A group of scam artists developed a proven scheme to prey on senior citizens, moms, disabled people, and those who want to get rich quick. The last I received some of those letters in the mail was like 5 years ago, now the Internet is taking over as a medium to spread their poison.
The work at home scams are usually easy to identify if you apply some common sense and be realistic. Some of the key indicators of a scam are listed below.
1. Claims of insider information, like those ads about “Google” insiders and how to get rich with Google. Even Google is suing those behind such ads.
2. Overstated claims of a product effectiveness. Like a cancer cure in an MLM-type company. If such a cure is discovered it won’t go MLM. The main stream media will give it special attention and a Noble prize might be awarded to the discoverer.
3. Exaggerated claims of income. I know people making hundreds of thousands every single month working from home, but those are only 4 or 5 people and they have been building a business model over a decade or so. Any promises of such income overnight or within days or weeks are obviously too good to be true.
4. Asking you for money before they send you the instructions on how to start earning. 100% of the time this is a scam, especially if you can not get it by hand if you live close to the claimed address of the advertiser.
5. “No experience necessary”. There is no such a thing. No experience means you can’t make any money. No one will trust you on doing anything useful before they make sure you can do it.
6. Paid training. If this is a job you’ll get the training during your work hours, which means YOU will get paid for the training. Compare that with “Sales people wanted …. You pay $500 for the training and if you are successful you’ll be refunded your training fees with your first pay check”.
The list goes on and on, and the scam artists are more active now than ever especially that most people are suffering financially and even the skeptics would give it a try if they can’t find legit jobs to support themselves and their families.
You can read more about work at home scams and how to avoid falling into them at the website of the Better Business Bureau.