You’ve seen it before:
- Get paid thousands to start
- Easy jobs from home
- No experience necessary
- Earn $350 a day
Unfortunately, in the work at home niche, scams are everywhere. Some work from home scams are more obvious than others (and occasionally, legitimate opportunities may sound like scams). It’s hard to weed out the legitimate opportunities from the scams you need to stay away from.
How Do You Avoid Job Scams?
Do your research and proceed with caution! Always read up on the company or organization to find out if they have a reputable (or any) online presence. Look for company leadership profiles on their website and cross-reference the information with profiles on LinkedIn. Look for contact information such as a company email address, phone number, and physical location. Scammers don’t want to be found, so they hide behind fake accounts, free email addresses, and post office boxes.
Don’t buy in right away. Discuss business opportunities with your friends, spouse, and others before you jump in. Check out the Better Business Bureau, Glassdoor.com, Trustpilot, and other review sites to confirm a scam isn’t taking you.
Get-rich-quick offers seem appealing. Marketers are excellent at wording offers as fleeting opportunities, urging you to jump on the train before it leaves the station. Pyramid schemes, check cashing scams, and other opportunities claim that simply paying a little upfront will yield huge returns with little work or effort. Unfortunately, it’s rarely on the up and up.
When someone describes a remote job opportunity, trust your gut first and then do your homework—even if you know the person making the claims quite well. With many scams, even educated, intelligent, and normally cautious people can get sucked in. Consider all the celebrities and CEOs who have fallen from Ponzi schemes and investment opportunities gone awry. Even with a team of lawyers, managers, and friends watching their backs, they were taken by scammers. It can happen to the best of us.
When a company asks you to pay upfront or send money immediately, take a step back. Yes, some business opportunities require an initial investment, and some legit work from home jobs require applicants to pay for criminal background checks. However, pay-to-participate programs should always set off alarm bells, especially if they seem too good to be true.
To help you decipher what’s legit and what’s not, here’s a list of the most common work from home scams to stay far away from!
1. Assembly Kits for Money
One common work at home scam is the assembly kits. These kits may be for toys, jewelry, electronics, circuit boards, or other products. These offers sound appealing because the creative outlet of assembling something can be fun. Usually, participants are told to purchase a kit to create the product to be sold back to the company.
Reviews on these kits reveal they are often time-consuming and labor-intensive. The time estimates for assembly kits are usually grossly underestimated, and the returns are little to nothing. Not to mention, most of the time, when you try to sell back the completed product to the retailer, the finished product does not meet their quality requirements — so you’re out the money you paid for the kit. Rather than creating something with little value or market value, why not express your creativity by selling handmade items on Etsy, where you can control the price and value?
2. Car-Wrap Advertising
Car-wrapping opportunities are another fraudulent offer to watch out for. Companies claim to pay you for advertising on your vehicle. Scammers might ask for an upfront fee with a promise to send the materials for wrapping. They might also suggest complicated payment methods (such as sending you a cashier’s check to pay the installer rather than simply paying the installer themselves). These scams can turn into huge rip-offs.
There are a few legitimate companies that will pay you to advertise on your vehicle. These legitimate companies will have reviews online. They won’t ask you for payment upfront, but they will ask you questions about your driving habits. (Because who’s going to pay you to put an ad on your car if you never drive?) Carvertise (they have an A rating with the BBB) is a company that screens its drivers and pays qualified advertisers. Always do your research before joining.
3. Fake Check Scam
Check cashing scams are notorious and can be life-altering. Typically, they look and feel like legitimate job ads. Some of these scammers pose as work at home companies and will request your identification, bank account information, and other personal details to get you set up as a so-called employee. However, after the initial fishing is done, check-cashing con artists will send a real-looking check to employees. They’ll request you deposit the check, then wire them back cash or pay them in advance for equipment, training, or other services.
This is where the scam should raise red flags! Once these scammers have your personal information and the money, they disappear, leaving you to clean up the mess of depositing and paying out a fraudulent check!
4. Stuffing Envelopes
When I was in college, I fell for the stuffing envelopes scam. The flyer requested $12 for information, and supposedly, I would learn how to stuff envelopes while earning $2 per envelope! Well, it turns out the whole “secret” was simply reprinting the flyer, posting it on bulletin boards, and waiting for other unsuspecting job seekers to fall for the scam. Ugh! No, thank you!
Nowadays, these stuffing envelopes scams are on the internet, abiding by the same concept (but often asking for much more than $12). Don’t fall for it! The envelope stuffing scheme is one of the oldest and most common work at home scams out there. The FTC and the Better Business Bureau have issued warnings about these scams.
5. Copy and Paste Jobs
Jobs that are advertised as link posting positions or copy-and-paste jobs are scams, period. For a small startup fee, scammer companies claim you’ll earn thousands of dollars simply by copying and pasting links online to classified sites like Craigslist. Supposedly, you’ll earn money as people click on the links, but, in reality, the links you’re posting are SPAM and are generally marked as such. So you never earn any money. Plus, this so-called job contributes to the overwhelming amount of litter/SPAM that’s already on the internet. Avoid copy-and-paste jobs — they will never yield positive results.
6. Pyramid Schemes
Often, pyramid schemes can be disguised as multi-level marketing (MLM) opportunities, but don’t be fooled. A pyramid scheme rarely results in a real product sold. Participants in pyramid schemes are often asked for an enrollment fee upfront; however, there’s no real product or service. With pyramid schemes, individuals make money by enrolling more participants in the scheme, not by selling an actual product.
With pyramid schemes, the product is fake. There’s no product and nothing to promote other than the program itself. Pyramid schemes aren’t only malicious and unsustainable—they’re illegal around the globe! The money goes straight to participants on the top of the pyramid, so most people end up losing money and getting burned. Don’t fall for it!
7. Rebate Processing
Rebate processing is another work at home scam that appears related to affiliate marketing. Typically, companies who are operating this scam will ask you to pay upfront (red flag) to learn more about “how” to take advantage of this opportunity. Once you pay, you’ll be sent information about how to post ads and rebate offers for affiliated products to sites like Craigslist and on social media.
When someone clicks an ad and ends up buying the affiliated product, you’ll get a cut of the commission (which is usually never because you’re posting SPAM). Then, because the ad you posted includes an offer of a rebate, you’ll have to forward part of your commission to the buyer as well. This is a scam and not worth your time!
8. Unsolicited Job Offers
Watch out for unsolicited job offers, investment, and purchase opportunities that someone is excited to offer you (but you didn’t request). Many rip-offs, scams, and employment schemes come unsolicited. Before the scammer tells you about an offer you can’t pass up, ask yourself, “Did I ask for this information?”
Unsolicited job offers come in many forms. A fake recruiter may contact you via email, social media, text, or phone. Unsolicited offers generally don’t happen in person or face-to-face, as scammers don’t want to reveal their true identity.
The best way to steer clear of scams via unsolicited job offers is to keep a spreadsheet of jobs you’ve applied for. That way, when a job offer comes through, you’ll know whether or not you applied for the position. If you receive an unsolicited job offer, mark the email as SPAM, and then delete the email. You never want to click on unknown links or disclose personal information or passwords, as many unsolicited job offers are phishing scams. If you think the job offer is legitimate, you should be able to locate the recruiter on LinkedIn and verify their identity.
Lastly, real recruiters are not looking for entry-level workers; there are already enough people to fill these positions. They seek highly trained professionals, such as healthcare, tech, and energy professionals.
9. Fake Job Listings
You’ll likely fake job postings if you use big job boards and sites on your remote job search. With these imposter scams, scammers pretend to be legitimate companies needing remote workers. Often, these fake job listings are for high-paying entry-level roles, such as data entry clerks. When you apply for these imposter jobs, the scammer will usually request an interview via a third-party messaging app like Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Signal. During this so-called interview, they may press you for personal information like a bank account number or social security number. They may also convince you to purchase gift cards, which they’ll claim to pay you back for or tell you they need a deposit for equipment.
If you find a job on a major job board, I suggest verifying its legitimacy by locating the position on the company’s website or contacting someone at the company to ensure it’s not a work from home scam.
What to Do if You’ve Fallen For a Scam
If you’ve fallen victim to a scam, contact your bank or credit card company to stop payment. If you’ve given out personal information, like a password, quickly change it so scammers can’t take over your account. You should also report the scam to the Federal Trade Commission so they can investigate the company in question. In some instances, depending on how quickly you act, you may be able to recover your losses, but often, once the money is gone, it’s gone for good. So, it’s always best to take your time when researching remote work opportunities.
Avoiding Work at Home Scams
If you’re still feeling uneasy about how to spot a work at home scam — check out FlexJobs. Every single job listed on their website is hand-screened for legitimacy. When you apply for a job through FlexJobs — you can rest assured that you’re not going to fall prey to a work at home scam. Not only does FlexJobs have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, but they also offer a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied.
Fortunately, there are many great, legitimate ways to earn money from home. Just remember: if a work at home opportunity sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Proceed with caution, do your homework, and watch out for these common scams!
Originally published July 18, 2017. Content updated July 2024.