Well, yes they are some of this around ...
I think there are more of these kind of things. Which were not mentioned in a white paper.
There is so much not mentioned in the WP my friend, sooo much! ;) People should not be scare about it but they should learn that as a community we can do something about it. Steem is still 2 years old only, look what happens with BTC still after more than 5 years ;)
I think we need to give a bit of time and of course, a lot of education and learning.
You are right that it will probably take some time. And scammers can be found every where.
Question is if it will ever work near perfect? If not steemit will probably die in the end and get replaced by a similar platform that works even better.
For now I think this is one of the best and most fun ways to learn something about crypto.
You got the point! ;)