Few ways to reduce chance of being scam:

1.) Never send your money to anyone who PM via telegram
2.) Never join in ICO that based on hypes- advertisement on CMC and other crypto related website are the first projects to avoid, trust me it based on experience
3.) Identify good ICO by joining their community and see if its full of tech savvy guys or pure moon boys, moon boys will sell off after ICO and move to another projects, IAN B* is a big red flag if you ask me