Presales might contradict the ideology behind blockchain and crypto as a whole, but let's face it: Deals behind closed doors won't change at all as long as individual or institutional investors with big pockets can earn a fortune that way. Unless traditional markets, people in crypto seem to believe that they can take in very early stages of a project, which is true in most cases, but there are tons of other ways, to fool people.

Since there is no approach to standardise the understanding of ICO Investors, there will always be room for scams.

The only way you can minimize the risk is to dyor and to use several ico reviewers to get diversified opinions on the whole project. Being scared of private sales, isn't useful if you want to make money in this market.

You can use this free spreadsheet to search for ICO ratings by influencers and websites: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ja83ZCDDOgNXNYatD5w-2grA8IENuSwGjtSHWOG247E