How to spot work-from-home scams

Many people now prefer to work from home. It’s cheaper, as you don’t have to pay for transportation and other expenses such as lunch. It’s also more convenient because you don’t have to spend time traveling to and from work. The harsh reality is that there will always be ill-intentioned people who promise an easy way of getting what you want. 

This includes work-from-home opportunities. While there are many legitimate and lucrative ways of earning a living from the comfort of your house or apartment, the internet is also full of false job advertisements designed to take advantage of you in various ways. This article can help you learn more about spotting work-from-home scams by explaining their common characteristics with examples.

What is a work-from-home scam?

A work-from-home scam is a way to deceive job seekers with false employment opportunities. As the popularity and availability of remote work rose steeply following the pandemic, this type of scam has become more widespread on internet job ad sites. These false job advertisements typically promise great pay and amazing benefits for relatively little work. Some common goals for those who create these work scams include getting you to send them money, stealing your identity, and convincing you to unknowingly break the law.

Some common elements of fake work-from-home opportunities include:

• Getting the job seems too quick and easy. Companies don’t just hire random strangers from the internet for high-paying work-from-home jobs. Employers usually take their time to assess and screen candidates, so if someone wants to hire you immediately without evaluating your skills, it’s probably a scam.
• The job is just too amazing. If a remote job opportunity promises a huge salary and great benefits from the beginning, it may be too good to be true. Likewise, if you’re offered a job that you’re not fully qualified for, you may also be looking at a scam attempt.
• You can’t find too much information about the employer online. Another major red flag when seeking work-from-home opportunities is the alleged employer not having too much information about them online. Even small businesses now take the time to build a website and some social media presence, so be wary of companies with little or no internet footprint.
• You find warnings online from others. A more obvious sign is finding information online suggesting that the job or the hiring company isn’t legitimate. Unless you have major reasons to believe otherwise, it’s best to avoid this type of employer.
• Communicating with the potential employer is difficult. Companies are usually meticulous in portraying professionalism in their communication. If an email or job ad has misspelled words, missing punctuation, or generally sounds off, it’s at the very least an unprofessional employer and most likely a scam.
• You have to start by paying them money. Some online scammers ask job seekers to first invest some money before accessing the supposed job opportunity. While you may have to pay to join some online job boards and other job-seeking resources, an employer directly asking you for money is a major red flag.
• They ask for personal information. While it’s normal for job seekers to provide employers with personal information later in the hiring process, this shouldn’t happen initially. This is particularly true for credit card details or your home address.

“While there are many legitimate and lucrative ways of earning a living from the comfort of your house or apartment, the internet is also full of false job advertisements designed to take advantage of you in various ways.”

Tips on avoiding scams when looking for remote work

Consider these tips when assessing potential work-from-home opportunities, to help you determine whether they’re legitimate:

• Do not click on any suspicious links that the supposed employer sends you, as they may infect your device and extract personal information.
• Compare the salary that the job ad is promising with other similar positions on the job market and be suspicious if it’s significantly higher.
• Always research both the hiring company and the person offering you the job opportunity.
• Ask them for more information about the role and how you’d fit into it and be suspicious if they seem reluctant to talk about the job.
• Use social media to find other people who work at that company and contact them for more information.
• Trust your instincts and avoid opportunities that seem too good to be true, regardless of how tempting they may be.

Examples of typical work-from-home scams

Here are some common work-from-home scams that you’re likely to encounter when seeking a remote position.

Reshipping or reselling scams

This scam typically involves a job ad that promises a great salary for people to receive items by mail, inspect their condition and quality, and then ship them to another address, usually in a different country. The packages often contain stolen goods or products bought with stolen credit cards. They pretend to hire you for “quality control” but their real purpose is to use you to get the illegally obtained products out of the country. By doing this you would lose shipping and packaging money and you’d also be committing a crime.

Multi-level marketing scams

Multi-level marketing businesses rely on people to sell products to friends and relatives. This can be a legitimate business opportunity, as you can use your network of acquaintances to earn sales commissions. But, according to the Federal Trade Commission, some of them are illegal pyramid schemes. Fake multi-level marketing companies will ask you to recruit new distributors, as getting into the business usually requires an entry fee. A legitimate company will only ask you to sell its products on commission.

Envelope stuffing scams

A legitimate envelope-stuffing job involves a company sending you a set of documents that you have to insert in separate envelopes and send to specific recipients. Fake envelope-stuffing jobs will ask you for an initial one-time payment, but instead of providing you with documents to re-send, they’ll request that you recruit others to send them the one-time payment.

“Pay for training” scams

This type of scam involves a fake company advertising a job with great pay and benefits and few required qualifications. After accepting the “job,” they’ll ask you to pay for a specific training program or certification that’s supposedly essential for performing the role, with the promise that you’ll be fully reimbursed when you get your first paycheck. You’ll then find out that the role doesn’t exist, and the scammers only wanted the money.

Overpaying employer scam

This scam is a little more complex, as it involves you doing real work for a couple of weeks. When your first check arrives, you’ll notice that it’s much more than you agreed with the alleged employer. After highlighting this discrepancy, they apologize for their error and kindly ask you to return the difference to them. You send it via bank transfer or another quick payment method, but when you attempt to cash the paycheck, you discover it’s fake.

Finding good work-from-home opportunities is a realistic goal and can benefit your work-life balance. However, the sad reality is that there will always be people who try to trick honest individuals by promising remote job opportunities when their real purpose is to steal your money or use you for various illegal activities. While it helps to have a positive and enthusiastic attitude when seeking work, knowing how to spot these scams can help you avoid any unwanted situations.

More tips on finding work online

Looking to work from home? Find out how to find a job online (with top tips for success).

Improve your work-life balance by creating a work-at-home schedule that suits you.

Consider 15 of the highest-paying work-from-home jobs to pursue.