5 Ways To Spot Work at Home Scams
Work at home scams have been around since the old days of direct mail offers.
Now, with the speed and variety of ways to communicate online, these
work at home scams are now on steriods. Its too bad there are so many of them - the heavy
lifting of finding legitimate work at home jobs ends
up being the sifting through all the fake programs. But once you know how to spot a fraudster,
you'll be able to zoom to land the real work at home work.
1) Promises of high income
Like most things, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So what is realistic?
Making the same ammount of money working at home as you would working in
an office is in the realm of the realistic, but in the first year getting 70-80% of what
you were making in an office is probably where you'll end up.
After a year or two's practice and experience, earning 30% more than you were at your old
office job is realistic.
2) Unrealistic claims of what the product can do
Any product - no matter how great it is - is only as good as the person using it. Just buying
a work at home product will get you NOWHERE. Actually, that's so important, I'll
repeat myself: buying a work at home product will get you NOWHERE, no matter how great the
product is or how many people have used it. How many times have you bought
some self-improvement item, then never used it? Just buying the product did nothing. Using
the product - ah, that's where the action is. Don't think I'm lecturing here - I'm thinking
about all the "great, effective" stuff I've got sitting around that I've never used...
Getting back to the claims of any work at home product - no matter how great it is,
you'll have to put a fair ammount of
effort in if you want to succeed. If buying the product and paying something con you into
working harder, well, that's your call. I wonder actually, how often we buy things
simply because we feel that if we just had product-du-jour, we'd be equipped to take the
actions required to move forward. Let me save you some money: you already have
everything you need to move forward. Sitting down and giving yourself a good pep talk to
get motivated enough to take even one solid action a day toward working at home
is going to get you WAY closer to your goal than handing over $30 (or $100, or $9.95 or
whatever). You're the best product you're ever going to find.
3) Insider Information
A marketing hype term. Don't buy it. Once you actually find a real work at home opportunity,
you won't need "insider information" - you'll need someone's personal experience. If you come
across a work at home website written by someone who actually recieves regular paychecks, that
might be worth a closer look. Otherwise, move on. Again - you want to be talking directly to
the companies that are hiring, not to the marketers trying to sell you something.
4) Asking for money for instructions or without explaining how the product actually works
Any good, real company that's been around for awhile is going to give you lots of freebies and
excellent information to build trust before they ever mention money. Also, remember that old
kernel of wisdom, "show me the money". In this case its "show me the product." If you can't
get a sample of the product (like the first chapter, or a great report on how to interview
with a call center outside of your state without leaving home), then move on.
5) "No experience required"
Any decent company worth working for (ie, not a one shot, one day gig, but an actual work at home job)
is going to want some kind of experience. Also, "no experience required" is kind of like "insider
information" its a pasted on marketing buzzword.
A few bonus tips:
- Get the contact information of other people doing the exact same work. Talk to them about their experience. Be sure to speak to at LEAST four people about their work at home experience with the company.
- Any work at home offer sent via an unsolicited email is probably bogus.
- Never buy into the oldest scam out there: the company hires you to go out and find people who want to work
at home, and your job is to sell them the company's work at home product.
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