I see the word "scam" being tossed around the internet a lot, and it can be quite frustrating to say the least. First off lets pull out a dictionary and define scam.
Scam
a dishonest scheme; a fraud
So in order for something to be a scam, dishonesty must have taken place. If you lose money on a website because you made a poor decision you were not scammed... I'll give an example.
I use the cloud mining site Eobot, and I hear every now and then someone calling it a scam. They purchased a product from eobot, say GHS 2.0, and when it was no longer profitable they were no longer mining with it. The smart people, myself included knew how to READ! I saw that GHS 2.0 was based on Antminer S5 ASIC miners, I knew difficulty was rising and made sure I had enough to exchange for my very own antminer S5. Those that didn't have enough to exchange got nothing when the cost to run the miner was more then the miner provided.
(Source)
Did this make eobot a scam? NO!!
It was clearly stated on the site what would happen, you were provided everything you needed to know to calculate when it would happen, so if you didn't take action you were DUMB!!! Not scammed, you were just stupid.. It's OK, we are all stupid every now and then... But that doesn't mean go around using the word "scam" incorrectly to everyone who will listen and look even more dumb... Or worse spread their incorrect information to others.
Why do people do it?
It's a natural reaction when you lose money to blame someone, besides yourself. Odds are they don't even realize they are doing it, because they didn't read the terms and conditions in the first place. They have no idea that everything happened the way it was intended to happen, and they just made a poor decision.
Telling these people the truth won't help!
I have tried time and time again, to point out the difference between being scammed and being stupid, the key difference is in one case you were provided with honest information and failed to act on it, and the other being the information was withheld with the intent of taking your money or possessions.
Why does this bother me so much?
Sitting somewhere in the autism spectrum makes it difficult to just let these things go. If I am trying to provide information to someone, then someone else joins the conversation saying "it's a scam", they had best be using the word scam correctly. If not well then I have to waste my time disproving your scam statement, with things like actual facts.
The difference between a bad investment and a scam!
Honesty.... That's the key difference, if they are honest about it THEY ARE NOT SCAMMING YOU! A scam can be a bad investment, but that DOES NOT MAKE ALL BAD INVESTMENTS SCAMS!
Let's show an example of a real scam. coinsforall.io is a zcash mining pool that was created when zcash went live. They got people to mine on their pool, but didnt pay anyone out. They sold all the zcash when it was up around 15 BTC, then bought the same amount back at less than one to eventually pay the miners. They never informed miners that there would be a delay before they got paid. They didn't inform miners that they sold their zcash for profit. THIS WAS A SCAM!
In conclusion, people gotta stop saying scam when they were not scammed, own up to their own decisions and admit yas just didn't read everything you should of.
READ EVERYTHING YOU CAN BEFORE YOU INVEST MONEY INTO ANYTHING....