How to avoid online job scams.

Are you looking for an online job or a work at home business?

Finding the right opportunity can be difficult because of the risk of encountering a scam.

If you learn how to search for your online job or business in the correct way, you can accordingly reduce the risk of falling prey to one or more of these scammers.

When you search for “online work at home jobs” in the search engines you will get a list of results with both legitimate online jobs and scams. You need to be able to distinguish between the two.

Are you sick and tired of these online scammers?

Discover my list of tips to make sure you’re never scammed again:

Do’s

• Educate yourself. Find out what types of work are really available for you to work from home.
• Use your head. If it was really possible to earn $1,000 a month for filling out a few surveys or doing some other simple task, wouldn’t we all be doing it? Keep in mind the saying “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”
• Verify with organizations like the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission to see if the company has been reported as a scammer.
• Establish that the company has contact information on their site (email address, phone number, and physical address) If in any doubt you can always contact them and see what they have to say.
• Research the company and the owners to see if it’s a completely legitimate business. Google the company, when people have been scammed normally they try to let others know by writing online. You can Google the name of the company followed by “review” or “scam”.
• Take your time. There is no rush, legitimate online opportunities that are here today will still be there tomorrow. Take your time, sleep on it. Things might look different with a little reflection.
• Check out the support they provide. Try sending an email to the company and if you don’t get a quick reply (say 2 or 3 days at the most) it’s not a good sign. A legitimate product that cares about its customers will want to respond quickly to any potential clients.
• Beware of websites that are just a video that you cannot navigate. You are forced to sit through until the end of the video. Products that use this form of sales pitch are often scams.
• Look up the domain name of the company on Domain Tools. There you can find out lots of information about the domain (IP address or name server, who owns it, who used to own it, and what it’s being used for)
• Ask your family and friends what they think about any online job opportunities you may be considering. Many people are skeptical about online work, they might ask you the right questions to make you think again.
• Look for logos on the site indicating endorsements from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Better Business Bureau, or Truste.com.
• Ask questions. A legitimate employer will be willing to answer any questions you have.

Don’ts

• Don’t be taken in by businesses or job opportunities that claim you can make a great deal of money in a very short time with very little work.
• Don’t sign up for a program that doesn’t clearly tell you what you will be doing
• Don’t pay anything to start your job or business. Most legitimate online jobs don’t require any sort of registration fees before you start.
• Don’t be fooled by a money-back guarantee if not entirely satisfied. Scammers often promise that you can get your money back if not satisfied, but actually being reimbursed is a different matter.
• Don’t give out your personal information. Many employers will verify Social Security numbers before employing someone, but avoid giving this number with an initial application. If you are asked for your bank account or credit card information, you should look elsewhere.
• Don’t be discouraged by all the scammy looking sites and scam warnings. It takes time to find a good work-at-home job, but there are some legitimate opportunities out there.
• Don’t think that it’s easy to earn good money. An online business will take much hard work and time before you will make any money.
• Don’t agree to deposit a check and wire money back. Banks have to make funds from deposited checks available within days, but uncovering a false check can take weeks. The scammers will ask you to deposit a check at your bank and wire some of the money back to them. If a check you deposited is found to be a phony, it’s you who is responsible not the bank. So if someone pays you more than they should by check it is almost certainly a scam.
• Don’t believe all the hype – “work when you want” “get up when you like” “earn $100’s per week for very little work” whether you like it or not working online is work! You have to have a certain discipline when you start you probably won’t be sleeping in or having any days off.

Look out for these common warning signs

• Pressure tactics – they give the impression that the places are limited
• Unclear or complicated refund policies
• Use of stock photos and fabricated testimonials
• Price reduction when you leave the site
• Screenshots of supposed earnings
• Free individual training – this sounds good, but more often than not this is used to sell you more products
• Seemingly never-ending videos – these just go on and on telling you why you should sign up to make money quickly

Final thoughts

Now that you are aware that there are people out there who will scam you for all you’ve got, by following the advice above you should avoid the vast majority of scams.

Although some of the advice might seem obvious, the scam artists target the desire we all have to get rich quickly with minimum effort. They use this “get rich quick” motivation to convince us that we must act quickly.

After being scammed a few times, I am now always suspicious and I think that is definitely the way to be.

An authentic program should be willing to give you a free trial before you buy, after all, if it’s something legitimate that can help you earn some money, what have they got to lose. But of course, online you find very few business opportunities that are willing to do this.

I have found one remarkable program that is my #1 recommendation, that is Wealthy Affiliate. This link will take you to my review. At Wealthy Affiliate you get a no-risk FREE trial, thus you can check it out and see if it’s for you.

If you have any other tips for avoiding online business or job scams or have any other comments please let me know. I would love to hear from you!