The Work at Home Scam Blog

It’s no surprise that so many people are becoming interested in working at home. With gas prices obscenely high, and the economy on seriously shaky ground, who wouldn’t like to cut the daily commute out of the budget? I’ve read on forums about people who are buying $250 worth of gas a week just to go to work. That’s terrible.

The thing is, with all of this interest in working from home comes an increase in scams. According to this video from KTVK 3TV in Phoenix, the BBB took nearly twice as many complaints about work at home scams during the second quarter of 2008 as they did the first quarter. Maybe part of that has been due to an increase in the number of people who are looking for home jobs, but you know the scammers have got to be loving the fresh prospects and redoubling their efforts.

With new scams being developed all the time, it’s up to us to remain vigilant. If you want to work at home, it’s important to research every opportunity thoroughly before getting involved. And if you receive an email claiming to be from a job search site, please don’t click any links in it. Type the domain of the site into your browser’s address bar and log in from there. It might take a little longer, but it can save you from inadvertently downloading dangerous spyware or having your login information stolen.

There are more legitimate opportunities out there than ever before, so don’t let these scammers stop you from trying to find a home job. But don’t let your desire to work from home cloud your judgment, either.

I’ve received quite a few comments on my post about Payment Processing Jobs from people with first-hand experience with these scams. To say this type of con is alive and well is an understatement.

Most of the commenters were people who were considering taking such a job, but once they became better informed, decided against it. But some of them unfortunately had taken such a job and ended up in the middle of a very large mess. They found themselves holding the bag when all of the paper trails led to them. Not a good place to be when all you were trying to do is make a little money to support yourself without hurting anyone else.

I found a good resource for anyone who finds himself in a similar situation. It’s a section over at FraudAid.com that goes over the best things to do to protect your good name, avoid jail, and get on with your life if this happens to you. So if this is happening to you or someone you care about, thoroughly read The Fraud Victim’s Manual.

Fraud Aid is a non-profit victim advocacy organization, and they have some great information on their site. If you’re looking for a home job, it might be a good idea to bookmark it.

I meant to post this some time ago, but life kept getting in the way. I’ve been receiving some emails claiming to be from employers going through CareerBuilder.com, saying that they saw my resume and would like to hire me. They were pretty convincing, and if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve never posted my resume there I might have been enticed to check them out further.

It has been a week or so since I got one of those, so I’m hoping that the culprits have been discovered. But someone else could easily do the same thing. So it’s up to us to remain vigilant in avoiding such scams.

If you get such an email, some red flags to look for include:

• The email comes from a site that you are sure you haven’t posted your resume on.
• The job description is vague.
• A job is offered before you’ve even had any contact with the employer. A good resume can help you get a job, but few legitimate employers will offer someone a job without an interview no matter how great the resume is.
• It sounds too good to be true.

Since I didn’t investigate, I’m not sure what the purpose of these emails was. It could have been an offer for a payment processing job or some other questionable position, a phishing scheme, or a vehicle for links to a malicious website. But whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good.

Almost everyone who has searched for a work-at-home job has run across ads for home job directories. Some are in print, others are online. When considering a paid home job directory, you should proceed with caution.

Always keep in mind that there are job boards out there that are free. Yes, there are scams aplenty on them, but the same is true with the paid directories. Many of them claim to list only legitimate jobs, but all too often they don’t.

In my quest to work from home, I have paid for one job directory that was actually worthwhile. They do not accept postings for pyramid schemes or chain letters, and they charge a one-time fee for lifetime access. And they do not guarantee that every job listed is legitimate- they advise their members to check out any work at home job or opportunity. These are the kinds of things you should look for when analyzing a paid job directory. If they do offer a money-back guarantee, be sure to read the fine print before handing over your money.

According to PR Web, the ratio of work-at-home scams to legitimate work-at-home jobs is 42 to 1! And the number of scams is growing by 50% per year.

It’s an outrage that honest people who are trying to make a living from home have to face such odds. All we can do is go over every job and business opportunity with a fine-toothed comb before taking it, and report any scams we run across so that their perpetrators can be shut down and prosecuted.

Please, if you are considering a work-at-home job, do not give the company your information until you have researched them thoroughly. There are good jobs out there, and if you want to stay home with your kids, or for some reason have to work from home, you owe it to yourself to keep searching until you find one. But always look before you leap.

A few years ago, medical billing jobs were supposedly all the rage. Every way you turned there were advertisements for medical billing classes. They promised you training, the necessary software, and job placement upon successful completion of training.

The companies behind all of that hype must have made a lot of people very angry, because the ads aren’t seen nearly as much these days. There were several catches to all the promises they made.

The training and software usually cost several hundred dollars. But the software was often out of date, and there was no guarantee that the offices you would be working for would even let you use that software. And the job placement? They would send you a list of medical offices to call and try to convince that they should hire you and let you work from home, with no indication whether they were even in need of personnel. Not a very effective way to get a job.

So if you do happen to see these types of advertisements for medical billing jobs, or any variation on them, run in the other direction.

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.

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.