|
Avoiding Work at Home (Home
Business) And Internet Scams - Part I
By Guillermo Jalil
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 Bureau. 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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About the Author: The author Guillermo Jalil runs several
businesses as corporate officer and is a start-up consultant
for small businesses. For more Ebay shopping tips on how to
find great bargains visit http://www.startbuyingonebay.com. For
tips on making money on the internet from multiple streams of
income visit http://www.internetandmoney.com.
Source: http://www.isnare.com
Sign up for our Newsletter to get
more great articles, tips and advice!
|
