Work at Home Ideas | WorkatHomeFiles.com Top Work at Home Ideas, Tips and How to Avoid the Scams

As great an opportunity as eBay is, there are also some eBay scams to watch out for if you’re trying to make a business out of it:

Bid Rigging or Shielding – in this scam, either two bidders work together, or one bidder using two accounts, rigs the outcome of an auction. One bids low on your item then soon after the other bids unrealistically high say two or three times the value of the item. The high bid prevents anyone else from making a competitive bid but of course that bidder backs out before payment time. You’re now left with just the low bid to sell to! This is one of the reasons why using a reserve is a good idea. Read More…

Posted under Scams, eBay

While there are lots of legitimate surveys carried out by genuine companies and marketing agencies there are unfortunately also plenty of duds. One of the recurring scams we see time and time again involves the promise of large amounts of money for completing online surveys. Some of these ads will claim you can make hundreds of dollars per day doing online surveys for a couple of hours form filling.

I came across surveypolice.com which attempts to list the genuine sites and weed out the
survey scams and looks to be doing it very well. The site is full of helpful info and articles. There is a list of ranked survey sites and a complaints board where you can see which companies have been troublesome to deal with. There are tips on finding good surveys and how to spot the scams. Some of the usual alarm triggers are evident; lack of contact and address info, lack of a privacy policy and the promise of easy money.

The site seems genuine, certainly someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to pack it full of info and in the articles section you’ll see a FAQ section which gives you a more realistic view on what to expect from surveys, in short you get to give your opinion in return for rewards which may range from cash to prize draw entries or merchandise. They say quite clearly you are unlikely to get rich but you can have some fun and gain reasonable reward for a few minutes effort!

If you’d like to gain a few dollars here and there by all means try the surveys listed and let me know of any problems by leaving a comment below.

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Posted under Scams

So many ways to scam the unsuspecting! Following the previous post on scams, here are a few more to watch out for.

Data Entry
While no doubt there are some legitimate data entry type jobs, you’ll find there are way too many scams in this area. Typically you’ll see an advert talking about how you can make loads of money entering small ads online. What you’re likely to get is a guide telling you the basics of how google adwords works so you can start entering ads if you can find something profitable to advertise.

Payment Forwarding
One scam to be particularly aware of is the payment forwarding scam. In this one, the scam artist will promise high wages or commissions for handling payments from your bank account or other accounts such as Western Union to other parties. Get tempted by this one and you can find yourself handling hundreds of thousands of dollars of suspect money. Well done, you are now an accessory to a crime, usually a financial fraud!

Identity Fraud
The ‘Identity Check’ fraud is now fairly common, this is where someone you have been in touch with over a great looking opportunity now requires lots of personal information to verify your identity. Run away! That sort of info is gold to an identity scammer. You can find yourself with bad credit records and unable to get bank loans in the future if your identity is used fraudulently. As anyone who has found themselves in this position can tell you, it is a nightmare to try to set the records straight.

Multi Level Marketing
These can get dangerously close to pyramid schemes. There are lots of well known and totally respectable MLM type opportunities out there with happy agents and happy customers in everything from cosmetics to underwear, however there are also lots of scams. If you find all you’re really doing is recruiting more people to do as you do you’re probably sailing dangerously!

There are more… so many more, please remember “if it seems too good to be true, it is”

Posted under Scams