Common Scams that you may encounter.

For some, working at home is a last chance. They may be easily taken advantage of by smooth talking con artists who will do anything to make a buck. Here are some of the types of scams that you must watch out for when trying to find something else to succeed at.

Nigerian Check Cashing Scam

The Nigerian check cashing scam usually involves transferring funds internationally. The scam artist attempts to reassure the victim by offering apparently legal contracts, forged or false documents bearing company letterhead, false letters of credit, payment schedules and bank drafts.

Once the scammer has obtained the victim's trust, checks, money orders or wire deposits are sent to the victim for "processing." The victim is asked to cash the check or money order (wire deposits will send the money directly to the victim's account) and send a percentage of the funds back to its origination. The need for the "middle man" is often explained as being a way around international fees or taxes. Once the funds are sent back to the scammers (usually the victim is told to keep a percentage for themselves, as payment for their services), the victim's bank or financial institution learns that the check/money order/wire transfer was fraudulent. The funds are then subtracted from the victim's account and he or she is made liable for the lost money.

Reshipping

Reshipping scams often begin with an employment offer, usually via e-mail. As with the Nigerian scam, these "employers" offer bogus contracts and other documentation to make them appear legitimate. Once the victim's trust has been obtained, packages are shipped to the victim's residence with instructions to reship the packages to another address. Once the package has been reshipped, the victim is "guilty" of receiving and shipping stolen property. This often leads to a visit from police, as the return address or shipping receipts lead back to the victim.

Work-at-Home Job Lists

These scams claim to sell lists of companies that are hiring for work-at-home positions. These lists are rarely updated and often yield a list of worthless leads.

Google Quality Rater Leads and Information

Google is hiring temporary staff, who can work from home, to help Google improve the quality of Web search results and the relevance of Google Ads.

These Quality Raters can be geographically located anywhere in the US or Canada but must have at least a bachelor's degree and a high-speed Internet connection to telecommute. Familiarity in the culture of the language you will be working in is also important to make sure that the results are relevant.

Their primary job responsibility will be to rate the quality of web search results in different languages supplementing the existing Googlebot algorithms.

Google Telecommuting Job Openings are always being updated with the languages required. English, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Chinese are some of the languages being hired for today.

The pay is roughly $15 per hour, the work is easy, hours are flexible (normally 10-20 per week), and it can be interesting. If you are only working 3 or 4 days a week now then this would be a perfect supplement to your regular job. It would be a great first job as well.

You will be employed by WorkforceLogic, a temporary staffing firm but report directly to Google staff. Why not work for one of the best and largest companies in the world? Visit telecommuting jobs here link and look at what departments are hiring for this type of job as well as many other jobs on Google that are more typical office jobs.

Ticket Puller Information

Is Ticket Puller legitimate?

I personally haven't earned any money with them but I do have friends who earn a couple of hundred a year from the company.

The hours are very limited as the job entails buying tickets for concerts or sporting events when they go on sale. 

The company gets orders for tickets, notifies it's members that there will be a 'pull', gets those selected to log in 10 minutes before tickets go on sale, and buy the tickets resulting in a commission for you.

You are not required to use your own credit card information or money to buy the tickets. All the financials are handled by Ticket Puller and they use you to allow them to buy more tickets then they otherwise would be able to. It is not scalping as you are not reselling the tickets.

Visit Ticket Puller for information on how to apply.

Active Job Lead for AQA

Just in time for Thanksgiving is an active job lead. This is well respected company in the UK and Ireland offering human-powered search along the lines of kgbkgb.com , weegy.com , and chacha.com .

The company is AQA or Any Question Answered. It is a service that has its users text in their question and you the soon to be employee responding. It appears hours are flexible and you are paid for the amount of work you do. A great way to do something with your spare time at work or at home for a few extra dollars before the Holiday's.

The website is AQA63336 and they are advertising job postings in Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and USA. Visit the site and click on vacancies for the instructions on how to apply.

From personal experience they are an easy company to work for and they do value quality. If you provide quality answers they will retain you.

Pinecone Reasearch

I'm going to be posting information on some of the better known survey companies on the web that do pay and do not require you to pay to join.

Today's is Pinecone Research.

They are an exclusive survey company that accepts users from the USA, UK, and Canada. They do not accept new members at all times and require you find a banner ad to click on. Fortunately there are many sites that post the locations of these ads to make it easier for you to find them. My favorite site, and the one I used to join Pinecone, is Annika's with very clear links to the live ads for Pinecone Reasearch Invitations.

Pinecone sends out many surveys a month with completed and qualifying surveys paying $5+. They also will send out products for users to test and compensate quite well for your time. Payments are by check, paypal, or voucher depending on your location.

Pinecone Research Invites for Canada , the US , and the UK are hard to come by. If you find one then make sure you join. This is definitely something to do to add a little extra money a month in your spare time at home or at work.

Are there any legit envelope stuffing jobs?

Possible legitimate envelope opportunities could be some of the following.

You can stuff envelopes as an employee for your local print shop. These would not pay better than minimum wage and are not work at home opportunities.

Or you could start your own Direct Mail business sending newsletters, trade information, or anything else people are willing to pay for. This is envelope stuffing at its finest, completely legal, and probable a supplement to an existing business you are running..

As will be the them of this blog, you will not make easy money doing this (you might even lose some).

If envelope stuffing were that easy and if it were really legitimate, everybody would be doing it.

The ads you see in the newspaper or on light posts are not legitimate ways to earn money, they are schemes.

No business in their right mind would pay you to stuff envelopes at home. It costs less than 50 cents per envelope for this service, including the stamp. Receptionists do this in between calls at many offices and don't need for this service to be outsourced.

You only get paid for "stuffed envelopes" when someone else you recruit stuffs a self-addressed, stamped envelope with an up-front fee to get the same information that you paid for. You don't actually get paid for stuffing the envelope that is sent to others. You must generate sales or leads to get paid. This is the true definition of a pyramid scheme as they will go recruit users. Meanwhile, you are paying the person who recruited you for advice, leads, and supplies.

A great way to lose some money and not a legitimate work at home job.

kgbkgb

Want to use KgbKgb ?

Most cellphone providers in the US, Canada and the UK allow access to this human-powered search.

Taken from kgbkgb.com

Our new two-way text product in the U.S., kgbkgb (text 542542 on your mobile handset) is in beta testing and available to answer any question you have 24 hours a day, everyday. kgbkgb is the first mobile text "find" service to combine human-powered search with one of the most extensive databases in the business.

Rates range from $0.30 to $0.99 per text. (I'm not sure how your rate is determined) It is not a subscription based service.

Get answers to practical questions, stupid questions, trivia questions, even sports scores. The service is easy to use.

They also appear to hiring people to work at home and answer questions. This would be a great income supplement if you could get hired (Visit http://www.kgbkgb.com/contact-us ) and work at it in your spare time.

How to find hidden work at home jobs

When searching for jobs to do at home most type in 'work at home' and come up with only the most popular pages that are sometimes full of scams and spam looking to charge you money for what can be found for free.

Try searching for these terms instead:

telecommuting
telecommute
telecommuter
telework
teleworking
remote work
remote contractor
outsourcing
freelance
freelance jobs
independant contractor
virtual employee
virtual company
virtual office
working virtually
home workers
home-based
home-based employee
home-based employment
home-based jobs

Many more similar searches can be used. This list was formulated by using the tools found in AdWords.

West

West at Home is probably the most reputable work at home company. They provide outsourced customer service to many large companies and keep these jobs in North America.

It provides full-time hours and benefits and allows you to work at home when convenient. Training is paid. It is a great company to work for if you are a stay at home mom or dad.

From the West website:

West At Home offers schedules based on either per minute rate, per call OR guaranteed hourly rate. If total earnings (whether via per minute, per call or guaranteed hourly rate) are less than minimum wage, employee compensation will be trued up to meet their local minimum wage requirements (our employees will always earn the greater of the two pay scales). West At Home employees are paid on a biweekly basis and Direct Deposit and/or Pay Card options are available immediately!

Apply at West at Home

Do your research.

Take some time to research any company you are thinking of working for.

Check for complaints with the Better Business Bureau at www.bbb.org

Use your search engine to find information and complaints posted about the company you are thinking of joining. Search for the company name + scam or problem. People love to vent about problems they're having so learn from others experiences.

The latest from kgb

Thomas Falconer here again, director of social media and online communities at kgb. I'm thinking it is well past time for an update on what we've been doing here at kgb. The launch of our kgbkgb 2-way text service is progressing quickly, so here goes:

We're very close to launching our portal to recruit work at home Special Agents. We're tweaking our application and assessment tools, and should be ready to open the door early in December. We'll be recruiting a charter group of 50 agents to push through the process as we launch the beta kgb service in several very small markets. We'll be in touch as soon as that process begins.

I think you'll find the kgb tools easy to use, easy to understand, and easy to get through. Of course, and as always, we welcome and encourage your feedback and suggestions.

In the meantime, if there's anything you'd like me to cover in the blog please do let me know. I'd love for us to meet here more often, talk about issues affecting the work at home community, about technology, texting, being guides, anything. So fire away.

I'll be in touch again soon, and certainly as soon as I know more details about the Special Agents portal launch.

Thomas

thomas falconer

director, social media and online communities

kgb

Taken from http://www.kgbkgb.com/blog

Trivia Buff?

Do you like trivia and/or finding new information on the web?

There are sites that will pay you for answering questions.

The best known ones are:

ChaCha.com - Some say they make close to $200 per week from this site although they are currently not hiring general guides (as they're called) and some are doubtful that the site will last much longer.

Weegy.com - Similar to the previous company. I don't have any stats on how much they pay other than a minimum of $20 is needed to cash out.

kgbkgb.com - This site is coming soon and appears to be backed by a fairly well know bricks and mortar company. The site is planning on launching in December with about 50 people answering questions initially.

Do you know of any other similar sites?

Make a passive income

Do you have content on the internet?

This can include a personal website or blog that you have.

If you do then it is possible to add links or ads to your site to give you some income on material you've already completed.

Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bidvertiser, and others all provide revenue sharing for the ads that they place on sites. This includes money for the people that browse the ads as well as those that click on the ads.

It is an easy way to make some money with what you already have.

You will not make a lot initially but it is a way to make $100+ a year. The best part is that these tell you how to optimize the ads and placement to make you, and them, the most money.

How to avoid scams

Watch out for scams -- never pay for a job!

This is the most important advice for those looking for a job. Legitimate jobs don't require you to pay the employer.

You may be required to show certifications or various qualifications for which you may have to pay a fee to a 3rd party, but any employer should not require you to pay them.

Two examples of what you may have to pay for:

Testing to prove typing speed.

A basic security check before dealing with the employers customers when working at home.

Work from home, can it be done?

Working from home is possible. Many companies allow their employees the flexibility of working from home. JetBlue for example has the majority of agents working from home.

It is more difficult to find a job that will allow you to work from home if you are new to that company.

What type of companies allow you to work from home?

Transcription Sites

Online Tutoring

Article and Story Writing

Telephone Operators

Very few have guaranteed weekly pay rates. Many will be discussed soon with real work at home job leads.

Assemble at home opportunities

I haven't heard of any home assembly jobs that are legitimate. Sites that warn about scams are full of warnings about these types of ads. 

I'm not saying there are none out there, I just haven't heard about them. 

Typically, you pay a fee for materials or get the first batch for free. Your first jobs will be accepted to show that it is possible to succed at home with these jobs. 

Then you pay for more materials and your following work is rejected as not being done correctly. They will try to sell you new materials and the cycle will continue.