How to Avoid Work At Home Scams

The Internet has created an entirely new way of working and a global marketplace. Now, a person can earn a living or make some side profit right from their home with nothing but an Internet connection, a computer, and some basic software. Web designers, writers, linguists, graphic artists, artists, crafts manufacturers, product retailers, and software developers can all run a home-based business and make a living. However, while the Internet is a great forum for business, it is also a breeding ground and conduit for all kinds of scammers, frauds, and predators. It is a perfect venue for this sort of criminal activity because a person can remain relatively anonymous and never have to deal face to face with the person they are scamming. But for whatever reason you want to work at home. It could be because you were the victim of a job layoff or you want to stay home with your children. Whatever the reason is, you don't want to start working from home only to realize in the end that you lost valuable time and money. This is an especially bad situation when you have bills to pay yourself and groceries to buy for your family but have realized no income because you were the victim of these scams.

One of the first indicators of a work at home scam is that it promises to make you rich and you will have all the leisure time you would ever want. This is nonsense and the first thing you need to do is stay completely away from any type of work at home proposal such as this. Rule number one in this world is that there are no free lunches. If you want to work at home you will have to work. Yes, you have the luxury of being able to schedule your time but you will probably put in more hours than you ever did at a fulltime job. No one can make promises or guarantees that you will be rich from working at home - especially if they know nothing about your situation.

You should never pay to find work. At least you should never pay much. There are some freelancer web sites that have job listings where you offer your services and quote your fee. The best freelancer web sites are those that both collect no fee or a small fee for your membership to that site and have an escrow payment system available so that you know the money has been set aside to pay you when the work is complete. These freelancer sites also take a reasonable percentage of the invoice amount for their fee. Reasonable percentages range from 8 to 15 percent. Some charge as much as 30 percent and should be avoided.

Some other work at home scams include Multilevel Marketing or MLM, envelope stuffing, assembling products at home, processing insurance claims, data entry, and those that offer to pay you to wire money from clients. The last one is not only a scam but it is illegal and you could actually end up in prison. No reputable company will ask you to forward money from their clients. This is money laundering.

A reputable business is one that moves a product or service for a fee. Any advertised business "opportunity"that tries to get you to recruit others prior to making any money whatsoever is a scam. In fact, you could also be in jeopardy of going to prison as the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires that a product or service be moving in order for a business to be considered a real business. Otherwise it is a fraud.

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