Identify Home Business Scams and Avoid Them

How To Avoid Home Business Scams!

Possibly the reason you’re interested in setting up your own home business is because you’ve seen an ad somewhere, or you’ve been approached by someone.

It was all about what appears to be a great work-from-home money-making opportunity, and you’re excited.

Then you start thinking about finally having the ability to quit your job.

If you’re thinking of working from home by someone else’s rules, though, you have to realize that a high percentage of the offers out there are scams – after all, if it was that easy to pay a few dollars and make thousands, wouldn’t everyone be doing it by now?

The hard fact is there are no magic buttons, quick fixes or simple and quick get rich solutions that can immediately replace the income produced from your job.

Building a successful home business takes time, knowledge, desire, persistence and most importantly, ACTION.

Here are some of the biggest scams out there, how to recognize them, and most importantly how to avoid them.

Location, Location, Location!

Where did you see that work from home business offer?

If you got it in the mail, or by email, or saw it on a poster taped around a telephone pole, then I can almost guarantee you right now that it’s not a legitimate offer.

If you saw the ad in a newspaper, in a jobs magazine or on a jobs related website, then it’s a little more likely to be legit – but not much.

Always check out any home business opportunity, and assume it’s a scam until you have iron-clad proof to the contrary.

Envelope Stuffing

This is likely the most established work from home business scam, and it’s been going strong for decades now.

Basically, once you pay your money and sign up to work from home, you’re sent a set of envelopes and ads just like the one you responded to.

You might make some money if someone responds to your ad, but eventually there just won’t be a market for it any more.

You won’t make any money putting letters in envelopes – get over it.

Charging for Supplies

The practice of charging for supplies is hard to pin down to any one scam – it’s the way many work from home business scams work (including the envelope stuffing, above).

You’ll be asked to make a small ‘investment’ for whatever materials would be needed to do the work – and then you’ll be sent very shoddy materials that aren’t worth anything like what you paid, and often you’ll find that there’s no market for the work anyway.

If anyone asks for money upfront, run.

A real company should be willing to deduct any ‘fees’ from your first paycheck, if they aren't willing to do that for you, then it could be because they don’t ever plan to pay you.

Working for Free

This variation on the work from home scam is common with crafts. You might be asked to work at home making clothes, ornaments or toys.

Everything seems legitimate – you’ve got the materials without paying out any money, and you’re doing the work.

Unfortunately for you, when you send the work back, the company will tell you that it didn’t meet their ‘quality standards’, and will refuse to pay you.

Then they’ll sell hat you made at a profit, and move on to the next sucker.

Unless you're the one selling the finished product, never do craft work as a home business unless you’re selling the items yourself.

Note that you don’t need to be selling to consumers (you could be selling to wholesalers), but you still need to be the one deciding what you make and getting the money for your efforts.

Home Typing, Medical Billing, and More

There are lots of work-from-home business scams that involve persuading you that some industry has more work than it can handle, and so has to outsource to people working from home.

For example, you might be told that you’ll be typing legal documents, or entering medical bills into an electronic database.

These scams have one thing in common: they all say that all you need is your computer, and they all then go on to say that you need to buy some ‘special software’.

This software might appear to be from a completely unrelated company, but don’t be fooled – the whole reason the ‘work-from-home’ ad was there to begin with was simply to get you to buy the software.

Additional Tips To Avoid Home Business Scams

Below are some suspicious red flags that should get you to reconsider your choice of a business opportunity.

1. For starters if a company boasts of all of the “investors” that have already paid into the program but are somehow not available to talk to you – red flag! If not one reference is available then you are onto something fishy. And if they do provide references then by all means make sure they are legit. I have seen companies actually pay for fake references.

2. When the company tells you that you do not have to lift a finger or do any work to make money – red flag! Let's have a quick reality check here. I know it is enticing to imagine sending in a check, pushing one button, and then laying on the couch while you get millions in royalty checks every week.

But folks, it just doesn't work like that in the real world and nobody is going to sell you a magic button that all you have to do is press it and you automatically make money. So when you get boatloads of heavenly income promises and millions “doing nothing” guarantees, then I strongly suggest that you run away from that so called opportunity and look elsewhere.

3. If you are pressured into sending in money or a check to “invest” in the business opportunity – red flag! A true business opportunity is not going to be hounding you like a dog.

Legitimate home business opportunities are there to help you, guide you, provide all of the information that you need to get started and without the need to take your money before you have a chance to really feel the company out.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, running a ‘home business’ that just involves ‘working’ for one company may not be the best of ideas.

You don’t know who you’re dealing with.

Here’s the clincher, though: even with entirely legitimate home business and work-at-home opportunities that do pay you for your work, you still won’t make anywhere near as much as you can with your very own home business.

So why bother with them at all?

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