You’ve seen it before:
- Pay thousands to get started
- Easy jobs from home
- No experience required
- Earn $350 a day
Unfortunately, in the work at home niche, scams are everywhere. Some work-from-home scams are more obvious than others (and occasionally, legitimate opportunities can sound like scams). It’s hard to weed out legitimate opportunities from the scams you have to stay away from.
How to avoid job scams?
Do your research and proceed with caution! Always read up on a company or organization to find out if they have a reputable (or any) online presence. Look up the company’s executive profiles on their website and compare the information with LinkedIn profiles. Look for contact information such as the company’s email address, phone number, and physical location. Scammers don’t want to be found, so they hide behind fake accounts, free email addresses and mailboxes.
Don’t buy now. Discuss business opportunities with your friends, spouse, and others before taking the plunge. Take a look Better Business Bureau, Glassdoor.com, Trustpilotand other review sites to confirm that you are not being scammed.
Get-rich-quick offers seem appealing. Marketers are great at framing offers as fleeting opportunities, inviting you to hop on the train before it leaves the station. Pyramid schemes, check cashing scams, and other opportunities claim that simply paying in advance will yield huge returns with little work or effort. Unfortunately, it’s rarely on the rise.
When someone describes a remote work opportunity, trust your gut first and then do your homework — even if you know the person making the claim well. With many scams, even educated, intelligent and normally cautious people can be drawn in. Consider all the celebrities and CEOs who have fallen through Ponzi schemes and investment opportunities gone wrong. Even with a team of lawyers, managers and friends to watch their backs, they are caught by the scammers. It can happen to the best of us.
When a company asks you to pay upfront or send money immediately, take a step back. Yes, some business opportunities require an initial investment and some do not legitimate jobs from home require applicants to pay for criminal background checks. However, pay-to-participate programs should always set off alarms, especially if they seem too good to be true.
To help you decipher what’s legit and what’s not, here’s a list of the most common home business scams to stay away from!
1. Assembly kits for money
One common scam at home is assembly kits. These kits can be for toys, jewelry, electronics, records, or other products. This offers a sound appeal because putting something together creatively can be fun. Typically, participants are told to buy a kit to create a product that will be sold to the company.
Reviews of these kits reveal that they are often time consuming and labor intensive. Time estimates for assembly kits are usually grossly underestimated and returns are little or nothing. Not to mention, most of the time, when you try to return the finished product to the seller, the finished product doesn’t meet their quality requirements — so you’re out the money you paid for the kit. Instead of creating something with little value or market value, why not express your creativity I sell handmade items on Etsywhere can you control price and value?
2. Car-Wrap Advertising
Car wrapping options are another fake offer to watch out for. Companies claim to pay you to advertise on your vehicle. Scammers may ask for an upfront fee with a promise to send the materials for wrapping. They may also suggest complicated payment methods (such as sending a cashier’s check to pay the installer, rather than paying the installer yourself). These scams can turn into major robberies.
There are several legitimate companies that will pay you to advertise on your vehicle. These legitimate companies will have reviews online. They won’t ask you to pay up front, but they will ask you questions about your driving habits. (Because who’s going to pay you to put an ad on a car if you never drive it?) Carvertise (they have Grade with BBB) is a company that verifies its drivers and pays qualified advertisers. Always do your research before you join.
3. Fake check fraud
Check out cash scams are notorious and can be life-changing. They usually look and feel like legitimate job ads. Some of these scammers pose as home businesses and will ask for your identification, bank account information and other personal information to set you up as a so-called employee. However, after the initial phishing is over, check-cashing scammers will send employees a check that looks real. They’ll ask you to deposit a check and then give them cash back or pay them up front for equipment, training or other services.
This is where a scam should raise red flags! Once these scammers get your personal information and money, they disappear, leaving you to clean up the mess of depositing and cashing the fake check!
4. Filling envelopes
When I was in college, I fell for it envelope stuffing scam. The flyer asked for $12 for information, and supposedly I would learn how to stuff envelopes while making $2 per envelope! Well, it turns out the whole “secret” was simply reprinting flyers, posting them on job boards, and waiting for other unsuspecting job seekers to fall for the scam. Ugh! No thanks!
Today, these stuffed envelope scams are all over the internet, following the same concept (but often asking for much more than $12). Don’t fall for it! The envelope stuffing scheme is one of the oldest and most common work at home scams. The FTC and Better Business Bureau have issued warnings about these scams.
5. Copy and Paste Jobs
Jobs advertised as link posting positions or copy and paste jobs are scams, period. For a small startup fee, scam companies claim you’ll make thousands of dollars simply by copying and pasting links to classifieds websites like Craigslist. Supposedly you will make money as people click on the links, but in reality, the links you post are SPAM and are generally marked as such. So you never make money. Additionally, this so-called business adds to the massive amount of junk/SPAM already on the internet. Avoid copy and paste jobs — will never yield positive results.
6. Pyramid schemes
Often, pyramid schemes can be disguised as multi-level marketing (MLM) opportunities, but don’t be fooled. A pyramid scheme rarely results in an actual product being sold. Participants in pyramid schemes are often required to pay an upfront enrollment fee; however, there is no real product or service. With pyramid schemes, individuals make money by enrolling more participants in the scheme rather than selling the actual product.
In pyramid schemes, the product is fake. There is no product and nothing to promote except the program itself. Pyramid schemes are not only malicious and unsustainable – they are illegal worldwide! The money goes directly to the participants at the top of the pyramid, so most people end up losing money and burning out. Don’t fall for it!
7. Rebate processing
Rebate processing is another work at home scam that is popping up about affiliate marketing. Usually the companies running this scam will ask you to pay up front (a red flag) to learn more about “how” to take advantage of this opportunity. After you pay, you’ll be sent information on how to post ads and rebate offers for related products on sites like Craigslist and on social media.
When someone clicks on the ad and ends up buying the linked product, you’ll get a portion of the commission (which usually never is because you’re posting SPAM). Then, since the ad you placed includes a rebate offer, you’ll have to pass on a portion of your commission to the customer as well. This is a scam and not worth your time!
8. Unsolicited job offers
Watch out for unsolicited job offers, investment and purchase opportunities that someone wants to offer you (but you didn’t ask for). Many thefts, scams and recruitment schemes come unsolicited. Before a scammer tells you about an offer you can’t miss, ask yourself, “Did I ask for this information?”
Unsolicited job offers come in many forms. A fake recruiter can contact you via email, social media, SMS or phone. Unsolicited offers generally don’t happen in person or face-to-face, as scammers don’t want to reveal their true identity.
The best way to avoid being scammed by unsolicited job offers is to keep a record of the jobs you’ve applied for. That way, when a job offer comes in, you’ll know whether you’ve applied for the position or not. If you receive an unsolicited job offer, please mark the email as SPAM and then delete the email. You never want to click on unknown links or reveal personal information or passwords, as many unsolicited job offers are phishing scams. If you think the job offer is legitimate, you should be able to locate the recruiter on LinkedIn and verify their identity.
Finally, real recruiters aren’t looking for entry-level workers; there are already enough people to fill these positions. They are looking for highly trained professionals, such as health, technology and energy experts.
9. Fake job listings
You are likely to fake job postings if you use large job boards and remote job search websites. With this fraudulent scams, scammers pretend to be legitimate companies in need of remote workers. Often these fake job postings are for high-paying entry-level roles, such as data entry clerks. When you apply for these scam jobs, the scammer will usually request an interview through a third-party messaging app like Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Signal. During this so-called interview, they may ask you for personal information such as your bank account number or social security number. They can also convince you to buy gift cards, which they will claim to refund or tell you they need a deposit for the equipment.
If you find a job on the main job board, I suggest you verify its legitimacy by locating the position on the company’s website or contacting someone at the company to make sure it isn’t scam work from home.
What to do if you have fallen for a scam
If you have been the victim of fraud, contact your bank or credit card company to stop the payment. If you’ve provided personal information, such as a password, change it quickly to prevent fraudsters from taking over your account. You should also report fraud Federal Trade Commission so they can research the company in question. In some cases, depending on how fast you act, you may be able to recoup your losses, but often, once the money is gone, it’s gone forever. So it’s always best to take your time when exploring telecommuting options.
Avoiding work at home scams
If you still feel uneasy about how to spot a work at home scam – check it out FlexJobs. Every single job listed on their website is hand-reviewed for legitimacy. When you apply for a job through FlexJobs — you can be sure you won’t fall victim to a work-at-home scam. Not only does FlexJobs have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, but it also offers a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied.
Fortunately, there are many great, legitimate ways to make money from home. Just remember: If a work-at-home opportunity sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Proceed with caution, do your homework and watch out for these common scams!
Originally published on July 18, 2017. Content updated on July 2024.
