EMPLOYMENT SCAMS

     I define a scam ad as a wonderful sounding come-on, such as "Earn $50/hr., easy work, no experience necessary," which opportunity, it always turns out, costs YOU money before you can reap the benefits. Nor does it produce the promised wealth – or anything at all, except a feeling of having been robbed.

     These scam ads may be legal, but they’re definitely unethical, and they’re all over the place – even in the Google ads on my website. When a website has Google ads, Google automatically display ads connected to the subject matter on the page. And, unfortunately, when a person wants to work from home, almost all the Google ads are scams. Don’t click on the ads in this section. Okay?

     The BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU has a good overview of these work-at-home scams:

http://www.bbb.org/Alerts/article.asp?ID=436

     And below is the truth on two more extremely common scams:

MYSTERY SHOPPER SCAMS

     A job where you’re paid to shop? Sounds wonderful, but it’s almost always a scam that makes you pay for worthless information. The Federal Trade Commission says, “The truth is that it is unnecessary to pay money to anyone to get into the mystery shopper business.” To learn more about it, and also learn how to become a REAL mystery shopper, click below:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/mysteryalrt.shtm

PAID SURVEY SCAMS

     There are two kinds of paid survey scams. The worst is a big, glitzy advertisement that offers you an expensive prize – say, $500 in groceries or a laptop computer – if you fill out their survey form. So you fill out a long form, on and on, getting your name on one spam mailing list after another as you do so. THEN they inform you that you can only win the prize if you buy several other items that are extremely expensive and which you do not need. I know this is true because I fell for it, I did not buy the expensive merchandise, and I therefore did not get the “reward.” I later had to give up that e-mail address in order to get off all the spam mailing lists. And it’s my own fault for being so dumb. Why would a reputable company give me $500 worth of groceries or a laptop computer just for filling out a stupid survey form?

     Another scam, which of course I fell for too, gives you the names of companies that supposedly pay for online surveys. I can tell you from personal experience that, while there are many reputable firms that are delighted to have you fill out their online surveys, they will almost never pay you for doing so. In fact, they are annoyed that unethical firms are saying they do pay for these surveys. They will usually enter your name into a prize drawing, and if you win the drawing they will give you a prize. You will, of course, have to take their word for it that there actually is a prize drawing and that it is even remotely possible for you to win such a drawing.

     Below is an article that lays it all out:

http://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/jobs/a/paid_surveys.htm

     When I read the above article, I clicked on the item at the end that said, “Real paid survey sites pay you.” I scanned the list of “real paid survey sites,” found at least three survey firms I’d actually tried. About one firm it says, “Pays cash of up to $50 per paid survey or with free services, gift certificates or sweepstakes entries.” I did many surveys for these firms, and I didn’t get one penny. They instead gave me sweepstakes entries. And, think of it their way. If you were a business and had a choice of giving hundreds of people $50 OR an entry in a rarely held sweepstakes, which would you choose? A business would choose the cheaper sweepstakes entry every time, and these firms did.