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Beware! Work From Home Business Scams To Look Out For

Written by: Candice Clem

Article Overview: Con-men count on the fact that there's a sucker born every minute. So, if you want to be smart and be able to see through the scams, take a look at some of the most common small business scams and how to best avoid them.

Beware! Work From Home Business Scams To Look Out For

Anyone who has ever stayed up all night and watched some of the infomercials that come on well after the last of the late night shows knows that there are plenty of people out there who would like you to think that you can easily make 10-20 thousand dollars a week by doing practically nothing. At first glance, these get rich quick schemes might seem like a great idea, particularly if you’ve recently found yourself out of a job and are getting a little desperate, but take a closer look at any of them and you’ll find that there is still no easy way to make a fortune overnight.

Sure, there is the occasional chance to get in on an IPO before it hits big (something like google, myspace or even Microsoft) but no one really knows which business is going to be the next big thing, so unless you have deep enough pockets to invest in every new startup, don’t count on making your millions on the stock market. Furthermore, if you had plenty of money to invest in new internet startup, you probably wouldn’t be reading this article or even looking for a way to start your own business.

So, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to starting up a new home based business? There are plenty of scams out there, as well as plenty of legitimate home based businesses. So rather than a costly game of trial and error, or dismissing them all and throwing out the entrepreneurial baby with the home based business bathwater, here’s an in-depth look at some of the most popular work from home business scams to give you an idea of what to look out for. Many of these scams are some of the oldest tricks in the book, and while you’d think that no one would fall for them anymore, you may be surprised how, when these old scams are repackaged and put in the hands of a good salesman, people cannot stay away from the allure of a good old-fashioned get-rich-quick scheme. A good rule of thumb for any work from home scam is that, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Here’s a closer look at some of the most popular scams that are definitely too good to be true.

Assembly

An oldie, but a goodie, assembly scams try to convince you that you can buy a kit of raw materials, assemble them in your own home, in your spare time, then turn around and sell the items for a 1000% mark-up. Using logic here will go a long way. In America particularly, assembly jobs have gone the way of the dodo, and if there was a boat-load of money to be made doing assembly work, the company in question would simply put together an assembly line in a warehouse and make the 1000% profit themselves. With an assembly scam, you’ll receive several boxed of un-assembled junk and at the end of the day, all you’ll end up with is a finely assembled pile of junk.

Multi-Level-Marketing

Call it a pyramid scheme, call it a ponzi scheme, call it whatever you like, while a multi-level-marketing scheme may sound great, it always breaks down when you look at the math, and it’s illegal (just ask a certain business man currently under house arrest in New York). The basic premise for an MLM scheme is that through recruiting of other people under you, you make a percentage of their profits and when they recruit more people, you make a percentage of those profits. A good way to spot one of these schemes is when you see a sales business where the product is secondary to the sales pitch.

Examples include dietary supplements that promise everything from curing cancer to re-growing hair, but end up being nothing more than a multi-vitamin. There are some multi-level-marketing businesses that are actually legitimate, but they are few and far between, so rather than learning the hard way, it’s best to just stay away from these businesses unless they are selling a product that you really believe in. If you do choose to get involved with an MLM, make sure it’s a product you are passionate about, because you will most likely end up with a garage full of the product, rather than a bank account full of profits.

Online Businesses

This next one is tricky, because while there are thousands, if not millions, of legitimate online businesses, there is probably an equal amount of fraudulent ones. Many of the fraudulent online businesses will offer claims of getting rich quick, or making an absurd amount of money with little to no up-front investment. The sales pitches usually ask questions like: "Do you have a computer and an internet connection, you can make $60/hr while you sleep". Again, if this were legitimate, wouldn’t the company in question just setup a server farm with thousands of computers, each making $60/hr?

So how do you spot the legitimate online businesses? A great place to start is a certified business list, like the SBA registry. There are plenty of online resources, such as the BBB, which will identify some of the sleaziest businesses, but if you’re searching for a legitimate business, rather than just searching to de-bunk a scam, the SBA registry will point you to hundreds of businesses that have been verified and approved by the Small Business Association. Examples include businesses like: TeamLogicIT, an IT service for small and medium sized businesses or Cruise Planners, a subsidiary of American Express that specializes in planning the perfect cruise vacation for its clients.

While none of the legitimate businesses will offer the same type of "get rich quick" income that the scams claim, the big difference is that with a legitimate business, you actually will make good money over time, and you won’t end up in jail. Trying to make a living can be tough, particularly in our current job market, but if you’re considering a work from home business, check out some of the prominent small business franchises available at Small Business Sale. Each one is guaranteed to be a legitimate business, and if you invest a little money in the purchase of a franchise, work hard to build your business, and follow the business plan created by the franchisor, you will make a good living, and be the proud owner of a successful small business. Bes of all, you won’t find yourself sitting in the same position you are right now, six months from now, after discovering that the get rich quick scheme that you were promised was a sure thing, turned out to be "too good to be true."

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Article Tags: allure, closer look, costly game, first glance, google, home based business, home based businesses, home business scams, infomercials, internet startup, ipo, late night, legitimate home based businesses, myspace, own business, rule of thumb, stock market, thousand dollars, trial and error, wheat from the chaff



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Try wikipedia.com for more information - That depends what type of business you are involved in. Maybe if you share that, we can help you a little better. I work mostly in the Work at Home industry so my advice would only be along those lines.
Books for Women Entrepreneurs - There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here. It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new. In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment! 1. The Old Girl's Network 2. Mother's Work 3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women 4. Pitch Like A Girl 5. Workplace Warrior 6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer 7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery 8. She Wins, You Win 9. Napoleon On Project Management 10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do 11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years 12. The One Minute Millionaire 13. Talking From 9 to 5 14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions 15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success 16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded 17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful 18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide 20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen 21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business 22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker 23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business 24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises 25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy 26. The Promotable Woman 27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it 28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home 29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women
Re: How do you budget your life? - Here is my financial management categories for today: 15% Long Term Savings; 10% Home Expenses; 45% Business and Marketing charges; 10% Friends (Meeting); 20$ Scientific and Law Books. But this will change when it is August or September. Orxan
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: Buy An Established Affiliate Marketing Website - Hi David and GT, thanks for posting this here. My site is going for way below value and will be a great deal for someone. The links provided are a great resource for anyone looking to buy and sell websites. The Internet is all about information and you can know what you are getting before you buy. It's a little better than days past where it was "Buyer Beware". Steve


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