi schemes work.