Work-at-home scheme

A work-at-home scheme is a get-rich-quick scam in which a victim is lured by an offer to be employed at home, very often doing some simple task in a minimal amount of time with a large amount of income that far exceeds the market rate for the type of work. The true purpose of such an offer is for the perpetrator to extort money from the victim, either by charging a fee to join the scheme, or requiring the victim to invest in products whose resale value is misrepresented.

Signs of a scamEdit

Signs of a work-at-home scam versus a legitimate job may include:

• Payment of fee is required prior to starting employment. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission states that under no circumstances should anyone be forced to pay a fee in order to obtain a job. In many countries, no legitimate employer will require a fee be paid as a condition of starting work (except perhaps a small amount for a criminal background check).
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• Pay is too good to be true. Though there may be legitimate jobs in existence in which employees are paid to perform the particular task in question, even from home, in reality, they would be paid a wage that is fair for that type of work and level of education, not the $40 per hour or $3000 per week that is typically offered in a work-at-home scheme.
• Employer will seemingly hire anyone, with no experience necessary and no qualifications. Legitimate work-at-home employers will only be interested in those who have the proper experience, skills, certification, and other qualifying factors, and will give at least some scrutiny to an applicant seeking employment. But the perpetrator of a work-at-home scheme is only interested in the payment required to join.
• Company is little known, and does not seemingly have a customer base bringing them revenue from which they can pay employees.
• Company name is similar to, but not exactly the same as a well known, legitimate company.
• Company does not appear to have a permanent location. Its address, phone number, and website appear to be centered on recruitment of employees, not customers.
• Company tries to show unnatural benefits of working in a very short period.
• Company repeatedly tries to make contact until the victim replies.
• Fake news stories and Web sites.

ConsequencesEdit

The consequences of falling for a work-at-home scheme may be as follows:

• Loss of money: It may be only the initial fee to join, which may be a large or small amount. Some scammers will run after receiving just this fee. Others will continue to ask for more in order for the promise of high pay to be fulfilled. Some will act on a two-way street, actually issuing paychecks, all the while receiving payments of greater value in return, which in some cases have exceeded tens of thousands of US dollars. In other cases, the employer may obtain the victim's personal information for purposes of identity theft.
• Loss of legitimate job: Those with a real job may quit in hopes of a better one, only to find they cannot get their original job back after they discover their dream job was only a hoax.
• Damaged reputation: Those who engage in sales of a faulty or otherwise controversial product may be tarnishing their own name as the salesperson of such a worthless item.
• Trouble with law: Some victims may actually receive money. But at the same time, they may be unknowingly breaking the law, on behalf of the perpetrator of the scheme, but will be fully legally responsible. Such violations may be criminal or civil in nature. In other cases, they will not be committing any criminal acts, but they will end up framed in an investigation for the crimes of the perpetrator.
• Wasted time: Victims will often invest huge amounts of time with no pay in return. This is time that can be spent earning money at a legitimate job.
• Victim's contact information is sold to other scammers, who then contact the victim with new scams.