With many people out of work right now more former employees are thinking about working for themselves at home to pay the bills.
There are legitimate work at home types of jobs. However there are many work at home scams that are designed to simply take your money. Here are some of the current work at home scams.
- Companies say they will send you materials to sew or assemble at your home. In most cases you pay for the materials upfront and then they pay you back for the materials and pay you for your labor when you return the assembled product. Here is the scam part. The company will say your work does not pass inspection and will not pay you. So you are out the cost of the materials and your time and labor. They will ask you to try again. If you are a sucker, you will send them more money and assemble their product. But once again they will say it did not pass inspection and refuse to pay you for your labor. They are actually selling you junk materials that they could not sell any other way.
- These scammers will advertise work at home jobs and say they will get you started for just $15 to $20. The ads say you can make thousands of dollars in your own home. Here is how the scam works. You send them $15 and they send you a flyer that says the best way to make thousands of dollars at home is to run ads like they did for work at home jobs. When people send you their money, you send them back the same flyer that tells them to do the same scam. If you do this you become a scammer, and this is illegal.
- Here is another scam you will see advertised as a work at home job opportunity. The scammers will say that you can make up to $50,000 a year typing up doctors notes on your home computer. All you have to do is send them $20 and they will show you how to get started. They also say they will help you find medical clients. What they don’t say is that you need an extensive medical background and vocabulary to understand the doctor’s dictation. There are some people who make good money at home transcribing medical dictation, but they all have extensive medical backgrounds. For your $20 dollars they tell you to get a home computer, look under doctors in the Yellow Pages and call and ask if they need someone who works as a dictation typist? They also say you should get an extensive medical background.
Here are the Red Flags for work at home offers:
- When they want you to send them money up front.
- When they say no experience is necessary.
- When they say you will be paid for your labor after inspection.
- When they say you can sit at home and stuff envelops and make big money.