Avoiding Work At Home (Home Business) And Internet Scams - Part I

Let's say you drive for an hour to work during peak traffic hours. At work nobody appreciates your work. Still you have get up 5.30 AM in the morning. It is tempting to fall into the trap of Home Business scams. These scammers say exactly what you want to hear! Easy money, make six figure income easily, fire your boss, be your own boss, perfect home business opportunity etc. are the catch phrases. This is very tempting. The reason you're interested in setting up a home business is because you've seen an ad somewhere, or you've been approached by someone. It was all about a great home-business-opportunity that promised you absolute freedom and you're excited. Finally, you can quit your job! Don't quit a job until you are actually making enough money to replace your income from your job. If you're thinking of working from home under someone, though, you have to realize that at least 99% of the offers out there are scams - after all, if it was that easy to pay a few dollars and make thousands, why wouldn't everyone be doing it by now? If something is too good to be true then it is. Here are the biggest scams out there, how to recognize them, and how to avoid them. Where did you see the Work from Home Ad? Where did you see that work from home offer? If you got it in the post, or by spam email, or saw it on a poster taped around a telephone pole, then I can guarantee you right now that it's not a legitimate offer. If you saw the ad in a newspaper, in a jobs magazine or on a jobs website, then it's a little more likely to be legit - but not much. Always check out any offer, and assume it's a scam until you have iron-clad proof to the contrary. Check the company with Better Business Bureu. Check on the person who is offering the business opportunity. Envelope Stuffing. This is the most established work-from-home scam, and it's been going for decades now. Basically, once you pay your money and sign up to work from home, you're sent a set of envelopes and ads just like the one you responded to. You might make some money if someone responds to your ad, but eventually there just won't be a market for it any more. Anyway, Work from Home offers like these are illegal pyramid schemes. You are never going to make any money putting letters in envelopes - forget about it. It takes less than 5 seconds to stuff a letter in an envelop. Why would someone pay $2 - $5 to you for doing this? Don't you think there would be enough people doing this already if it were so easy? Why would people go to schools and colleges? They could just start stuffing envelops right at the age of 10 and make a lot of money. The best thing to do is to ignore such offers. Charging for Training Material/ Supplies etc. The practice of charging for training material/ supplies is hard to pin down to any one scam - it's the way almost all work-at-home scams work (including the envelope stuffing). You'll be asked to make a small 'investment' for whatever training materials (books, video/ audio tapes, CDs etc) would be needed to do the work - and then you'll be sent some materials that aren't worth anything like what you paid, and you'll find that there's no market for the work anyway. They would say things like your investment will returned when you receive your first check. It doesn't look like you are going to make money on this and that's why they are trying to make money from you by selling the training material. If any home business opportunity asks for money upfront - just go away. A legitimate company should be willing to deduct any 'fees' from your first pay check instead of asking for money upfront - if they won't do that for you, then that's because they don't ever plan to pay you. Why do they say things like your investment will returned to you as soon as you make your first $200? Think about it. Working for Free. This type of scam is common with crafts. You might be asked to work at home making clothes, ornaments, jewelry or toys and games. Everything seems OK and legitimate - you've got the materials without paying out any money, and you're doing the work. Unfortunately for you, when you send the work back, the company will tell you that it didn't meet their quality standards, and will refuse to pay you. Then they'll sell on what you made at a profit, and move on to trap the next person. Never do craft work from home unless you're selling the items yourself. Note that you don't need to be selling to consumers (you could be selling to wholesalers), but you still need to be the one deciding what you make and getting the money. There is more about Home business and internet scams in Part II.