>> I've occasionally been asked by an investor to do DD on some inventor's idea. Whenever it's an obvious scam I turn down the job. If I tell the truth and say it's a scam, the "inventor" will sue me. If I lie and say the technology has promise, the investor will sue me when he loses his investment.
Wouldnt the non-confrontational approach here be to agree with everyone on a benchmark, build up the benchmark, and showcase results?
Probably. The problem is that scammers are very clever with demos e.g. there's always a battery hidden inside the free energy device and they won't let you take it apart. One can work around such obstacles with very carefully designed tests, but then the scammer makes up some excuse not to agree to those conditions so you have to go back and forth and it becomes so expensive to do the DD exercise that the investor cancels the project.
Some people might be able to make this kind of business work but I don't have the patience or the political skills for it.
A key part here is that your advice to your customer is confidential. They simply should not release it unless it is under your letter of non-reliance. That said, yes, scammers are - by far - the most aggressive (they know they're scammers, after all, and you are between them and their goal, which is to get funded, not to provide a product or a service) but it is up to your customers to hold the line there. Weak customers may end up being intimidated, that can be an issue.
Wouldnt the non-confrontational approach here be to agree with everyone on a benchmark, build up the benchmark, and showcase results?