If you have an e-mail account, chances are you've received your share of "work from home" job opportunities in your e-mail. Do some of them seem too good to be true?
If so, then they are too good to be true, according to Ken Vander Meeden of the West Michigan Better Business Bureau.
Vander Meeden gets about a dozen each day through his e-mail. "Any and all of those that we've researched and shopped ourselves have turned out to be false promises," says Vander Meeden.
He says the B.B.B. has looked into probably one hundred work from home offers. "Anything work at home related, 99.9% of them are problematic in our opinion. There may be good ones out there but they're few and far between and we haven't found them yet."
Vander Meeden says the complaints vary from those who've tried the offers. "I gave them my deposit and got nothing back. The training I had was generic and didn't do anything for me. I don't have any accounts. I didn't make any money and it cost me $300, $400, $500."
Experts warn, if they contact you directly that's a red flag because according to Vander Meeden, "Any reputable organization will not market themselves that way." He says these types of offers have been around for at-least 25 years, originally through the mail, then fax and now e-mail because it's the cheapest way.
Click here for any of the "red flags" from the B.B.B
Vander Meeden warns against sending money for anything without properly checking out the "company" first. To do so you can go to the B.B.B.'s web site.
A good company should have a permanent address, not just a Post Office Box or an e-mail account. They should tell you up front what the job entails, without you having to provide your personal information first.
We found a couple of legitimate work from home opportunities. The first is "Alpine Access." This company allows employees to take customer service calls from the comfort of their own home and works with some well known, reputable companies like Office Depot and Jet Blue Airlines. Pays usually ranges between $9 - $12 dollars an hour and without the cost of dry cleaning, commuting and gas, and the wear and tear on your car that pay looks a lot better.
Another is "1-800-Flowers". This company has seasonal work at home opportunities also in customer service.
If you have a website, you can also make money through Google's Adsense. Everytime a reader of your site or blog clicks on the ad, you get paid a fee. That fee varies from a couple cents to a couple dollars depending on the ad but it's completely free to sign up.
A Calvin College professor who runs a web site chronicling propoganda makes about $1,500 per year from Google Adsense and that's with about one million visitors each year.
For any of the three, click on the appropriate link on the right.
Derek FrancisIn your voice
