Scam Alert: Don't Pay Upfront Fees for a Work-from-Home Job

The first piece of advice veteran work-from-homers will give someone who is just starting out in the telecommuting field is, "Never pay someone to work for them." That means, legitimate job postings will not require you to pay any kind of fee to get started.

A common scam technique is to require a fee to get started and claim the fee is to cover training materials. Email spammers are famous for using this technique. When the "training materials" arrive via email, it's simply an email message that you're instructed to forward to other people, and supposedly, you'll be paid based on the number of people who respond to the email you send out. Other scammers will simply never send any training materials. Ultimately, you're out $10 or whatever amount they charged you for training materials that never materialized, and you've provided your personal information to an untrusted source leaving yourself open to identity theft.

Frequently, a scammer will require a registration fee to cover their administrative costs or other costs of processing your application. Fake recruiters will do this and claim the fee covers the work-from-home jobs and employers list they can provide to you. They'll explain this special list will help you find the hidden work-from-home opportunities that they alone are privy to. When the list arrives, it's nothing more than information that is publicly available on the internet through a job posting site like CareerBuilder or Monster.

The methods scammers will use to disguise their fees and make them sound legitimate grow everyday. I'm constantly amazed by the work-from-home opportunities I see posted online at legitimate sites for job seekers. Of course, the websites cannot be blamed. A site like Monster gets far more job postings each day then they can monitor. It's up to the users to notify these websites of scams and then, for the site to remove those listings. Unfortunately, until people stop falling for these scams, they'll continue to proliferate legitimate job boards.

If a job posting requires applicants to pay anything to apply or work for the hiring company, that should raise a red flag to you immediately as a position to avoid entirely or investigate further through the Better Business Bureau. Seeking advice from fellow work-from-homers is another great way to determine a job's legitimacy. If you are unsure if a job with a fee required is a scam, post your question to a work-from-home forum like http://wahm.com/. More experienced work-from-homers will be happy to help you research a position, or they may already be familiar with the job you're investigating.

It's important to point out, however, that some legitimate companies will require applicants to pay for background checks or credit reports. Some of the largest virtual call center employers have this requirement, so if a job posting seems legitimate except for the upfront fee, take the time to research the company to learn more about them. As you search for your work-from-home job, be careful. Some of the best scammers put together very professional looking contracts, materials and websites with logos, contact information, etc. that look real. Don't be fooled by appearances. If something just doesn't seem right to you, it probably isn't. In fact, you're probably looking at a scam.