Experts Corner: Protect Yourself From Work at Home Scams

Scam or legitimate deal

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This week we bring you Anna Thurman, who is a work at home mom and mother of two. She spends her spare time researching and writing about legitimate ways to earn money online. She is offering us tips on how for work from home.

Working from home is no longer a myth. The jobs are out there, but unfortunately so are the scams. If you’ve never worked at home before, you might find it confusing to differentiate between the legit opportunities and the fake ones. Here is a list of signs that an opportunity is in fact a scam:

You’re Asked to Pay

The vast majority of legitimate work at home opportunities are not going to require you to purchase a “membership kit” or “training package” to do the work. And why should they? Think about it. Have you ever been asked to pay money upfront to do work outside the home? Probably not. The same rules apply to working from home. Your employer should pay you for working, not the other way around.

I should also mention that there are a few exceptions to this rule. For example, some companies offering home call center work will ask that you pay for your own background check. Also, there are some situations where you might have to invest in equipment to actually do the job that is not provided for free by the company. That said, you should never pay a fee in order to get hired to do a job.

No Contact Information

If the website you are considering has no contact information listed, you should stay away. You need to be able to get in touch with the people you are working for. It’s best if you can find not only a name of the owner, but also a physical address and phone/fax number. Links out to social networks (Facebook/Twitter) that appear to be active and get updated often are also good to see. Before applying, you might want to attempt to contact the company for further information on the job just to see if you do get a response back so you’ll know that the email or phone number is actually manned.

Outrageous Income Claims

If you visit a website promising you’ll be making hundreds of dollars a day within a week, you should avoid it like the plague. Anything that sounds too good to be true usually is. Work at home jobs tend to pay about the same as jobs outside the home. You’ll also notice that many of these “jobs” claiming you can earn thousands of dollars a week promise that you can do it by working very little and that your skills and expertise don’t seem to come into play. This is another red flag because companies that actually do pay thousands of dollars per week are paying it to people who work hard and are trained in whatever they do. There’s not really any such thing as “easy money.”

Bad Reviews Online

Always do your own research before signing up for anything. You can conduct a quick search of the company you’re considering on your favorite search engine. Just type in the company name and follow that up with the word “scam” to see what kind of results appear. If anyone has ever been ripped off by the company, you’ll likely find it mentioned somewhere. You can also look the company up on the Better Business Bureau website to see what their rating is.

Watch Out for Data Entry & Envelope Stuffing Jobs

While there are some legit data entry jobs online, they are few and far between. The vast majority you come across are scams and these are the very ones where you’ll be asked to pay a fee in order to start working. The data entry jobs that are legitimate are typically very, very low paying. There are basically no legitimate envelope stuffing jobs in existence, so stay from any job advertisements you see for that type of work.

Don’t Respond to Unsolicited Work at Home Emails

If you receive an email either in your spam folder or inbox promising you an amazing work at home opportunity, just delete it. A work at home company that is legitimate is generally not going to contact you unless you have contacted them first. Unsolicited messages offering work at home jobs are usually fraudulent.

Thank you Anna for your great tips! To learn more about how you can work from home, check out Real Ways to Earn Money Online.