Tips on How to Avoid Work From Home Scams
Here are a few tips to help you avoid the many work from home online scams. The first thing to be aware of is scammers will prey on your fear of losing your job or running out of money. I just read an article on Yahoo that actually said recession times are a booming time for online scams.
More reason to be very careful.
The article went on to say that a study showed a 33 percent increase in money-laundering recruitment websites in the first half of the year compared to 2007. Also work at home spam and its overall success rate have hit all time highs.
This money laundering type of work at home scam online is where you are asked to work at home and process payments through a bank account you are asked to open. You then send the payments to some overseas recipients and you receive a cut of the funds as fee.
The trick here is the payments may actually be credible, however the sender of the payment and the receiver are involved in bad things and you being stuck in the middle, can actually be found guilty and prosecuted!
Let’s review a few other work at home scams, and then we will offer ways to protect yourself.
There are many work at home business opportunities that are very credible. You need to know how to spot the fakes.
Examples of online and offline scams. These often start with emails to you:
1. Nigerian scam: tries to get your bank account information, then drains your account.
2. Rental scams: try to get you to process fake checks. You become liable for the check amount when it bounces.
3. Dating scams: pretty obvious. Someone trying to get you to pay their way from a far off land.
4. Jury duty scams: threats that you will be fined if you don’t do your civil duty.
5. Typing at home, data entry at home, reading emails at home, and the list goes on.
Tips to protect yourself:
1. NEVER give out bank or credit card info via email. I don’t know of any company online that doesn’t use a secure credit card processor.
2. Secure credit card processing: look at the website address of the credit card processor. It should say “https//www.xxxxxx.com”. Note the “s” after the “http”. The “s” means secure.
3. Review websites: there are many websites that provide reviews of work at home opportunities. Also many forums that you can check with.
Be careful though, many “scam review” websites may just be luring you to their product, a common marketing tactic. So, that said, don’t believe everything that is said about a program or product.
Best bet to avoid work at home online scams is use your gut instinct. If it is too good to be true, it probably is.
