Avoiding Home Business Scams

There are a lot of good home based business opportunities out there. Unfortunately, there are also more than a few less than honorable ones and many that are outright scams. Here are some tips for avoiding home based business scams.

Popular Scams - Avoid the popular ones. Two of the most popular ones are envelope stuffing scam and assembly scams. The envelope stuffing scam is where you are supposed to make money by stuffing, sealing, and mailing envelopes for some company. Often they advertise something like "$2 per envelope". Many of the perpetrators of those scams have ended up in prison and no one really makes money doing this. The assembly scam is where you are supposed to be able to make money assembling something at home. The obvious problem with this is why would any company pay anyone to assemble products at home when they could pay someone local to assemble the product at their plant? They would have to ship the materials and that would be an added cost. Usually this "assembly" scam is a cover for something else and should be avoided.

Income Claims - Avoid opportunities that make large income claims or any income claims for that matter. Unless it is a offer for a paid work-at-home arrangement, no legitimate home based business opportunity can guarantee income. You will often see example of incomes that certain people have a made and these should be treated as such; just examples.

Money Up Front - Beware of companies that want a lot of money up front. It's not unusual for legitimate companies to ask for start up money, but this should never be more than $1000. Often companies that ask for large amounts of money up front also couple it with large income claims to try and offset the "sticker shock effect."

Lack of Contact Information - One red flag to a scam company is lack of contact information. You might see just an email address or a post office box. Look for a working website, a physical address and a working phone number. Just because the ad might show a phone number doesn't mean it's a working number either. Try calling it and see if you get a recording or an answering service. Sometimes, you will get a call center that will try to sell you something.

When researching home based business opportunities, the key word is caution. And always remember this statement because it is just as true today as when it was first coined. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! Below is a site that has more information about home business scams and online scams.

Internet Fraud Tips