Work-at-Home Scams

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Work-at-Home Scams

You’ve seen the ads that say "Make lots of money working from the comfort of home!" And you may have wondered why, if that’s true, more doctors, lawyers, and starving artists aren’t doing it! The ads promise a large amount of money—more than the market rate—for a small amount of work. Often, no training is required. The real purpose of most such schemes is for the promoter to take money from you by charging you fees, charging you for products or equipment, and/or rejecting your work after you have already paid for the products or equipment.

Here are some classic work-at-home scams:

• Stuffing envelopes
• Typing
• Processing rebates
• Certain e-commerce businesses
• Reshipping items (usually stolen items)
• Spamming via email or online forums (usually called "email processing")
• Processing medical claims or bills
• Assembling products via a starter kit you pay for, only to be told later that the products "don’t meet specifications"
• Pyramid schemes where there is no actual product to sell

Who falls prey most often to these schemes? Usually senior citizens, stay-at-home parents, the uneducated, migrants, unemployed people, and low-income people. The effects of being scammed can extend beyond just lost time and money; your contact information is sold to other scammers. In some worst cases, you might be unknowingly engaging in criminal activity, and you can be charged as a criminal for it.

How can you spot one?

Many legitimate work-at-home opportunities do exist, of course, and others exist in a gray area. Often, illegitimate work offers are advertised right next to legitimate ones in the same job boards, which makes it harder to distinguish them.

Here are some common signs of scams (not all of them are sure signs, however):

• You must pay a fee before starting.
• The pay is above the market rate (e.g., $300 for an hour a day).
• No experience or skills are required.
• Excessive amounts of advertising.
• The company does not appear to have a permanent location.
• The company persists in contacting you.
• The company does not seem to have a customer base.
• You must pay upfront for equipment and supplies.

How to avoid them, and how to respond if you are defrauded

The first step in avoiding a scam is to know the signs of one. If you suspect a scam or are curious about it, research the company online to see if there are any warnings about it: type in the company’s name along with the word complaints. Check with the Better Business Bureau. Check with the Federal Trade Commission here.

If you need to launch a complaint, you have several resources at your disposal:

• The FBI: www.fbi.gov, or www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field, or 202-324-3000
• The FTC: ftc.gov/complaint or 1-877-FTC-HELP
• Your state’s attorney general: www.naag.org, or 202-326-6000
• The U.S. Postal Inspection Service: postalinspectors.uspis.gov/, or 1-877-876-2455