Internet Scams: Work from Home Programs to Avoid

If you're like most people, you probably at one time or another have considered ways to increase you're income. For most of us (about 75%), an extra $150 a week would make a big difference to our lives. Especially if that was possible to accomplish working from home. Not that an extra $150 is going to make anyone rich, but for many people it would eliminate the stress of living paycheck to paycheck. For those of you already writing for Associated Content, you know they pay you a fair wage for your efforts. Unfortunately, that is not the case with most opportunities that one can come across when searching on the internet. If you are that someone who is looking for additional income, and the internet comes to mind as the way to do it, be careful! As someone who has spent more than a fair amount of time surfing the net, also hoping to stumble into a way to make a few bucks along the way, I can't even begin to tell you all the scams I've come across. I could write several books on the subject and probably not even out a dent in it. Anyway, I thought it would be prudent to list a few of these so-called opportunities, even if for nothing else it mght prevent a few unsuspecting people from being taken advantage of. Keep in mind the old saying, "If it sounds to good to be true it probably is". Most of these will fall into that category. You know, the one's that start out something like this, "Make $5,000 to $10,000 a month working 30 minutes a day"

Data Entry Pro- They tell you on the site, all you have to do is type ads into a form and you get paid for promoting other people's products. Sounds like an easy job, right? Problem is, they don't bother to mention the fact until after you're signed up, that you have to pay out of your pocket for the ads. There are several copycat sites doing the same thing. A few of them are Data Entry Pro, Home Typers, My Data Job, Data Entry Work On-Line, Submit Data Work and Type at Home.

Paid to Read E-Mails- They claim you'll get up big bucks (as much as $500 per e-mail) just to sit at home and read e-mails from your computer. The truth is, they can promise you any amount of money because they will never pay anyone a dime. These companies end up getting shut down by the FTC, but in the process they'll keep anything you paid to join and never pay you a dime. The only legit get paid to read e-mail companies out there, actually only pay 1 cent per e-mail read. So even if you got lucky and found a legit one, it wouldn't be worth the time to get involved.

Paid to Read Surveys- Similar to the e-mail deal. Most of these companies will charge a fee to join, some as much as $60+. You'll get access to hundreds of survey companies through the membership, but when they start sending the surveys to your e-mail box and you go to fill them out, you won't qualify for over 90% of them. Even when you do qualify, most of these companies will give you points, and you'll need like 1000 points or credits just to get $10. Even if you could qualify for at least one survey a day, it would take you acouple months to make $10 or $15.

Paid Typing Companies- Sounds simple enough! Just type ads for the internet and get paid for every one you type or get a response to. Once again, to enroll you end up payind a fee. Anywhere from $20 to $75. First of all, any legit job should not cost you anything to sign up for! In the end these companies don't give you the fine print on how the ads work. That's when you find out no matter how long and hard you work, you'll never make any real money doing it. For starters, the restrictions on how the ads have to be typed and where they can be posted (90% restricted), and they have to be formatted a certain way. If they don't approve the ad (and you won't know till you type it and post it ), you won't get paid for it. Even if they approve the ad, you'll need to get at least 100 responses just to make 10 cents. Otherwise you'll make 3 cents!

These are just a few examples of the ones that appear to be a job. There are also many of the business opportunity variety ones on the net as well. There are some real legit opportunities on-line, but they are few and far between. So if you want to make some extra money on-line, make sure you contact the company via e-mail first. If they don't respond to your e-mail, or won't tell you how their program works until you pay a fee, don't waste your time or money.