Work-At-Home Job Warning Signs

Despite the economy, there are companies hiring home-based employees. Even so people need to be very careful to protect their identity and money when involved in a work-at-home job hunt.  Here are some warning signs that the ad or offer is not a job:

1. You don’t know what’s involved in the job. Many ads talk about making money fast and easy. They have all sorts of testimonials about how great the “job” is. But when you get to the end of the long text, you still don’t know exactly what the job entails. Legitimate jobs are advertised like traditional jobs. The focus is on the job title (i.e. Accountant) and the duties involved.

2. Anyone can do it. There is no company in the world that simply allows people to sign up for a job. All jobs require an application or resume, and an interview process. Any “job” you come across that says otherwise is not a job.

3. There is no address or contact information. This seems self explanatory. If you can’t drive to, call or email the company, stay away. With that said, there are sneaky freaks that will have just an email or provide a bogus phone number. I’ve seen some hijack another company’s website. I only found out by calling the number on the website and being told by the receptionist that she didn’t know what I was talking about, but she’d had a lot of similar calls. The moral of that story is to never be afraid to make contact during your research to verify the company is real.

4. The job is listed 100 times a week. Have you ever been to a major job search engine and found listing after listing of the same job? Very few companies are hiring 100’s of people around the country week after week. I’d be worried to work for any company that had the kind of turnover that required hiring so many people all the time.  But usually these aren’t jobs. Instead they are business opportunities or scams.

5. Research reveals a lot of unresolved complaints. While most companies will have a complaint or two, any one that has post after post saying “scam” or “I didn’t get my refund” (which is sure sign it wasn’t a job), or “I never got paid” etc is a company to avoid.

6. The application asks for unusual information not usually needed in a job application. This happens a lot in email scams but can be anywhere in which someone is fronting as an employer to steal your identity. Employers don’t need to to know your age (its illegal to ask), marital status,  or your social security number on an application. While social security information is needed for tax purposes, you can withhold it until you’re hired and have done your research to be sure its a legitimate job.

7. You’re asked to use your personal bank account to help the company do business. This is what the fake check people ask you to do. Not only can you lose thousands of dollars but you can land in jail for passing a fake check. Legitimate companies would never trust its employees with thousands of dollars nor would it ask an employee to use his personal bank account for business.

8. You’re asked to to claim and reship packages.  It makes no sense that a company would need a middle man to accept, repack, and reship packages. This scam involves items bought using stolen credit cards and the thief using a victim’s shipping address to “hide” from the police (the victim then ships the items to the thief). Instead the police find the victim and arrest him.

The best thing to remember is that work-at-home jobs are like traditional jobs. So any potential employer that veers off the regular route to hiring someone should be considered suspect.

You can learn more about finding and getting work-at-home jobs through my free newsletter at Work-At-Home Success.com