How to Recognize a Work From Home Scam

Copyright (c) 2008 Colin Meunier

The Internet has grown by leaps and bounds in a few years. In just a matter of a few years, the Internet has turned from a research and information portal to a complete business solution. In fact, the term E-Commerce owes its very existence to robust infrastructure that is the Internet. Not only has the Internet helped companies and corporate entities to enhance their business, it has also helped individuals and professionals to live a comfortable and interesting life, the Work from Home life.

Work from home, telecommuting, whatever we know it as, has been seen as a good option by many people to their common jobs. It is a fact that a few years ago work from home was always meant for people who could not move much out of their house for varied reasons. Today however, it is actually seen as a more paying and more comfortable option to a full time job.

However, every coin has two sides, and so does the Internet. The Internet has its own share of crimes, sometimes called as cyber-crimes. Cyber crimes is a broad description of any action or service that is done over the Internet which is unethical and immoral.

While talking cyber crimes, one concept that comes up regularly is 'Work at Home' scams. With so many people looking out for working out of their comforts of their home, it is only natural that some unscrupulous people would come up with a kind of work at home scam.

To recognize a Work at Home Scam, one first would have to come up with a concrete definition of a work at home scam. Though there can be varied kinds of work at home scams, one thing that we can be certain is what is not a Work at Home Scam.

MLMs are Not a Work at Home Scam: The most controversial business plan ever, MLMs. Though MLMs have a very bad name even in offline life, and though there are multitudes of court cases against almost every major MLM in a number of countries ' they still cannot be termed as a work at home scam. Actually speaking, MLMs are not a work at home scam, they are simply a business or job that requires a lot of dedication and resources, even more than a full time job and therefore many people do not achieve a success in MLMs, and therefore the general idea that it is scam.

Here are some tips to recognize a work at home scam:

Pay to Play (Work): Ask any professional with even a year of experience of working at home and they will tell you that no proper company or individual will ever expect a cost from anyone who works for them, let alone demanding. Of course, this does not apply to any websites that you access to get assignments to work at home. Any subscription fees that you pay via these websites are charged by the websites and the people offering the work assignments.

Hypermarketing:

'Get that Cadillac', 'Get that World Tour You Want', these and other advertisements phrases should be a red mark when it comes to recognizing a work at home scam. Seriously, if someone could get all this from their work, would they be spending their time sitting on a computer and offering these same things to others? So be careful when you get that next email which proclaims with a chest thumping that they can solve all your problems, in one day!