Investigations Show Work-at-Home Plans Fall Short of Promised Income, Lack Credibility
Wallingford, CT - March 27, 2009 – Cash-strapped consumers looking for opportunities to work out of their homes are finding that they may ultimately become targets of unscrupulous companies, not getting their money’s worth and even having to pay money up front in order to start their work-at-home business.
These were reflected in a Better Business Bureau investigation that studied 112 work-at-home companies, in cooperation with the U.S. Postal Service in a project called Operation Job Fraud.
The study revealed unscrupulous companies lure people with promises of high earnings with minimal hours and little or no experience required. The task force found conclusively that there is no evidence of people actually making the promised income. Rather, the job-seekers ended up shelling out “registration fees” or “good faith” deposits for which the consumer received either nothing for their money, or information that simply encourages them to perpetuate the scheme.
Consumers are beginning to become suspicious. In 2008, more than one million people made inquiries to Better Business Bureaus to check out the legitimacy of companies offering work-at-home jobs. Your BBB warns that ultimately, most of these offers are scams.
Connecticut Better Business Bureau President, Paulette Scarpetti, says BBB is seeing a growth in some of these schemes as people become more desperate to deal with a diminished family income.
“There are ways to make money at home, and people who are successful usually have a skill or training they can market or they run their own businesses from home. The sad part is that people who are desperate for additional family income are more likely to fall victim to these work-at-home scams. There is no magic formula for getting rich quickly or supplementing income with these offers. Consumers’ experience has in fact been quite the opposite.”
People who rely on claims made by companies pushing work-at-home scams often realize upon careful examination, that the chances of making money are slim to none.
The two most common types of work-at-home offers examined by the task force were product assembly and envelope stuffing jobs, though there are a growing number of companies now pushing rebate processing as a way of making money at home.
Rebate processing offers often require upfront fees ranging from $40 to $500 for a “Trial Program” to earn money processing rebates from home. Consumers are duped into these offers because the work-at-home companies claim their opportunities involve 11,000 businesses including well known-names such as Hewlett Packard and Home Depot.
Victims report they never received a promised starter kit or guidance to help them begin their work-at-home business, but rather, instructions on how to make money sending e-mails, posting blogs and paying for ads on the Internet to sell various products.
Other common scams involve envelope-stuffing. The U.S. Postal Service Web site says “…envelope-stuffing has become highly-mechanized…which eliminates any profit potential for an individual doing this kind of work at home.” In a 12-month period the Postal Inspection Service reported it put 3,500 work-at-home operations out of business through administration mail stop orders and criminal proceedings.
“Medical billing” is another offer to avoid. Victims are told they can make thousands of dollars and will receive information to start-up their own medical billing company. The fact is, most medical centers and doctors’ offices outsource these to third party companies, not individuals who work at home.
“Arts & Crafts” offers say you can make money assembling arts and crafts projects at home. One version of this scam involves the company selling job-seekers materials to assemble and requires them to sell the items to their friends. In another spin, the company asks the individual to buy the materials, says that it will reimburse them for assembling the products, and asks that they return assembled goods for payment. People who fall for this scam are usually never paid because they are told their assembly work is never good enough.
Your BBB offers advice to help protect consumers from being cheated by fake work-at-home scams:
- Always check a company’s letter grade rating, reputation and consumers’ experience in a free Reliability Report at www.bbb.org.
- Legitimate employers never ask prospective employees for money for registration of other fees. BBB advises against sending any money.
- Some work-at-home companies may simply be fishing for personal information. Never give out your credit card or bank account numbers, nor provide your Social Security Number or any other personal information to a company promising employment.
- If it sounds too good to be true – “minimal work for maximum pay with no experience required” – it probably is, so do not get involved.
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