With jobs getting scarcer everyday a lot of people are getting more interested with trying out some work at home opportunities. That is actually a good idea and with the development in the Internet and communications technology, having a full time home based job is a real possibility nowadays. The only problem is that with the rise in the number of genuine home employment opportunities there is also an increase in the number of people who are using it to take advantage of others.
It’s not a secret that the Internet and other forms of communication are being used as a means of scamming other people. There are many legitimate home based employment opportunities right now, but unfortunately for each legitimate home based job there are two offers that are totally fraudulent. One scheme that has the greatest number of victims lately is the working from home envelope stuffing scam.
You can see envelope stuffing ads everywhere, not just in the Internet. They can be found in your mail, in the newspapers, and magazines. The offer seems simple enough. This is the usual line: They will pay you a certain amount for each envelope “stuffed” or sent out containing their message. They will give you a certain amount for each envelope and you can do some simple math based on the theoretical number of envelopes that you can work on and you will arrive at thousands of dollars earned each week.
The offer is too good to pass on, but when you analyze it you will see some things that do not hold up. So it might be plausible that someone would pay a certain amount for sending out their message, but when they ask for a fee for you to get the privilege to do that, then that is suspicious, and that is what they do. The promoters of these schemes will ask for a small fee before sending out the information and the “starter kit” to you.
Now when you receive the information you will find out that the message that you will be sending out is exactly the same thing that you have just read and fallen for. So the promoters who made a sucker out of you are asking you to help them in making suckers out of other people. You’ve got to admire the way that these people think. You can bet your cat that they will never pay one cent of what they owe you. And really, stuffing envelopes has never been a legitimate job by itself. Nowadays, machines fold and stuff letters into envelopes and before that, it was part of a secretary’s job, but not the sole duty or her job.
While it is understandable why some people would fall for this kind of trick, here are some of the questions that you should be asking whenever anyone offers you some envelope stuffing opportunity or any other work from home job that seems like a scam:
- How will you get paid and who will be paying you?
- When will you be getting your first payment?
- Will your payment be a salary or a commission?
- What are the actual tasks that are expected from you?
- Why do you have to pay any money?
Check with government agencies first whether the company is legitimate or not, but remember that just because a company shows clean on government records it does not mean that it is not out to scam people. It could just be new and the government agencies haven’t caught up with it yet.
By the way, that last question up above, “Why do I have to pay any money” is probably the most important question to ask, and perhaps for you as a seeker of a work from home opportunity the hardest to answer. There are legitimate methods to making money from home or with the use of computers and the internet. Very often these courses will require a monthly subscription to a forum or a one off payment for an ebook. But I can share one tip with you in helping you navigate the minefield of working from home envelope stuffing scams and other home based job scams and it is this. If it seems too good to be true, it most likely is. Remember that. Working for money whether from home or an office requires real work and dedication. Doubly so if you want to learn how to make money from home.