Five (5) Home Based Business Scams You Should Avoid At All Costs!

It's most certain that money can be made on the internet by anyone in receipt of the right guidance. Unfortunately, this right "guidance" is a commodity that is rare to find and if found does not come cheap.

Some probably learnt the hard way but as more and more people come online, we write these experiences down, hoping that they don't go through the same things.

Here are FIVE of some of the home based business SCAMS we came across:

1. Paid To Read Emails

Promising that you'll get paid for doing what you normally do, these companies send you adverts obviously placed by other website or business owners who have paid for their adverts or websites to be shown.

For each email that you read, you get credited a certain amount (usually cents rather than dollars). Some pay as little as a miserable $0.05 (YES you got it - 5 cents!). And it doesn't end there! After assiduously opening emails for a month (or having reached $25) - which is when most pay - you may find your reward not coming as easily as you opened those emails.

In fact, during our research, the website of one of the "better" companies we found (they were paying $0.30 for solo emails) had a notice from the web hosts saying their account needed to be settled, just when we had put an application in to be paid. As you can imagine we never got our money.

Frankly all the tedious work could have been better employed starting another website.

2. Envelope Stuffing

Now I wish I could say that this is the stuff of legends, but unfortunately it's no myth. It works like this - you see an advert promising you a home based work stuffing envelopes for companies. In the advert, you're advised to send money in the post - usually to a PO Box Address - to receive the work. If you're lucky, a few days later, you receive a useless and incomprehensible list of gibberish. Otherwise, that's the last you'll hear of them.

The truth is most big companies have an automated way of stuffing their envelopes and they do it in house or outsource it.

3. Pyramid Schemes

This is the most common and perhaps most difficult to discern. However, any scheme that does not have any obvious product but exists solely for the recruitment of others is likely to be a pyramid. So the question to ask is whether the company you're interested in has a genuine product to sell.

4. Surveys

This seems very plausible an indeed, there are companies out there conducting genuine online surveys. The question is not whether there are surveys or not. It's rather whether you can survive on the money you make from surveys.

In our research, we found that this is not so. In fact, a great deal of companies only offered a chance to win money in sweepstakes some of which were closed two or three months down the line. In addition, you may not qualify for the paying surveys.

In conclusion, survey should be taken only as a hobby. If you're looking to make serious money, it's best to build your own original website.

5. Paypal Money

This is one we recently came across. Generally, you're asked to open a Paypal account and send a small amount to a paypal ID- usually up to $10. Once you have done this, you'll see a lot of money roll into your account within days even hours.

It's advisable to stay away from such enticements. They only waste your time and money.

In conclusion, there are many genuine people earning a healthy income on the internet and most put in a lot of hard work at the start and were patient.

"Get-Rich-Quick" schemes are only there to rip off the vulnerable. There's no need to find out the hard way. A word to the WISE is usually enough.

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