If we talk about ICO, I have some tips: ask yourself a few question and make a right decision:
Is the website of a high quality?
Is the team for real?
Is the whitepaper professionally written?
Are the ICOs goals realistic?
Dont forget about the code
Unfortunately, that does not means give us guarantee that we can avoid the scam ICO. Because everything that you mentioned can deceive us and investors.
The best way to protect ourselves from scams is to stay away from ICO projects. May do Bounty or Airdrop to earn free tokens but shouldn't spend your capital to invest on them.
Of course, we should not be easily tempted by their offer and we have to do some research about the potential and the risk of the project.
Indeed the best thing is to keep learning and to improve your knowledge those who lose at trading are those who are lack of knowledge. To avoid the risk of scamming the first thing is not to trust blindly and keep yourself away from it. This is modren age that everything is easy to search on Google and YouTube so search and learn.