If you are posting ads on classified ads sites you’ve seen at least one job listing offering big money to the self-employed. The ads say you can be your own boss and earn a small fortune. The only requirement paying a fee for documents and registration. These advertisements target people without jobs, and if they take the bait they become trapped in one of the many self-employment scams.
One of the most common is stuffing envelopes. An advertisement placed by a fraudulent company will claim to seek people to mail letters. The person answering the ad would insert mailings into pre-addressed, pre-stamped envelopes, mail them and then watch the money come easily. The applicant pays a fee for these documents which never arrive. He or she receives literature explaining how to place an advertisement similar to the original one.
Another similar scam involves medical billing, in which applicants pay large fees up front to receive computer software and training to process insurance claims. Their start date is often postponed permanently.
Resume “Upgrades” or paid search engine “Spotlight”: You know all those offers to upgrade your resume?
Resume writing services
Resume Distribution
Cruise Industry Employment Scams
Career Marketing Scams
Be Your Own Boss Scams
Misleading positions / jobs: Transaction Processing Assistant, Reshipping Agent, Goods Forwarding Executive, Processing Online Auction Listings; important keywords to consider and check if it is a scam: Work From Home or Work At Home intended to target home makers, retired people, disabled people, students and other people who just want to make a little extra cash, while staying at home.
Such advertisements always seem to take the same format which should ring alarm bells
Lots of Graphics, pictures of money, cars, holiday destinations etc.
Shouty text, Imperitives, exclamation marks, colored, large pointsize text.
Very Very long pages – you scroll down and down and it never seems to end – at the very bottom, there’s the deal.
Lots and Lots of testimonials
They almost always tell you that the jobs are ‘scam-free’, or ‘totaly legitimate’. Some WAH sites even use the fact that there are a lot of scammers out there to promote their own (presumably non-scam) WAH jobs.
Extremely low qualifications required, almost always demand you have access to an Internet connected computer.
Payment of a fee may be required for ‘training materials’ or some magic list (companies, people, products etc).
Pay is fantastically great! $100/hour, $9,000 a week etc etc.
Very scant details of location of the ‘employer’ – no address, phone number.
SIGNS OF JOB SCAMS
Hold tight to your cash
Make money while you sleep!
“Work at home” appears in the header
Miracles arrive in your inbox
Palm trees, mansions, beaches and bikinis
Before you send any money responding to job ads or completing job placement contracts, the Better Business Bureau, along with the Federal Trade Commission, suggest that you:
Be suspicious of any employment-service firm that promises to get you a job.
Even if employment service firm guarantees refunds to dissatisfied customers, check on their reliability with outside sources like the BBB or local consumer protection offices.
Do not give out your credit card or bank account information over the phone unless you are familiar with the company and agree to pay for something. Anyone who has your account information can use it to take money from your accounts improperly.
Get a copy of the firm’s contract and review it carefully before you pay any money. Understand the terms and conditions of the firm’s refund policy. If oral promises are made that do not also appear in the contract, think twice about doing business with the firm.
Follow-up with the corporate offices of any company listed in an ad by an employment service, to find out if that company is really hiring.
Be wary of firms promoting “previously undisclosed” federal government jobs. All federal positions are announced to the public.
Check with the BBB to see if any complaints have been filed about a company with which you intend to do business.
