I keep hearing about these bots in the Poloniex trollbox, seems it's something that is worth checking out more closely.

How much did you pay to purchase the lending bot?

I'm not comfortable in letting them access my account. How does the lending bot access your account? Do you need to keep you Polo account logged in?

untouchable - Since you PMed me, thought I'd reply here for the benefit of those who might have the same questions.

Disclaimer: I am not interested in Tezos and will not be funding for their ICO.
The below post assumes that you have some experience dealing with Bitcoin/Ethereum/altcoins.
It depends. Most accept Bitcoin/Ethereum, some accept altcoin/fiat. You'll need to check out their page or read/ask on one of their communication channels (usually Slack/Telegram).
ICOs are a nice way to gain quick funding to launch innovations, not dissimilar to Kickstarter/Indiegogo. From an investment perspective, it is extremely risky - Just like how products on Kickstarter/Indiegogo may fail to be delivered on time/entirely fail. This space is unregulated at this time (and there are debates on both sides whether to this should be regulated), so be aware of the risks.

Study the whitepaper, the community, the developers. Know as much as possible about the project, and better still if you are actually familiar with it (so to see weak spots unaddressed via the whitepaper/by the devs). Invest only if you are comfortable, do not consider returns, and think of this as donations to young, brilliant minds to start up something which could potentially change the world for the better. That said, ICOs had historically seen decent returns, as this market is highly speculative.

ICOs do not necessarily guarantee portfolio returns - e.g. - The scenario where ether increased in price so much that the price of the tokens released by ICOs do not catch up. In that case it would just be better to hold ether for that duration.
Personally I allocate only a small portion of my cryptocurrencies in ICOs, and only put money into projects I personally am interested in.