one of the worst things in Crypto are ICOs. I hate when people tell you DYOR, the research shouldn't be to recognize scams. the idea is to know if you want to invest on an idea of a project.
One thing that is working now is for US ICOs that they need to comply with SEC regulations, so that way at least you can recognize that there's a team behind a project, that you can be sure that they don't have a way to runaway with the money.
2 projects that comply with SEC regulations are:
1.- Property Coin
2.- Blockmedx
and another good way of knowing that the ICOs are real is to go to the binance tool for ICOs they have a great system.
Even how hard you try to choose the best ICO there are times you fall into the scammers. As newbie it is really hard to distinguish the good ones. The evil disguised as an angel.