Now maybe the reason you're interested in setting up a home business is because you've looked somewhere, or you've been approached by someone. It was all about a great work-from-home money-making opportunity, and you're fired up. Finally, you can quit your job!
However, if you're thinking about working from home on someone else's rules, you should realize that at least 99% of the offers out there are scams – after all, if it were that easy to pay a few dollars and make thousands, wouldn't everyone be doing it by now? Here are the biggest scams out there, how to spot them, and how to avoid them.
Location, Location, Location.
Where did you see those work from home offers? If you got it in the mail, or via email, or saw it on a poster stuck on a telephone pole, then I can guarantee you now that it's not a legit offer. If you see an ad in a newspaper, in a job magazine, or on a job website, chances are that it's legitimate – but not by much. Always check any offer, and assume it's a scam until you have hard evidence to the contrary.
Envelope Filling.
This is the most established work-from-home scam, and it's been going on for decades now. Basically, after you've paid your money and signed up to work from home, you're sent a set of envelopes and advertisements as you respond. You may make money if someone responds to your ad, but eventually there will no longer be a market for it. After all, work-from-home offers like these are illegal pyramid schemes.
You're not going to make money putting letters in envelopes – forget it.
Charging for Inventory.
The practice of collecting supplies is hard to pin down for any of the scams – it's how nearly all work-at-home scams work (including envelope stuffing, above). You will be asked to make a small 'investment' for whatever materials are needed to do the job – and then you will be sent really crappy materials that are not worth anything like what you paid for, and you will find that there is no market for the work. .
If anyone asks for money down, run. A real employer should be willing to deduct the 'fee' from your first paycheck - if they're not going to do it for you, then it's because they never planned to pay you.
Work for Free.
Variations of this scam are common in crafts. You may be asked to work at home making clothes, decorations or toys. Everything seems legit – you own the materials without spending any money, and you do the work. Unfortunately for you, when you send the piece back, the company will tell you it didn't meet their 'quality standards', and will refuse to pay you. Then they'll sell what you profitably earn, and move on to the next sucker.
Never do craft work from home unless you are selling the items yourself. Note that you don't have to sell to consumers (you can sell to wholesalers), but you still have to be the one to decide what you make and get the money for.
Home Typing, Medical Billing, and More.
There are a lot of work-from-home scams that involve convincing you that some industries have more work than they can handle, and so have to outsource to people working from home. For example, you may be notified that you will be typing legal documents, or entering medical bills into an electronic database. These scams have one thing in common: they all say all you need is your computer, and then go on to say that you need to purchase some "special software."
The software may appear to be from a completely unrelated company, but don't be fooled – the whole reason the 'work-from-home' ads are there is simply to serve as cynical marketing for the software.
As you can see, running a 'home business' that only involves 'working' for one company is a bad idea. You don't know who you're dealing with. Here's the catch, though: even with a completely legal work at home offer that pays you for your work, you still won't make as much as you could with your own home business. So why bother with them at all?
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