The rule as with many other areas of life is if it sounds too good it probably is.

As it goes – nothing comes without hard work.  If you are going to build a sustainable work from home business you will need to do some real work.  This may mean smaller income initially but this is often offset by reduced travel, day care, purchasing daily meals etc.

The base litmus test is always – if I were the owner of this company would I pay someone to do this job.

E-mail and web site posting scams

There are numerous variations of these scams that claim you'll be paid for sending out e-mails, clicking on links or posting links or ads on auction sites like E-bay. Most often they make ridiculous claims about how much money you can make doing this. While there are a number of individuals making legitimate money from selling likes on Facebook and Twitter followers most of these will be using software programs to generate these and charge small amounts such as $5-$20 per 500-1000. Nobody is going to get supper wealthy by sitting at their PC and clicking links.  Whatever the variations of this scam are you are well advised to avoid them.

Cashing Fake Checks, Money Orders, Wiring money

Yes it’s the subject if TV sitcoms and everyone has a story about how a fabulous Nigerian prince, government minister or the Gaddafi family amazingly selected them to confidentially transfer millions of dollars from a family fortune, but it’s surprising how many people continue to be caught by these scams. 

The next iteration of these money transfer scams can often come disguised as a regular job listing.  In addition since many people have been warned to avoid schemes asking for money upfront, these scams avoid that approach.  The typical modus operandi is to send you a check or money order that you can cash on behalf of some international client or whatever reason they've made up to justify why they can't cash their own checks or money order. Then you just keep a portion of the cashed check or money order for the trouble. Unfortunately that is not how it will end up.  At a minimum you will end up losing money from your bank account and possibly banned from your bank for passing off a fake check or money order.

Package Forwarding

This scam is often disguised as a regular job listing and doesn’t require any out of pocket expense. To legitimize the job listing this scam will most often require an interview, experience, etc. The giveaway with these scams is when the so called employer advises you that part of the job requires receiving some equipment, packages, electronics, etc. that you will need to forward to them.  In effect you are becoming a fence for stolen merchandise most often purchased over the internet.  While the scam artists will have the stolen merchandise shipped to your address and you then forward on to them, they may even sometimes be nice enough to send you some money but it will most likely end with a visit it from the feds or police officers for shipping stolen merchandise.

So remember keep your wits about you and use common sense.

There are some great companies like Arise Virtual Solutions, listing jobs on GajGal that have great work from home opportunities, but they always require work and commitment from the individual.