How to Avoid Work From Home Scams
By Brian Murray
Wanting to work out of your own home is very understandable and these days many people are looking for full-time or supplemental income from a home based business. But as lucrative as they can be, there are many work from home scams you also need to be aware of, since of course you don't want to be taken in by one of these scams! It can be difficult to understand the difference between legitimate opportunities to run a business from home and one that is not legitimate or even legal, since those illegal scams and schemes work very hard to make themselves seem legitimate. So how can you tell work from home scams versus real opportunities? While there are no guarantees of course, there are some simple things you can keep in mind in this regard.
First, remember that most work from home scams involve some type of fee that you need to pay up front, for which you get nothing in return. If you need to purchase inventory in order to sell it to a customer, that's one matter, but if you need to pay a "licensing fee" or "reseller's fee" then you may need to be wary. Why would you need to pay a fee to sell someone else's product? That makes no sense and is often the first sign of these work from home scams. Many make most if not all their money from these types of so-called fees! So if a company asks you to pay up front to register with them or to get packets of informational material or for anything other than a product you can resell, think seriously about the first sign of these work from home scams and move on to another company.
Also, many work from home scams claim that they will pay you to produce a particular product but often they send you materials and then reject many of the products you produce for one reason or another. Home assembly jobs are notorious for this and this is a way for the company to get out of paying you what they owe you. These types of work from home scams are abundant and may include jewelry making, small machinery assembly, and so on. Again, be wary of companies that claim they'll pay you to assemble things at home. Why wouldn't they be able to hire people to work in their location to do such a simple job?
While being wary of work from home scams you also don't want to pass up legitimate opportunities as well. Many people make a good living selling on the internet or freelancing from websites that hook up freelancers with those that need work done. These types of arrangements are different than work from home scams as you're working with real products and providing real services for real customers. So even though scams and schemes abound, remember that there are many legitimate ways to work from home as well!
Frequently Asked Questions
-
QUESTION:
Are there work from home scams where they are really phishing for your social security #?
I'm just wondering - if I gave my social to some work from home company - what could they do just having that and my name? Are there very well set up scams out there just phishing for personal information? What does a person do if they make a mistake other than call the BBB? There's already a caution out on my social - so they probably can't do anything anyway right?
I gave my address name and social and I'm just wondering - what do I do if I made a mistake. I found out that there is a listing with an F rating in Corona for this company - meaning that they are conducting fraudlent business practices or expecting people to work and then terminating them after 4 hrs and not paying. If that's all if is - then I'm not too concerned but if they can steal my identify - I need to know what to do about that scenario.-
ANSWER:
Most are scams, but usually looking to fleece you of money, not for ID theft.With name and SS#, they could potentially start some ID theft. Is that all you gave? No birthday or address?
-
-
QUESTION:
I'm so sick of all these work-from-home scams that require no computer knowledge!?
I want to find one that requires computer knowledge, damnit! I want to utilize my Windows XP skillz and get paid for doing it! Where can I find a legitimate work-from-home scam like that?-
ANSWER:
I've setup a website which describes the best methods to find a real work from home job. I only include links to genuine websites for data entry and work at home jobs.If you need any more help please send me a private message on yahoo, but the elance website below may be useful to you if you have good IT knowledge
http://working-from-home-ireland.blogspot.com/
Others Ive found which have been very useful:
http://www.elance.com/p/landing/provider.html (Data entry and home office type jobs)
http://dataentry-jobsearch.blogspot.com/
http://www.guru.com/pro/index.aspx (mainly IT and Admin jobs)
http://www.working-from-home-jobs.com/
-
-
QUESTION:
What is up with all these fake work from home scams?
if a sight has to take two pages convincing you to sign up for their program, (of which should be in high demand if its on the up and up and shouldn't need convincing) how can they possibly be honest? and what is up with them wanting your credit card information, do they think people are that desperate to believe they could work from home?are there any sites out there that are legitimate that dont do what I mentioned above?
-
ANSWER:
Yes, they do believe that people are desperate enough to fall for their scam, and people do. That's why they continue to run those sites.There may be legitimate work-from-home sites, but I have yet to find them.
-
-
QUESTION:
I am sick of online work from home Scams! Does anyone know of anyone or a legit work from home business!?
I have been Scammed more than twice and wont to work from home.
I don't wont a survey site or a quick get rich scheme.
Does anyone have any advice.Please help" Thank you.
-
ANSWER:
The ONLY way that you are going to be able to work from home,
is to invent the business yourself and take all of the risk of running a small business yourself and provide some product or service that people are willing to pay for.other than that, there is NO on-line "JOB"!
-
-
QUESTION:
Want to work from home, do not want scams?
I am looking for kind of work that I can do from home that isn’t a scam, or a “pay us, and you can work from home,” (scam).Without a doubt I know there is someone out there that actually has some none scam home based job that doesn’t involve out of pocket expenses or some other scammy type thing. Could anyone make a suggestion here?
Oh, and someone suggested that “home biz for all” might be just the thing, but this looked way to scam like for me (check out all the “sign up for free,” and “simple to use PayPal or Credit Card” signs- thanks but no thanks).
Looking at some of the suggested sites below I find it funny that they want you to sign in, or register first then they will tell you what the business is, and to me that is just way to scammy.I am presently checking through them looking for the ones that I do not like or trust because of their lack of information before signing up. Also AdAware is helping by looking for spy ware being placed (any that do are obvious scams).
I thank you all for your thoughts, and suggestions, the positive responses here on Yahoo Answers gives me hope that somewhere out there, there are people that actually want to help each other.
-
ANSWER:
Yes, I work for several different companies doing "virtual administration" i.e.: a virtual secretary. It took me about 6 months - a year tog et enough work to be financially stable though (I make arounf 30k + benefits.)The way you do it is write up a resume and post it to craigslist. You will need to do this in any/all major cities in the US so you will need at least 4 different email accounts (craigslist only lets you post 4 posts per email account) and a public internet connection like a library (if you post too much in a short amount of time, craigslist will temorarily ban your ip because it thinks you are spamming.) Remove all personal information from your resume (real name, address, phone number) and use craigslist's anonyous forwarding system to insure you don't get get spam and telemarketing calls. Every month, repeat the resume posting process.
Be sure to put in your title "virtual administrator" and put a mini coverletter in the beginning of your resume but be prepaired for companies who do not understand what a virtual administrator is to contact you. Also be prepaired to sift through a lot of crap, ie: fake job offers, spam etc. With time you will get some legitimate leads and remember any position requiring you to pay money for training is not legitimate. Also, check craigslist for posts about people wanting virtual administrators and send them your resume.
-