The proliferation of high-speed Internet access and the growing acceptance that employees can be productive working from home has spawned tremendous growth in the work-from-home market. Unfortunately, along with these legitimate opportunities have come plenty of unscrupulous scams.

As we discussed in our blog entry about identity thefts, many of the scams are being run to gain access to your bank account and social security card information.

We’ve compiled a short list of traits that almost always separate legitimate stay-at-home opportunities from the bad ones:

1. How you heard about the opportunity. Legitimate companies don’t send out spam to find qualified employees. And if they advertise, it’s most likely on a legitimate job board.

2. Do you fully understand the business model? And, does it make sense? If the answer to either question is “no,” then either it’s a scam or you’re not likely to be successful at the new job anyway.

3. Legitimate opportunities almost never ask you to pay up front fees. After all, they’re supposed to pay you in return for your labor, right?

4. How much does the position pay? If it’s not a straight salary and the commissions or other compensation seems too good to be true, then it probably is.

One pervasive scam we’ve seen many times involves paying a large up-front fee for a large quantity of merchandise that is to be re-sold. The scammers claim this is to show you are committed to being a distributor for them. Sometimes, they will claim you are an “exclusive” distributor in that territory. (Note: A scammer will give you an “exclusive” territory you want. Have a friend anonymously call and request a different territory and don’t be surprised when s/he is told that that territory is also miraculously still available!)

When you see these types of operations, you can be almost certain that the company’s sales goal is to get a bunch of “distributors” to buy their useless merchandise and be stuck with it. Again, if it was so easy to sell at such great mark ups, the company would sell it themselves with less expensive salespeople than offer you such lucrative-looking commissions.

Our goal here isn’t to scare or discourage you. If you come across an appealing stay-at-home opportunity, there is nothing wrong with doing a bit of investigation. As long as you don’t send the company any money or divulge any personal information in the meantime, then the old adage, “No harm, no foul” is certainly applicable.


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