Most of us have seen the advertisements offering ‘risk-free’ work-at-home opportunities that claim that you can earn a large income for very little work, all from the comfort of your own home. The ads are usually for jobs such as data entry, envelope stuffing or assembling craft projects. It sounds like a dream come true – working at home exactly when you want to.
What the advertisements fail to disclose is that you are expected to purchase supplies or equipment to do the job, or pay for products up front and sell them yourself. You may also have to purchase software or cover the cost of placing newspaper advertisements or making photocopies. Many work-at-home scams require that you pay a sign-up fee just to get started.
One of the scams that offers work assembling craft products requires you to buy a supply kit, which consists of several packages of beads, thread and a rather complicated necklace pattern. Your job is to ‘assemble’ the necklaces according to the instructions, then sell it back to the company, which will refuse to pay if the product does not meet their standards of quality.
Some work-at-home scams work entirely by getting others to sign up (for a fee, of course). Other home business ‘opportunities’ coerce you into buying large amounts of products, which you are responsible for selling at an outrageously high price in order to make your profit. But they don’t stop there. They also sell you promotional material and sales courses which they claim that you need in order to make your home business a success.
Legitimate work from home opportunities do exist, but you should investigate the company thoroughly before paying any money. In some cases, it is worthwhile to make a small investment to get started in a home business program, although most of them are scams that only make money for the parent company. If the business is legitimate, you should have no problem finding out in writing exactly what will be expected of you, for example:
- The type of work involved
- Whether or not you need to pay up front fees or buy supplies
- Total amount of money you will have to pay
- How long before you start earning money
- How you will be paid (salary, commission or otherwise)
- Who pays you
- Can this information be verified by people currently working in this program?
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After much thought and reading an extensive brochure,I joined a home working business. I started off purchasing the smallest amounts of letters and business address list and sent them out.I was in regular contact by e-mail with the director and it was all professional and seemingly genuine.Each letter has a code applicable to me so that they can pay the commission to the correct agent.
After a couple of months I e-mailed to see when my first earnings would arrive.I received an answer to say they would check on my customer list.Still nothing happened and I then e-mailed to say I coudn’t afford any more money until I received income due to very poor financial circumstances. Since then every e-mail I tried to send has failed to reach the correct destination.
Will I be able to recover my money?
Would appreciate a reply asap
I recieved a E mail supposidly from my grandaughter telling me she had made $24 dollars for filling in forms and she thought it was great then another E mail supposidly from her again saying she cant beleive Google had paid her $56dollars just for searching on line it is a scam and my daughter was upset they live abroad so how the hell can google get away with using a address out of my mail list it is frightening when I opened the link it was showing you people from Glasgow telling how much they can make working from home
I hope this is seen to A S A P
It is about a E mail I received supposidly from my grandaughter telling me she had made $26dollars for filling in forms online
working from home she is a junior and her mother new nothing about it and neither did my grandaughter then I got another E mail supposidly from her again this week saying she cant beleive Google have sent her a cheque for $56dollars saying and they say their is a recsion on it is a scandal to think someone can get into my contact list and pick a name and send a E mail pretending to be them
on the link it showed people from Glasgow telling what a great idea
I think not I want this exposed as soon as possible thank you
I have just bought an online franchise called “Internetfranchise 4 u”,
it is a complete scam!
It is advertised on alot of the franchise directories so looks very genuine.
In total they have taken about 4k from me.
Just a warning to others stay well away!!!!