9 Top Tips For Identifying Online & Work-at-Home Scams

With the current recession and rising costs of living, more and more people are looking for different ways to earn extra money. There is also a growing trend amongst stay-at-home-moms to try and help contribute to the household finances by looking for ways to earn money. This leads most toward looking into work-at-home opportunities. There are some legit jobs and businesses that can be done from home; however, there are also just as many fraudulent opportunities just waiting to scam someone through a work-at-home scheme.  While you are conducting your search for a home career (job or business opportunity), I want you to keep these 9 Top Tips For Identifying Online and Work-at-Home Scams in mind.

1.  Watch out for unsolicited email work-at-home opportunities. A quality and legitimate business will not need to send spam after spam to someone’s email. A business that attacks your email account with unsolicited email offers of at-home employment or business opportunities is a good indication that the person or company sending the email is really advertising a potential scam.  This is not referring to if you submit a request for information to a company for additional information or apply.  Some companies communicate via email to ensure you get all the details about their company and opportunity prior to moving forward.

2.  Read any work-at-home advertisement very carefully. You can usually tell by the way in which the pitch was written how legitimate the opportunity is. A legitimate work-at-home opportunity should not sound like a sales pitch. It should be straight forward and forthcoming with all relevant information pertaining to the specific job they will need you to do. For websites that are advertising a potential work-at-home opportunity, you should not have to click endless links to search for all the information about the opportunity, and still wind up will little clarity on the actual job they need you to do.

3.  Avoid opportunities that make overstated claims of how effective their product is. This is typically a good sign that the company is a scam. The last thing you want to do is spend endless hours trying to sell a product that is shady or less than quality. Always do your research!

4.  Monitor for exaggerated claims a work-at-home opportunity may make with reference to earnings or profits. For example, make $5,000 in a week!  A work-at-home scam will try to draw in people that are desperate to make money.  An exaggerated claim of high profit earnings and high part-time earnings is a good sign that the company is scamming you.  If income examples are given, there should be a way for you to check into them.  However, it is wise to never base your success off of someone else.

5.  Look for personal reference testimonials. A sure sign that the work-at-home opportunity is a scam is that there will be no way to personally contact any of the people that are listed in personal testimonials. Remember, in some ways, you are interviewing the company that is offering the work-at-home position. So, if you cannot check out their references, why should you take a chance and wind up scammed?

6.  Requiring you to pay them money for information about possible work-at-home opportunities or access to databases that list work-at-home opportunities is a huge flashing warning sign that they are a scam. You should never have to pay potential employer money to work for them or to receive information about how to work for them.  However, as an independent contractor (1099 status) or home business you should expect some form of an investment.

7.  Stating that no experience is necessary is a good indicator that they will probably hit you up for money for tools to learn how to work for them, and after you pay them no real job ever manifests.
In other words, you bought yourself some downloaded manual that made the company money. Legitimate work-at-home jobs will utilize skills you possess and will have no hidden costs.

8.  Avoid work-at-home opportunities that require you to buy into their program and then have you perpetrate the same fraud by selling that program to others. This actually can place you at risk for postal investigation.

9.  Stay clear of multi-level-marketing (MLM) work-at-home opportunities that promote and emphasize recruiting others as opposed to actually selling a product or service. They may look easy to do and promise a good earning, but these types of MLM opportunities are illegitimate pyramid schemes. Recruitment based MLM scams leave only a few at the top earning money for a period of time before it bottoms out and collapses.  They are not even listed in good standing with the BBB or have national accreditation with US Chamber of Commerce because those organizations will have no affiliations with those types of schemes/ organizations.

***Any Business or individual is a scam if it does any of the following things:***

*Does not act on promises made
*Takes your money without sending you the information or products you requested
*Does not pay you for your services or work you have done as promised
*Uses false and misleading advertisement to lure you into the opportunity or service being offered

To avoid a law suit we are providing you with questions you should ask yourself before reporting the company or individual as a scam:

*Did I read all information prior to the registration?
*Did I sign any contracts or agreements releasing liability of the company or individual?
*Did I contact administration for an explanation?
*Did I give the company or individual time to respond to my complaint?
*Did I give the company or product a chance to see if it really was what I ordered?
*Did I ever get paid from this company?

If you have answered all of these questions and are in disagreement with them, most likely you will have grounds to file a complaint with the FCC, BBB, Bad Business Bureau, and any other agency/site/organization that you can file complaints with.

For more details on how to avoid scams please visit: www.blessed2behome.org/scams.htm

So what are your thoughts on these tips?

I hope you enjoyed what I have shared with you in this posting.  I know that I enjoyed sharing it.    I LOVE receiving feedback from each and everyone of you… so please DO NOT be shy!  Leave a comment below & SHARE this information with your friends by clicking the links below the post to share on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and so forth.

To Keeping You SAFE From Online Scams…

Blessings,