The Work at Home Scam Blog

How’s this for a dream job: Receive payments from a company’s customers, then wire them to the company through Western Union, and receive a fee for each payment processed. Easy work, you choose your hours, and the pay is great. The catch? By accepting this job you become part of a money laundering scheme.

The funds transferred are from some sort of illegal activity, such as phishing or Ebay fraud. When they are transferred between bank accounts it leaves a paper trail. But once the money is wired through Western Union, it becomes virtually untraceable. Which means the paper trail ends with you. And whether you knew about the illegal activity or not, you could still face criminal charges.

Also beware any kind of job that involves receiving packages, then remailing them. If there wasn’t something illegal about them, there would be no need for a middleman.

Even if you haven’t heard of Nigerian 419 scams, if you have an email address you’ve more than likely been exposed to them. They originated in Nigeria, but are now popping up from all over the world.

In the beginning, mostly well-to-do individuals were the recipients of the scam emails. The writer usually claimed to be in possession of a large amount of money that they needed to get out of the country due to overpayment from a government contract. They were looking for someone to have the money transferred into his or her bank account, then transfer it into another bank account, keeping a percentage of it for their troubles.

Today this scam has many forms. Some letters claim that a long-lost relative has died and you are the recipient of his or her inheritance. Others claim government oppression and attempts to seize money that is rightfully theirs. Still others claim that you have won a large cash prize in a lottery or sweepstakes from another country. The emails are now going out to people from all walks of life, and new twists are surfacing all the time.

If you take the bait, the scammer will start communicating with you about the funds transfer, requesting personal information such as your home address, phone number, and bank account number. Many ask you to come overseas to complete the transaction. And at some point they will ask for an advance payment to cover taxes, attorney fees, bribes, or some other fee.

If you receive a letter like this, do not even reply to it. Many of these people are skilled scammers, and will stop at nothing to convince you. And there have been numerous reports of people getting started with one of these deals, then backing out, only to receive death threats.

Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

I read about a new scam that is popping up in a newsletter from my ISP. It isn’t exactly a work at home scam, but it seemed like something that would be worth mentioning.

Emails are being sent out to customers of Bank of America and various other banks claiming to promote a security program called Stop Fraud Now. They ask people to register by giving them their Social Security Number, credit card number, and PIN number.

Phishing scams have been around for a long time, but this is a new twist on them. Don’t reply to or click on a link in any email that asks for this sort of information. If you believe that it is legitimate, type your bank’s web address in your browser and check it out. Or better yet, call and ask them about it- but don’t use any number provided in the email, get it from your bank statement.

Home assembly is a scam that I have first-hand experience with. I touched on it in my first post also, but here I will go into a little more detail.

A company places ads looking for people to assemble products from home, send them to the company, and receive payment for them. All you have to do is send a stated amount of money for instructions.

So you send them your money. And they send you instructions or a pattern to make the product, along with a supply list. Many of them are even “generous” enough to offer the opportunity to purchase the supplies directly from them for a supposed discount.

They ask that you make a sample item and send it in for evaluation so that they can see if your work is up to their standards. And therein lies the catch: It is never up to their standards. After you send your sample in, you receive a letter saying that it is not good enough. Usually they encourage you to try again, hoping that you will buy more materials for them. And if they don’t send your sample back, you can be sure that they’re selling it for profit!

The red flag here, again, is having to send money for a job. That is something that you should never do, no matter what the circumstances.

In my first post, I mentioned envelope stuffing scams. For those of you who are not familiar with them, here is some info.

Envelope stuffing scams are one of the oldest scams in the book. Ads are placed for envelope stuffing “jobs”, with the promise of a certain amount (usually about $1-$5) per envelope. All you have to do is send a certain amount of money (usually about $20-$30) for the information and materials needed to get started, or to prove that you’re “serious” about the job.

The first red flag here is having to send money. You should never pay for a job! Business opportunities usually require an investment, but not jobs.

And doesn’t it just sound too good to be true? That’s because it is. No company is going to pay you $1-$5 to stuff one envelope. If you send your money in, you will get instructions to advertise the same “job offer” to other unsuspecting souls, collect their hard earned money, and send them the same instructions. Or worse still, to instruct them to send $20-$30 to the same company you sent your money to, of which you supposedly get a cut.

Don’t fall for this one! If you do you could be charged with mail fraud. And it is very doubtful that you would make any money from it anyway.

Are you reading this because you’ve already been scammed and don’t want it to happen again? Here are some resources for scam victims.

The Better Business Bureau is a good place to start. You can file complaints against dishonest businesses with them. You can also check out those that you are considering doing business with to see if there are complaints against them, and how they were handled.

The National Fraud Information Center is a good place to report internet and telemarketing fraud.

Consumer Sentinel is a government site that takes consumer fraud and identity theft complaints. These complaints are shared with law enforcement agencies around the world to help stop the scammers.

There are also numerous scam forums, such as Scam.com. You can’t file an official complaint on them, but they are useful in getting the word out so that others won’t be scammed.

I will be putting these links up permanently in the links section, along with other useful links as I find them, for easy reference.

Good question, glad you asked! First let me tell you a little about myself.

In 2003, my daughter was a year old, and I had recently quit my part-time job because my husband had changed jobs and our schedules would conflict. Rather than trying to find a babysitter and probably spending most of my meager wages to pay for it, I decided to stay at home.

After a few months, I started thinking about things I could do from home to help with the bills. I had limited transportation (we lived in a rural area and only had one vehicle at the time), so I thought I would see what the Internet had to offer. I ordered a book of supposed work at home opportunities. There were home assembly jobs, envelope stuffing jobs and the like. I sent off for information on some of them. The envelope stuffing jobs just sounded fishy, so fortunately I didn’t waste my money on them. But I did send money to some of the home assembly companies. What followed was a tiresome cycle of buying supplies, making samples, sending them in, and receiving letters that my work was not up to their standards.

I wasted money that I couldn’t spare and learned a valuable lesson: When you’re trying to work from home, there are scams every way you turn!

My work at home efforts didn’t pay off quickly enough, as my husband lost his job, I had to get my Internet cut off, and we were evicted. If only I could have found a legitimate and lucrative opportunity, the next few years might have turned out much better.

Fast forward to early 2006. Hubby and I both had steady jobs making decent money. Not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but much better off than we had ever been in our five years together. But my job was the pits. I worked 12 hour night shifts at a factory that was rumored to be going overseas within the next few years. It started off tolerable, but got progressively worse. And my daughter had to stay with my in-laws during the day while I slept. They were nice enough to keep her free of charge, but I felt like they were raising her as much as I was. I wanted something more, a job I could enjoy and still be able to raise my daughter myself.

So I set out once again to start working from home, this time much wiser and more leery from experience. I bought TBA Deals, an established resource site for work at home moms, and opened Daydream River Gifts, an online home decor and gift store. I signed up for some affiliate programs. I’ve applied for some part-time telecommuting jobs. And I quit my factory job. I’m still not making a great deal of money, but so far I’ve managed to (for the most part) avoid scams.

So, I started this blog to help keep other work at home moms from losing money to unscrupulous people and companies. To help show them how to separate the legitimate jobs and opportunities from the wastes of time and money. And hopefully to help more moms be able to stay at home with their children. Stay tuned for lots of helpful tips!