Work at Home Scams

The nature of home based employment or working remotely means that many people are rarely face to face with the person or business they work with. This type of scenario unfortunately, lends itself to scams.

Scam artists are now trying to take advantage of the large number of people who work from home. With the Internet and so many home based work opportunities, it is the perfect venue for someone to take advantage of a work from home professional in search of a job. In this section we discuss some of the more popular work at home scams that exist and ways to spot and avoid them.

Popular Home Business Scams

One of the most popular scams involves a money transfer. Certain jobs such as mystery shopping, envelope stuffing and data entry are perfect examples of areas that are prone to money transfer scams. Scam artists can easily create a fake business that requires services such as mystery shopping, data entry or envelope stuffing. These jobs don’t require any physical presence and are common online with legitimate companies as well. This allows scam artists to ‘hire’ people under the guise of their business just to end up stealing their money.

Here is how the scam works: before you begin doing work, the company will mail you training materials and information along with a Money Order. You are then asked to deposit the money order into your bank account and then transfer a portion of that money to an account owned by the business. This scam runs under the premise that you are being paid before you begin work for the training and training materials you will receive. The company pretends to offer to pay for the materials but really, is stealing your money. These scams typically have a time frame that you are required to abide by. You receive the money order and must transfer money to the other account within a few days. This time frame protects that fraudulent business because the check they send you is fake. By having you transfer money before their check clears, you end up sending money from your own account only to end up liable for the money you transfer and the fraudulent check.

The lesson to be learned here is this: no business will send you money for work you haven’t yet completed and no business will ask you to transfer money to another account.

Most scams involved in working from home are in opportunities that seem ‘too good to be true.’ The businesses in the world market are all working hard to make a sustainable living. If a business offers you money, opportunity or a promise for very little work on your part, it is likely a scam.

Popular Scams surround certain online jobs. Jobs such as mystery shopping, data entry and envelope stuffing are excellent examples. It should be known that envelope stuffing can now be done cheaply and efficiently by machines. There is almost no work opportunity advertised online involving envelope stuffing that represents a legitimate business.

There are however, thousands of legitimate data entry and mystery shopping jobs. These jobs are very popular in their abundance and commonly take place almost entirely without being face to face with an employer. This is the only reason these job titles are popular for scam artists. They prey on the fact that the job is legitimately popular among work from home professionals and that people actively seek work of this kind.

How to Avoid Work at Home Scams

Keeping in mind that when something seems ‘too good to be true’ it probably is, is a good philosophy when exploring remote access work from home. Always research the business or company that is presenting you with employment as well.

Doing a Google search of the business and researching scams associated with that type of work will help you avoid being taken advantage of. When you research businesses always use resources like the Better Business Bureau. They have an online registry of all legal businesses in the United States. If the business you are thinking of working with isn’t listed, you should certainly be wary of their offer and research them further.

Simply doing your research and being aware that scams exist will help protect you during your job search. This simple tip is your greatest asset in finding a fulfilling job that you can enjoy from the comforts of home.