With scarcity of jobs at the job markets, stagnant wages and dissipating job security, it has become necessary for many individuals to find part time jobs in addition to their current job in order to generate additional income. Having an additional source of income is a smart thing to do for extra security, in case you need the cash in emergencies or if you want to live a better life. However, it is often difficult to find time for an additional job without leaving your home or leaving your primary job, and it can become frustrating. 

People like to stay home for many reasons. If you have kids and want to spend more time with your kids, or if you are an older person and can’t commit to a full time jobs outside your home, finding home based jobs might be the perfect solution for you. In today’s market, there are many ways in which you are able to find a job using your computer and the internet that you already have, and generate a steady flow of income from home. There are also plenty of home based businesses that you could run without a huge amount of start-up capital.

Part of the “American Dream” is to become a millionaire quickly. Many of us have fallen into traps by trying to get rich quick, only to find out that these “get rich quick” gimmicks are nothing but scams and schemes designed to make someone else rich, illegally. Many of these “work from home” plans promise you a quick and easy income, but in reality, there is no short cut to becoming wealthy. Making money requires the necessary skills, time, and effort.

We are going to show you some legal and legitimate ways to make money from home, but before that let us look at some of the scammers to avoid. If you want to make money from home, you can also become a target for scammers pretty easily.

Here are some Work At Home scams to avoid:

With increasing unemployment, there are a significant number of people looking for “stay at home” jobs. Fortunately, there is also a large demand for virtual workers. Telemarketers and virtual office jobs are becoming increasingly popular today. Scammers are targeting this population of unemployed workers who are looking for virtual work, and are easily scammed. People are increasingly becoming vulnerable to “get rich quick” gimmicks and scams. You might think that you are smart enough to spot a scammer and ignore them, but the scammers have mastered the techniques of robbing people who are just trying to make a living. They know exactly what to say to charm you into giving your very last dollar to them. Here are a few signs of scam so that you can avoid them:

Email processing

This is the digital version of the old “envelop stuffing” scam, which is surprisingly still alive today, harassing its victims. The scam company will usually post ads such as “guaranteed pay”, “easy work”, or “get $2 for every email you process”. Candidates must be able to forward emails, follow instructions, etc. For an inexperienced person, the job might seem like a legitimate marketing job. But after you apply, they will send you an email asking for initial signup money. When you send them the money, you will either never hear from them again, or they will send you instructions on how to use the same scam and recruit more victims of their scam, with similar emails.

So here is the clue, you should never have to pay a company to start a job or for start-up materials, no matter what reason or excuses they give you. They might try to convince you by saying that you need to buy certain software, that they need a deposit, or that they need to know if you are serious about the job, but its all scam.

Get rich schemes or multilevel marketing

Get rich and multilevel marketing schemes get only one person rich, and that’s the scammer. Don’t waste any time or effort by working for a scam artist and signing innocent people up for marketing scams. If you want to put that much time, effort, or money into something, starting your own business is a better option.

Assemble craft jobs

This hoax has been in the market for as long as I can remember, and I can’t imagine that there are any more victims left in the market today. No matter how old these tricks are, they still seem to convince more and more victims to fall into their traps. These companies will ask you to purchase equipments and machinery to make products for them and they may even send you some raw materials or components that they will ask you to assemble. After you have made a considerable investment, these companies will disappear. Some even play the game longer, and reject all of your attempts to do the job correctly by saying that “your crafts didn’t meet the standard, you need to try again”.

There are plenty of more types of scammers in the job market today. I have tried and became victimized by almost a dozen of these scam jobs myself in the past, and gathered fist hand experience. To tell you the truth, I am one of those victims who will believe anyone easily. I will write a more detailed list of scam jobs on another blog.

A list of legitimate jobs

As I have mentioned before, I have tried more than a dozen scam jobs online before trying to find genuine jobs that are available online. I will tell you the scam signs and the genuine jobs you could easily get to make an income.

Freelancer blogger

I want to start with something that I do for a living. There are many companies who are looking for bloggers or content writers online for their websites. I started writing blogs for companies about ten years ago, and I found that there are plenty legitimate companies willing to pay good money for your blogs or content. To become a writer you will need to provide your sample work to the employers and convince them of your writing abilities.

SEO & online marketing

There are plenty of companies who outsource their SEO and marketing jobs to freelancers around the world. All you need is your computer and some spare time. You could capitalize on the social media platforms that you already use and always make sure to research on latest SEO techniques and trends to make yourself more marketable.

Online Job boards

Below is a list of places where you could look for jobs.

1. oDesk : oDesk is my favorite place for getting jobs. Finding a job is easy and they also have a lot less spammers.
2. Freelancer: This is another great site with a variety of jobs available. You will earn points and ratings as you stay longer with the site.
3. Elance: This is a great alternative site to oDesk. If you don’t find the jobs you want on oDesk, try Elance.
4. Craigslist: Craiglist is a fantastic place for finding jobs online for freelancers.

If you want to maximize your chances of getting hired checkout this webinar. We will be posting more tips on preparing yourself for a better job online or offline, so please comeback often and read our posts.

Source: Balanced Live Team