Can you spot a Work from Home Scam?

Can you Spot a Work from Home Scam?

Work from home opportunity scams have been around for decades. I remember seeing these ads on telephone poles as well as the local newspapers in the 80’s. But today, scammers have become way more sophisticated, they hide behind domain names and e-mail addresses to scam unsuspecting moms who are looking for ways to make money from home.

Here are some of the opportunities that you might want to stay away from:

1. Craft assembly. Two ways this is done. 1) You are asked to pay for a kit, you send your money and you get a list of “companies” that are looking for people to assemble products for them. These companies are bogus and don’t exist. 2) They asked you to send your money for a kit. They then send you products to assemble but once you send them the finish product – they will reject it because “it’s not done according to their standards”. It’s unlikely that you will produce products that are good enough for them. Either way, you are stuck with it. Think about it, what company would spend money for labour and shipping to get something done without knowing who these people are? It is not cost effective business wise.
2. Stuffing envelopes. You send your money and they send you an ad to place online or newspaper and do exactly what they’ve done – scam others to respond to the ad. This is illegal.
3. Typing at home/order processing/get paid to read e-mail: All of these are scams and they require you to pay a fee to get the job or job lead. NEVER pay for any job. Here’s a sample ad "Application/Order Processor Position (WORK FROM HOME)
   
   Work from home opportunity. Application/Order Processor Position allows you to Work full-time or part-time hours to earn an e xtra income (pay based on per-completion basis)" As you can see, it is difficult to tell if this is scam or legit - I’ve check them myself. I got this one from www.kijiji.ca but you may find these ads on "jobsites".
4. Homeworkers Wanted! Or Turn your computer into money making machine! Same concept as above, different ad.

Others offers such as doing survey and mystery shopping jobs are legitimate but now the scammers are using them to promote their scams – so be wary. Research well, and make sure you don’t pay anything to be given the jobs. Keep in mind as well that doing online survey and mystery shopping is not going to make you tons of money. It might give you a few dollars but not enough to compensate the time you spend doing the job.

What makes it difficult to find legitimate opportunity is the fact that many legitimate WAHM (work at home mom) sites that offers "tips" and even write articles on spotting scams yet advertise these scams on their site. So do due diligence and use common sense - know the difference between an ad and an article.

Helpful Resources:

IworkathomeCenter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpUMWZsIH0g&feature=related

http://www.bbbmanitoba.ca/cgi-bin/reliability.pl?BID=12681

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/bizopps/coninfo.html

From my experience, the only way to make real money online is to create an online business. Check our other articles to get tips on how to start your own business.