Fake project is really frustrating if you're one of the victim especially for investors and bounty hunters.
I had read an interesting way to make sure the project is real. You can identify the project is fake by it's address of the company who is running IEO/ICO. Fake project would be indentify with this way because they put fake location. You can check it with google maps to verify if it's real.
So how do you indentify if the project is fake?
That's true, that's why we need to do some research first before joining. But sometimes we can't avoid to join a project which is promising and has a good start but sadly at the end of the campaign they didn't pay the hunters because project is failed.
Here is a helpful link to join a good campaign and avoid fake...
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5228629.0