Avoiding
Common Work At Home Scams
by ©Wendy Betterini
Scammers
are getting more creative every day, coming up with new
schemes to get your money (or sensitive information). Knowledge
is power! By educating yourself on the common scams and
keeping aware about new ones, you can stop the scammers
in their tracks. Remember, if no one fell for their tactics,
they would be out of business! Here are some of the most
common scams today:
Stuffing
Envelopes - There are no legitimate envelope-stuffing jobs
out there. Please don't fool yourself into believing there
are. Companies can very easily purchase a beautiful machine
for a few thousand dollars that will not only stuff the
envelopes, it will also fold, collate and apply postage
to the envelopes. Why would a company pay you thousands
of dollars a month to stuff their envelopes? They wouldn't.
If you send in your fee for this scam, you will receive
a copy of the same ad you responded to, and you will now
have to scam other people by placing the ad and having them
send you their money. This is illegal.
Typing
and Data Entry - Similar to the scheme above, if you sign
up for this and pay your fee, you will receive a copy of
the same ad, and have to place ads to get other people to
send you their money. You earn $20 per "application
processed" because you are charging people $20 to get
the information. Again, illegal. There are some legitimate
companies that will hire you to do typing and data entry
(such as transcription or coding) -- but they won't charge
you a fee to work for them. If a fee is being charged, it's
a scam.
Craft
Assembly - Most of these opportunities are scams because
they make their money by the start-up fees you pay. When
you receive your kit, you will assemble dozens of earrings,
potholders, magnets (or whatever), send them in for payment,
and they will not pass inspection. You can try to fix them
as many times as you like, they still won't be accepted.
The company doesn't want the items you assembled, they want
your money for the start-up kit. There are a few legitimate
companies out there, however. Disciple's Cross and New England
Crafters are two we've found so far. We are researching
others.
Medical
Billing - There are companies that will train you to become
a Medical Biller from home, as long as you purchase the
Medical Billing software for your computer from them. (Usually
costs a few hundred dollars at least) What they don't tell
you is that YOU will be responsible for finding your own
clients (Doctors/Dentists). This can be incredibly difficult
to do, since most medical professionals already use a billing
service, or do their own billing in the office. With the
new Privacy laws, medical professionals need to be extremely
careful with patient records, and most will not want to
trust someone with no billing experience to handle the office
billing at home.
Payment
Associate/Specialist - A company wants to hire you to place
auctions on eBay and accept customer payments using your
own accounts). You get to keep a portion of the money, and
send the rest to the company. The company is supposed to
ship the product to the customer, but they don't. (or they
ship stolen goods) You are now in big trouble with eBay
and Paypal for fraud. Don't do it! Don't ever use your own
accounts for anything other than your own business. Companies
should be able to set up their own accounts just as easily
as you did for yourself.
Pyramid
Schemes - A pyramid scheme is when money changes hands but
there is no product or service being sold. "Joe"
charges you $200 to join the scheme, and then you in turn
need to charge others $200 to join, and they charge others,
etc. This is illegal. Remember, there must be a product
or service being sold.
Gifting
Programs - This is also an illegal pyramid scheme, but they
call it a "gifting program" -- in other words,
you "gift" Joe $200, and then you need to find
others who will "gift" you $200, and so on. Illegal.
Chain
Letters - These have been around for years! They used to
come by postal mail, but now they also arrive via email.
There are usually 5 names on the list, you need to move
each name up a spot, removing the top name, and place your
name at the bottom, and then send $5 to each name on the
list and send it out to everyone you know. Highly illegal.
There is also a version for online payment services like
Paypal, you send $2 or $5 (the amount varies) to the people
on the list, and others are supposed to do the same for
you. Don't get caught up in something like this, it can
ruin your life.
Surveys
& Mystery Shopping - While not all survey and mystery
shopping companies are scams, there are quite a few that
love to charge you a membership fee, claiming you can earn
hundreds of dollars a day. When you sign up, you find more
companies that want to charge you a fee to join, and companies
that will pay you very little for your time and energy.
There are some legitimate companies out there, and you don't
have to pay to find them. Also be aware that you probably
won't get rich from doing surveys and mystery shopping,
but it can certainly bring in some decent pocket money.
These
next few aren't necessarily work at home schemes, but they
bear mentioning because they're so popular:
Bulk
email - Usually these offers are sent by email, but you'll
see ads like this around the internet also. You can purchase
tons of email addresses for a low fee. If you have a home
business and you're trying to get customers or subscribers
to your mailing list, sounds like a great deal, right? Don't
do it. Most (if not all) of those addresses have been harvested
by spambots. If you send out a mailing to them, you will
likely be reported for spam. You can lose your internet
service provider, your business, and even have to pay a
huge fine for spamming. Not worth it!
Phishing
- You get an urgent email from Paypal, eBay or even your
bank stating that your account is in jeopardy and you need
to update your account info immediately! You click on the
link and go to a page that looks legitimate enough, but
it's actually a fake page. If you enter your login and password
information, the scammer can now access your accounts. Don't
ever click on a link in an email like this. Open a new browser
window and type the company website address yourself. Your
account should show whether there is a problem or not. (Most
companies would have a big notice in there if you need to
update something.) These companies usually have a spoof
email address you can send these "phishing" emails
to. For example, spoof@paypal.com,
or spoof@ebay.com. Simply
forward the email with full headers to them. They will investigate
and stop the scammer if they can.
Free
merchandise - Have you gotten the emails claiming you can
earn a free computer, phone card or other merchandise? What
usually happens is you would have to pay a membership fee,
and then get a certain number of other people to join and
pay the membership fee also. Unfortunately, there is usually
some little clause you weren't aware of, and you never do
get your free stuff. It's a waste of time and money.
Nigerian
scams - You get a long letter from someone claiming to be
the son or daughter of someone important, and they need
to have you deposit a huge sum of money into your own bank
account, and then wire most of it to them by Western Union.
You get to keep a nice chunk of the money for your troubles.
The problem is that the check is fake, and takes a few days
or even weeks to bounce, and you now owe that money back
to the bank. Unfortunately, you don't have it anymore, you
wired most of it out to those people! Another Nigerian scam
targets business owners. You receive a large order at your
website, or they email to ask if they can order a large
amount of goods, and they ask if you accept credit cards.
Do not fall for this, the credit cards are stolen and if
you ship the goods, you will be out the money AND the goods.
In
closing, remember that scammers are after only two things:
your money, or your sensitive information. If you refuse
to give either willingly, you put them right out of business.
For more information on common scams, do an internet search
on the FTC Dirty Dozen.
