2004 Vishal P. Rao
As more and more people opt-out of conventional
jobs and instead choose to work from their homes,
the number of work-at-home scams has also increased.
Each year thousands of people find out the hard
way that opportunities which are too good to be
true usually are but not before they invest and
waste millions of dollars a year.
You don't have to be one
of those unfortunate people. All you need to do
is to become more informed, ask the appropriate
questions, and know what to do if you are the
victim of illegitimate opportunity.
Become More Informed
One of the first things
you should become aware of are the types of business
opportunities which are most frequently scams.
One of the oldest of these
scams are stuffing envelopes and/or assembling
items in your home. You'll find these opportunities
in lots of sources, even some that are legitimate.
However, what most of these ads fail to say is
that you have to pay them a fee to begin. Then
after you complete your job, your work is often
rejected as substandard and, of course, you never
see a penny. The other thing that happens is that
you have to send in money only to receive instructions
on how to place an ad just like the one that you've
just placed in order to bring individuals just
like yourself.
Another common work-at-home
scams are Pyramid schemes. Pyramid schemes are
often passed off as MLM (multi-level marketing)
opportunities, but there is a key difference.
Pyramid schemes are more concerned with having
you bring in more people and less concerned with
selling products. The reason is that they aren't
making their money off of selling anything to
actual customers but from taking money from hopeful
entrepreneurs like you. Most of these schemes
ask you to make an investment or a purchase in
order to become a full-fledged participant and/or
to receive all of your potential profits. Generally,
you never see any of the earnings promised in
their advertisements.
If an opportunity you've
found seems to fall into one of these categories,
you should start asking questions before signing
up for anything.
Ask the Appropriate Questions
Even though these work-at-home
opportunities often state that you have to act
now or join by a certain time to secure your spot,
you must take the time to ask questions. Then,
don't join unless your questions are answered
to your satisfaction.
Here are some of those questions:
1) Ask exactly what type
of work you will be expected to perform.
2) Ask how you will be paid. If you are going
to be paid by commission, be sure to ask exactly
what your percentage will be.
3) Ask exactly how much money you need to spend,
including fees, supplies, inventory, etc.
4) Ask how long the company has been in business
since non-legitimate companies frequently change
their name to go out of business.
5) Ask to get copies of the company's sales materials
and product descriptions, so you can determine
how product-focused the company is.
Know What to Do If You Are
a Victim
If you are the victim of
one of these scams, then you need to know what
to do next.
Your first course of action
should be to notify the company. Talk to someone
as high up in the business as possible and be
sure to make them aware that your plan to contact
the appropriate authorities.
If you don't receive any
satisfaction from the company, your next step
is to report the company to the authorities. Youshould
file a complaint with at least one, if not all,
of the organizations below:
1. The Federal Trade Commission
- You can file a report through their web site
at http://www.ftc.gov
2. The Better Business Bureau - You can contact
them through their web site at http://www.bbb.org.
3. The Attorney General of Your State - You can
find out how to contact the attorney general in
your area by doing a search for "Your State
attorney general" at Google.com. The right
page should be the first or second that appears
in the search results.
The bottom line is if a
business opportunity seems to good to be true,
then it's worth checking out. Any business that
tries to pressure you into making a hasty decision
isn't a business you should be working with.
Vishal
P. Rao is the editor of Home Based
Business Opportunities
A website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources for
starting a home based business. He also runs the Work at Home
Forum - an online community of folks who work at home.
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