MONEY COMMENT
Beware 'Working From Home' Scams

By Cliff D'Arcy
March 6, 2003

An entertaining window popped up this morning while I was using Internet Explorer.

It promised a mouth-watering business opportunity: "Earn £2,000 to £6,000 per month working from home!" £6,000 a month equals £72,000 a year and, at three times the average income, is too good to miss. It's also a lot more than anyone at the Fool earns, so wait until the team hears about this!

Nah, only kidding. Just as with all ads promising untold wealth or fantastic investment returns, there's going to be a catch. Here's some simple advice: with anything that looks too good to be true, remember to recite your mantra over and over again, "There's ALWAYS a catch". Anyway, back to the thrilling pop-up.

First off, I was disappointed with the number of typo's in the magical ad, for example, "Set you (sic) own income level!" Nevertheless, I scanned the ad with my mental gearbox in "cynical":

"We have helped thousands of people and we can help you too!"
Yeah, help yourself to my money, more like! Without knowing anything about my background, they claim to be able to help me. Good business advice is both detailed and personalised so, to me, we're not off to a promising start.

"No risks"
Come on, can you name me a business with no risks? Corporate life is inherently risky, whether you work for yourself or someone else. Even putting money on deposit and living off the interest carries the risk of your bank going under.

"No previous experience"
Another bad sign. When was the last time you saw a highly paid job being advertised with the comment, "Our global company is looking for an inexperienced chief executive, preferably someone completely new to this field"?

"No hassles"
Yeah, right. I've been working for over fifteen years and every job I've had included its own particular hassles. Even if you're the world's most persuasive salesman and every one of your customers buys your products, you've still got the hassle of travelling around on gridlocked roads or always-late trains.

"No employees"
Not many one-man bands make it into the book of corporate legends, but a lot of them do end up as history after going under. A growing business means more work thus more hands on deck, so not having any employees can be bad news.

I clicked on the pop-up to learn more and was greeted by a questionnaire. The hairs on the back of my neck rose when I saw the first question, "Have you ever been involved in Network Marketing?"

Then the $64,000 question came up, "How much are you willing to invest if you found the right opportunity?" Bingo! I knew they'd be asking me for money long before I made a penny out of this mythical opportunity.

I didn't complete the last part of the questionnaire, which asked for my telephone number and a time to call me, no doubt to allow some persuasive salesperson to begin my very own "hard sell".

Despite my best efforts, I couldn't find anything on the (very basic, off-the-shelf) website to tell me what products I would be selling and to whom. Let's be honest, business is about exchanging goods for cash; no genuine business would deliberately omit a mention of its products and a description of its operations.

It was only by probing deeper into this dodgy website that I came across a page address that hinted at "herbal weight-loss programmes". So, finally I established what was on offer, some half-baked answer to vulnerable people's worries about their weight and eating habits (I speak as a stout but happy chap).

Ads of this kind are often remarkably similar:

• Careless spelling mistakes, suggesting an unprofessional outfit lacking a decent marketing manager
• Plenty of exclamation marks, which usually means extravagant promises but a tougher reality
• Lots of claims beginning with "No...", when commercial life rarely contains such certainties
• "Earn what you like working ten or a hundred hours a week" - since when could you make a decent, risk-free living working a couple of hours a day?

I've no doubt that there are decent money-making opportunities for home workers, but I don't think this is one of them.

If you're attracted by a home-working scheme, before you contact anyone - and certainly before handing over your hard-earned cash - run it by the Fools on our Working From Home discussion board. These helpful folk have probably come across most schemes and can give you valuable advice on the pros and cons of working for yourself.