Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Online Money Scams to Avoid

Don't Fall for Scams
(photo by photoxpress.com)
Learning how to make money online may seem like a puzzle at first.  There are a number of good, solid companies that actually do give you the opportunity to earn money while you work from home.  Some of these opportunities include writing articles for InfoBarrel or Hubpages, starting your own blog, answering questions on WebAnswers, or selling products for Amazon or eBay.  However, there are also a lot of scams out there that can cause you to lose money instead of make it.  Listed below are some of the ones to watch out for.

Multi Level Marketing: 

These are the pyramid schemes that encourage you to get 3 or more people under you, and each of them gets 3 people under them, etc.  Most of the time, you have a hard time getting your 3 sponsees.  However, once you have coerced some of your friends, they may not even bother to try recruiting anyone else.  Your pyramid falls apart quickly, and any money you spent to "buy in" or purchase products for resale is simply wasted.

Online Business Training:  

There are lots of ads out there telling you that they will teach you how to make money online, start your own business, make money posting ads, data entry jobs, etc.  Most of the time, they are selling you a book; often the book simply suggests that you run ads like the one that hooked you.  Putting together your ads is your online business or data entry job.  This is not a real business.  You'll probably lose your initial "training" expense. These are very similar to the "envelope stuffing" businesses that were advertised all over the place in the days before the computer.  I've never known anyone to make money on any of them.

Lists of Companies Hiring Online Workers: 

Some websites offer to sell you a list of companies that are hiring workers.  However, real companies that are looking for employees will not require you to pay to find out about them.  They advertise in places that you can access for free.  They are simply charging you for a list of corporations in your area. 


Other Scams: 

Watch out for other sites that offer extravagant amounts of money for you to complete surveys.  Often you are encouraged to buy a product, or try a product and pay later, before you earn anything.  Again, this can cost you more money than you earn.  As always, if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is.  There are a few companies that do pay people to complete surveys, but be careful.  They can be tricky.

This article cannot include all the possible scams, because the scammers keep coming up with new ones all the time. Just be careful about spending any money in order to make money.  There are plenty of free and legitimate online sources of revenue available. 

As always, this blog is designed to keep you up to date on any new trends that could affect Baby Boomers and other retirees.  Use the tabs or pull down menu at the top of the article to find links to hundreds of other articles of help to Baby Boomers

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