Usually developers may try to simplify or hype up their product on the announcement or website and detail the actual tech behind it on the whitepaper. However, if the whitepaper is full of buzzwords with no clear meaning, no actual tech is discussed and only high-level descriptions are given, then this is definitely a scam.

Whitepapers usually explain how the platform works both on the high-level and specifically. This often includes charts, calculations, simulations, specifications and so forth. If your project claims that it is building some sort of decentralized service or token with new features and actually provides no explanation of how it works specifically, then just close the document and walk away.

A perfect example of this is deClouds. An ICO that turned out to be a complete scam with no product whatsoever. Their whitepaper is full of nonsensical claims which fooled many less than tech-savvy users