Tips to Avoid Work-At-Home Scams

Work-at-home business scams cheat countless victims out of millions of dollars every year. Victims can include pretty much everyone that has a desire to start their own home-based business: stay-at-home parents, the elderly or disabled, the unemployed and low-income households. Con artists employ a variety of underhanded tactics including deception, misrepresentation and outright fraud to convince another human being to part with their hard-earned money.
You need to learn how to know the difference between legitimate work-at-home jobs and the scams that only waste your time and money, the latter of which can ruin your life, reputation and might even get you into hot water legally.

The first thing to remember is that there is no real way to "get rich quick" through a home business, unless you're the scammer who's perpetuating the myth. Home-based business scams that offer $2000 in a day and the sort should be avoided at all costs.

Asking the interested party for an initial fee should be an automatic red flag. No real company would ever charge you a fee to hire you-after all, aren't you supposed to be making your money from them? It isn't unusual to invest money in a home-based endeavor, but when someone charges you for some "top-secret" information about getting a high-paying job, they'll usually just send you instructions on how to perpetuate the scam, or information on how to start a business that you could have gleaned off the internet for free. If you ever decide to invest in something you suspect is one of these scams, consider using something other than cash. A credit card is more easily traceable, and you'll have a simpler time of getting your money back.

No matter how much you feel the temptation, never call a 900 number to get more information about that job opportunity you heard about. The call can cost anywhere from a few to a few hundred dollars, a segment of which is paid to the scammer. You'll never see the information, or your money back.

Have you heard the term "act now" in conjunction with a prospect? That's a warning sign. Don't ever feel pressured to make a decision that big without thoroughly doing your research first. Try and discover how long the company has been in business, and if there have been any complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) against them. If they don't use a telephone number, or if they have a post office box instead of a real address, those are good indications of a scam. Do your best to follow up with the references the company provides, and ask to have their details or refund policy in writing.
New business scams pop up every day, but some have remained for years and are still successful at scamming new victims every day. Some of the most common are:

- Envelope stuffing
With mailing equipment these days, not to mention email and other methods of communication, stuffing envelopes has become somewhat obsolete. A common scam method is to advertise for an envelope stuffing job, then when you pay for the start-up kit all you receive is instructions on how to place an ad like the one you fell for.

- Medical billing
The biggest problem with this is that the job itself is quite legitimate, but the kits that are out there have outdated contact information for the physicians in your area and software that everyone stopped using five years ago. Given that most medical billers have also had some formal training and are considered to be more qualified than a work-at-home individual with no education in the coding field, much of the work available will go to reputable, well-established billing firms rather than your house. Home typing jobs are also equally questionable, as the list of companies you receive usually contains names of companies who don't hire people to work at home.

- Product/craft assembly
My own mother once fell for this scam, and I warn other crafters to be wary. When you finish assembling whatever project they've given you and send it in for payment, they tell you that your work doesn't meet with their quality standards so they won't pay you for the work. Often they turn around and sell the product anyway, using you as cheap labor, and count on selling the starter kits as their main source of income.

- Pyramid schemes
Many people think a pyramid scheme is synonymous with multi-level marketing, but the truth is they're even more shady and underhanded. Pyramid schemes work solely on finding new people for the business, recruited to make payments to the people above them on the ladder (or pyramid) while receiving payments from people below them. Obviously, this scheme relies on the underlings to work, and when the recruitment pool dries up everyone on the bottom is left without the windfall they were promised.

If you discover you're a victim of a work at home scam, don't despair. Try to contact the company in question, express your disappointment, and ask for a refund. If they refuse to issue one, notify your local law enforcement (especially if the company offers a refund on their website.) You can contact the Federal Trade Commission to file a complaint, then go to the Better Business Bureau and do the same thing. If you still aren't satisfied, file a complaint with your state's Attorney General Office and see if they can't do anything about banning the company's practices in your state. Although you may not be able to recoup your losses, you'll at least alert the authorities of wrongdoing and possibly have the scamming business prosecuted.