Stay Away From Home Business Scams
You've seen an ad somewhere, or you've been approached by
someone, and it tells of a great work from home opportunity. It
was all about various get rich money making system, and you're
excited. Finally, you can quit your job!
If you're thinking of working from home by someone else's rules,
though, you have to realise that many of the offers out there
are scams - Internet business scams, get rich money making
system, work from home scams, and others claiming to be scam
free work from home. After all, if it was that easy to pay a few
dollars and make thousands, wouldn't everyone be doing it by
now? Here are the biggest work from scams out there, how to
recognise them, say no to them and how to avoid them.
Source of Offer
Where did you see that work from home no scam offer? If you got
it in the post, or by 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.
Envelope Stuffing.
This is the most established work-from-home scam, and no, it's
not new, it's been going for decades now. Basically, once you
pay your money and sign up free 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 this are illegal pyramid schemes.
You won't make any money putting letters in envelopes - get over
it.
Charging for Supplies.
The practice of charging for supplies is hard to pin down to any
one scam - it's the way almost all work-from-home scams work
(including the envelope stuffing, above). You'll be asked to
make a small "investment" for whatever materials would be needed
to do the work, sometimes even for free - and then you'll be
sent very shoddy materials that aren't worth anything like what
you paid, and you'll find that there's no market for the work
anyway.
If anyone asks for money upfront, run. A real company should be
willing to deduct any 'fees' from your first pay cheque - if
they won't do that for you, then that's because they don't ever
plan to pay you. It is their get rich money making system.
Working for Free.
This variation on the work from home scam is common with crafts.
You might be asked to work at home making clothes, ornaments or
toys. Everything seems legitimate - you've got the free
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 the next sucker.
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.
Home Typing, Medical Billing, and More.
There are lots of work-from-home or internet business scams that
involve persuading you that some industry has more work than it
can handle, and so has to outsource to people working from home.
For example, you might be told that you'd be typing legal
documents, or entering medical bills into an electronic
database. These scams have one thing in common: they all say
that all you need is your computer, and they all then go on to
say that you need to buy some 'special software'.
This software might appear to be from a completely unrelated
company, but don't be fooled - the whole reason the
'work-from-home' ad was there to begin with was simply as
cynical marketing for the software.
As you can see, running a 'home business' that just involves
'working' for one company is a bad idea. You don't know who
you're dealing with. Here's the clincher, though: even with
entirely legal work-at-home offers that do pay you for your
work, you still won't make anywhere near as much as you can with
your very own home business. So why bother with them at all?