Work at Home – How to Choose an Opportunity Without Getting Scammed Part 1

With rising costs of living, employee downsizing, corporate layoffs, constantly increasing gas prices and long commutes to work, more and more people find it now necessary to find a work at home job or to start a home based business. A vast majority of these individuals turn to the internet for their work at home salvation. There are literally thousands of work at home and home based business opportunities out there on the World Wide Web but of course all that glitters is not gold.

Upwards of 90% of the marketed home based businesses I would say are scams. These are schemes designed with the sole purpose of making the individual marketing the product to you rich, while you are left holding the bag as it were. Having said this however there are many legitimate home based business opportunities on the internet. The problem then is weeding out the good from the bad. Unfortunately this is a matter if trial and error and a LOT of research.

Finding legitimate opportunities to make money from home can become an extremely time consuming and ultimately a very expensive undertaking. There are a few things one must look for when searching for a legitimate work at home job or home based business opportunity. Any aspiring web entrepreneur must look for these important factors before selecting any work at home business opportunity, work at home job or affiliate program.

The first thing you should do is to review their standing with the various Business Regulation Agencies such as the Better Business Bureau. You should check on any complaints that may have been filed by consumers and whether or not it was satisfactorily resolved. In most cases this can be done online at the agencies web site.

They must have very good products and or services to promote. No matter their claims, if no one finds it useful no one will buy. On this note beware of any “opportunity” where you have to buy-in before you know exactly what you will be getting for you hard earned cash. As you can imagine there are many of these out there with a slick sales letter but absolutely no mention of what the product or service is.

There must be a reliable support system in place with training and good leadership. Any program that just hands you the material and expects you to just figure it out on your own isn’t worth your time and money.

Paychecks should be sent out on time and at least once per month. Some home based business opportunities make you wait until your account reaches a preset limit before you get paid. Others let you choose your own limit and or frequency, you be the judge of what is acceptable for your individual needs.

Longevity is most important, so they should have been in business for at least three years. The scammers and con-artist usually cannot stick around this long with any individual program. They pack up and leave to return with something new. If a company is around this long on the internet I would say they must be doing something good.

I must also add here a simple rule to follow; if it sounds too good to be true it probably isn’t. We’ve all seen those ads with claims such as you can make $8,000 a day or in a few hours, just a little common sense goes a long way with these. While I’m not saying that it’s impossible to make thousands of dollars a day, it’s impractical to think it will just happen over night.

Any home based business venture you get into will take time and effort; there will be a learning curve. Anything worth doing is worth doing right, so take your time and learn the ropes. There is no such thing as a get rich quick scheme or we would all be millionaires.