People lie about having a startup all the time , or perhaps they incorporate somewhere but lie about having customers/products/employees - all those pesky ingre

People lie about having a startup all the time , or perhaps they incorporate somewhere but lie about having customers/products/employees - all those pesky ingredients necessary to actually have a business. I wouldn't exactly call that fraud in the "startup world", but rather fraud in the investment world, as the goal is to bilk investors. This type of fraud is very common whenever something reaches the public consciousness, but the swarm of conmen selling X doesn't have much to do with the real startup eco-system anymore than someone selling you a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge is a fraud in the bridge world.