Fresh Advice: Work From Home Job Scams

Published on 2008-04-07

For students, parents, the physically disabled, or people with a few hours a week to spare, work from home jobs can be a tremendously convenient way to earn pocket money or keep the bills paid. But not all such opportunities are legitimate. Work at home scams have grown like weeds amongst the many genuine home based jobs that can be found online. Job hunters who are interested in working from home should first educate themselves about how to evaluate job listings and spot the warning signs that may suggest an Internet scam. At Fresho.com, we provide a "Report Scam" link at the top of all of our job postings. The following information can help you to know when a job ad is the real deal.

Pay to work?

Imagine walking into a job interview and being told that before you can start, you need to pay the company $50 or $100 to prove that you're serious. This is one of the most common ploys used by Internet scammers. Something will usually be offered in return - enrollment, access to information, a work-at-home "starter kit" - but you are essentially paying them for the opportunity to work. Legitimate companies do not charge job applicants a fee. If the upfront money for training or equipment is going from you to them rather than vice versa, you're not an employee - you're what con artists call a "mark."

Franchise opportunities with a reputable company are another matter. Starting a home-based franchise will require an initial fee and payments for licensing, insurance, and other legitimate business expenses. Before you enter a business or employment relationship with any company, be sure that it can provide you with names, references and verifiable contact information (including a real address rather than a postal box number). Do an online search to see if other people have written about the company or reported them to the Better Business Bureau.

There are no Internet employment genies.

Work at home jobs are just that - work. They're not magical, and they won't make you a millionaire in five years. What they should do is provide you with a steady source of moderate income. If you start your job search expecting more than that, you're liable to get scammed. If you receive a job offer, read the fine print. Pay for at home jobs is typically based on performance rather than an hourly wage. Make sure you understand the terms under which you will be compensated. To avoid spammers when searching for stay at home jobs at Fresho, we recommend opening a temporary email account that you can use to contact employers.

Scams aside, work from home jobs can lead to new career opportunities in any number of ways. For example, if you're looking for online data entry jobs, you might find a career as a medical transcriptionist to be appealing. Whether you're looking for jobs in Florida, Washington, California, New York or anywhere in between, Fresho.com is the job search engine that works for you.