Be Scam FREE for Life

Work-at-home schemes come in many forms. Some of the more common ones include:

Medical Billing Centers-You send money for a kit to run a bill collection service from your home. The scam artists promise that the market is wide open and they have lined up clients for you. In reality, you stand to lose your entire investment. The kit is only a bunch of forms and letters that anyone could design. The names of companies they send you are merely names and addresses they got from the phone book.

Envelope Stuffing-This is the most common home employment scam, according to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. You send money and the so called “business” will send you information about earning money by simply stuffing envelopes at home. After you pay your money you will probably get a letter telling you to place the exact same envelope-stuffing ad somewhere else, or to send the ad to anyone you know. The only way you'll earn money is if people respond to your work-at-home ad and you take their money in the same illegal way that you got yours taken.

Assembly or Craft Work-You send money for supplies to assemble into products. These programs often require you to invest hundreds of dollars in equipment or supplies. Or they require you to spend many hours producing goods for a company that has promised to buy them. You’re told that there is a ready market for the products or that the company will buy the products from you. The catch is that your items are never up to “quality standards” so you must sell the items yourself in order to make any money.

Fake Business Opportunities-You send money for information about starting a business from your home. There aren’t many details but the promises of money are big and often include claims that they will provide all the training you need. The catch is that the fraudulent salesperson will constantly try to sell you more information about special “training and support systems.” Anyone who really had business ideas this good would never offer this information to thousands of others. They would simply use it themselves.

Nigerian Scam-There is an email scam has been widely distributed in many forms for years. Chances are that you have probably received it yourself. They claim a wealthy foreigner needs your help moving millions of dollars from his homeland to yours and will reward you with a huge percentage of the fortune if you agree to assist him. Emails from Nigeria, or almost any other foreign nation, are sent to addresses taken from large mailing lists. The letters promise rich rewards for helping officials of that government, family, or other agency out of an embarrassment or a legal problem. Typically, the pitch includes the mentioning of huge multi-million dollar sums, with the open promise that you will be permitted to keep a large percentage of the funds you're going to aid in filtering in for these people.

Identity Theft-Beware any company that asks for your social security and/or driver's license number. There are an increasing number of people using job advertisements as a way to obtain this information for other reasons. You may have to give this information to a legitimate company eventually but make sure you are in safe hands before giving it out.

Be wary of offers to send you an advance on your pay-Some scam artists use this ploy to build trust and get money from you. They send you a check for part of your first month’s pay. You deposit it, and the bank tells you the check has cleared because the normal time has passed to be notified that checks have bounced. Then the scammer contacts you to say that you were mistakenly paid the wrong amount or that you need to return a portion of the payment for some other reason. After you send the money back, the check that you deposited finally bounces because it turned out to be a fake. Now they have your money, and you’re left owing your bank the amount that you withdrew.

Some tips for avoiding Scams:

Here are some organizations to check with before getting involved in a program:

The Better Business Bureau - This is probably the most well-known of all the organizations that help to protect you. They offer valuable resources and information on all types of businesses.

The Federal Trade Commission - Do a search for here and you can get a ton of information. Among the wealth of info you can find out which companies are being or have been investigated and/or taken to court by the FTC.

National Fraud Information Center - Provides lots of valuable resources about all sorts of scams including: telephone, mail, and online scams.

Scambusters - Offers information and how to protect yourself from scams, fraud, hoaxes, and more.

Here's another article with more scam information and organizations to check with to ensure you are not getting scammed, or to report scams - Resources Ensuring You Never Get Scammed

Here is another great resource for scam information. It is a collection of articles called Scams 101 - So many scams... So little time!