CONSUMER FOCUS: Avoiding bogus job scams
Don’t be a victim of home-based business scams
Enticing work-from-home offers are too good to be true
You scroll past them in your e-mail inbox, with subject lines shouting, “Earn hundreds in your spare time!” Job postings clog career search engines and classified ads. You drive past cardboard signs stapled to telephone poles: “Start today with no training or experience! Easy Work, Great Pay!”
As the economy swirls down the drain and consumer anxiety peaks, work-at-home offers become not just more prevalent, but more enticing, according to local experts. Once targeting stay-at-home moms, the elderly and people with disabilities, work-at-home and home-based business scams are beginning to tempt members of an increasingly desperate mainstream society at large.
The phony come-ons, offering easy employment for top dollar, are sophisticated and convincing. Hopeful job-seekers, paying “small start-up fees” are getting scammed out of more money than ever before.
Primed for ways to save on gasoline costs, cutting out the commute with a stay-at-home job can look darned appealing. As the holidays approach, many of Santa’s helpers are looking for resources to flesh out their family’s wish lists.
And let’s face it — working from home sounds great. It’s too bad almost every work-athome opportunity advertised in Western New York is designed to take your money, not bring you more.
“The only ones making any money are the ones perpetrating the scams,” said Ellen Tucker, foundation director for the Better Business Bureau in Buffalo, which fields questions about the schemes daily. “The BBB finds that work-athome offers are just notoriously bad.”
Worse yet, victims of fly-by-night mystery shopper, envelope stuffing, medical billing and craft assembly schemes find they have little legal recourse. The attorney general’s office can help determine whether laws have been broken, but finding and prosecuting scam artists in the digital age is difficult at best.
“We hear the stories all the time: ‘But the ad said . . ., ’ or ‘Their Web site looked so promising.’ And this one is really hot, ‘I got a check in the mail for mystery shopping and it looks so real,’ ” Tucker said. “But here’s the cold fact: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Here are some MoneySmart tips from local consumer protection agencies to ensure you don’t join the hundreds of people fleeced in Western New York each year:
• Think back to every job you’ve ever had. Have you been required to pay your boss money before you could go to work?
Of course not. Employment means someone pays you to do a job, not the other way around. This is true even in the case of very small “good faith” payments.
• Don’t be fooled by even the most iron-clad money-back guarantee. These companies don’t even obey the law. Why would they honor a guarantee? Its purpose is only to lull you into a sense of false security.
• The odds of finding an authentic work-at-home position in your e-mail inbox are about as good as finding one at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. Real companies simply do not recruit employees this way.
Almost every single legitimate home-based position in Western New York stems from a traditional, established company which has branched out into telecommuting. Most of those companies, such as IBM, have an at-home work force in addition to brick-and-mortar offices, not instead of them.
• Don’t be fooled by an impressive Web site, employee testimonials or a solicitation’s placement among credible job offers. Anyone can take out an ad in a reputable newspaper or Web site.
• Is the company offering to hire you or will you be an “independent contractor”? The two are very different. As an employee, you do clearly defined work for a steady paycheck. As an independent contractor, you’re on your own and may never see a dime.
In fact, you’ll probably lose money in bogus start-up fees, such as paying to set up a home office. Most home-based business offers sell questionable training, advice and materials to start your own athome company. It takes a lot more than a manual and $29.99 to do that successfully.
You’re better off filling out an application to flip burgers. It won’t cost a cent and your paycheck will be a sure thing.
• Don’t give out personal information, such as social security or bank account numbers. It is standard for legitimate employers to use this information for tax and direct deposit purposes. But in the hands of a con artist, they can be used to steal your identity and ruin your finances.
• Resist the temptation to cash any “paycheck advances” or mystery shopping “allowances” received by mail or courier. These elaborate fake checks, printed on real check stock and using real, stolen account numbers, have been delivered to job seekers all over Western New York.
In most cases, the “employer” has you wire a portion of funds back, with instructions to spend the rest as payment. It could be weeks before the phony check bounces, leaving you legally responsible to repay the entire amount along with any additional fees.
• Check up on a company’s reputation at www.BBB.org to find out if it is an accredited company and whether it has any pending, unresolved issues. Many of the work-athome companies advertised in Western New York can be tracked to this Web site, which displays long lists of detailed complaints from those who have been scammed in the past. You can also check www.RipOffReport.com and www.wahm.com to see if other people have had unsavory experiences with a company you’re considering doing business with. Don’t let your research end there, though. Companies often settle complaints or change names and locations to avoid detection.
On the Net
Have you been the victim of a work-at-home scam? Here’s where to find help.
The Federal Trade Commission: www.ftc.gov
The Better Business Bureau: www.bbb.org
The Attorney General’s office: www.oag.state.ny.us
New York State Consumer Protection Board: www.consumer.state.ny.us
Your local postmaster, who investigates mail fraud claims: www.usps.com/postmasterfinder
