Job Scams: How To Avoid Them

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Posted by: Simon Tags: job opportunity, recession, ripped off, scam Posted date: July 30, 2009 | No comment

Do you know how to distinguish between job ads/offers that will bring you genuine income from those run by sheisters who will take what little cash you have left off you? Here are some tips to help you. (And check out my recommendations for 2 superb books that share genuine home-based business ideas and guidance, at the end of this post…)

In tough economic times where unemployment is on the rise, there grows a population ever more desperate people to earn an income to keep themselves and their families in food and shoes, and with them, comes unscrupulous blockheads that try to rip them off.

Have You Been Scammed?

Have YOU become a victim of one of these scams? How did you feel about it when you found out? Please share your story and help other people avoid them, by leaving your opinion at the end of this post.

Actually, they’re not blockheads at all. Most of the scammers that prey on desperate people are intelligent, creative people who have chosen the dark side of the force.

If I can help just one person avoid being ripped off, this article serves its purpose.

Most of the common scams you’ll find on the web today involve an offer of easy work with high pay, yet you need no skills or experience to do the work. Work like that is typically one of two types:

Work that no rational person would ever do – dangerous, unethical or distasteful jobs like a naked janitor in a high-security jail, or a food taster for Osama bin Laden.
Work that isn’t work, just a reason to get money from you – the job is fake and offered to get some upfront cash from you

OK – I assume that you would spot which jobs fall into category 1, yes!

Jobs in category 2 are often just as easy to identifiy too. As I said, these jobs are often listed as lucrative, but you don’t need experience and skills, and you can work from home. Sounds great, huh? But these ‘jobs’ come to you with a ‘registration fee’ or some kind of upfront payment. It’s this money that the scammers want from you.

Some of these jobs, instead, require you to buy raw materials from the scammers to produce a physical product and then sell back to them. Great! But of course, their ‘quality control’ rejects your product, no matter how great it is.

You might have seen some ‘data entry’ jobs advertised. These are a scam too. The offers are designed to get you to impart some cash, and the work doesn’t materialize… well the cash certainly doesn’t. The same goes for the jobs where ‘all you have to do is post links on Google’.

There is a ‘filter’ I want you to develop in your mind, and it looks like this:

Why sell these amazing money-making schemes to us when they can keep them, and the money they generate, for themself?

If the ‘systems’ and ‘jobs’ that so many people are telling us about (and they want us to buy the information to learn how), are so lucrative (those that say you can earn $45,067 in less than 5 days) then why don’t they keep them quiet and use them just for themself?

These people are not community-sprited and small-time philanthropists. That’s for sure!

If you’re still not convinced, maybe some simplified economic theory might help explain it.

Economic Theory: Perfect Competition

Carrots In economics, there is a theory called ‘Perfect Competition’ which I will explain by discussing carrot farmers. (Yes, carrot farmers) The thing about carrots is that there is very little to differentiate the carrots from one farmer to the next. A carrot, is well, a carrot. Not just that, but the practices used by one carrot farmer and the next are pretty much alike too. And then the raw materials are the same – carrot seeds, muck, water, sunshine and maybe some way of getting rid of the bugs.

So from any carrot farmer, you would expect the same product, the same farming practices, and the same raw materials. Once you know this, anyone can become a carrot farmer. The barrier to entry is just making sure you can get this stuff and some land to grow the carrots in. Demand will typically track supply, unless there is some kind of major disaster.

If one farmer decided to hike his price up, then he wouldn’t last long. Because the market (carrot eaters) can get carrots from other farmers at a lower price, then nobody would buy at his price.

This is perfect competition. No farmer can distinguish their product to allow a rise in price. The cost of a carrot will be very little above the production costs.

You might be wondering where I am going with this. Well here goes…

In the jobs where skills and experience are not required (just like the scammers say) then many, many people can provide the labor. The raw materials (your time, maybe a PC with an internet connection and some electricity) are available to most people too. Everyone, to draw a parallel, can grow these carrots. There is a massive labor pool willing and able to do these jobs. So…

… why would they pay so much? Surely they would pay just to cover your costs and a little bit more? If it was a genuine job, then they would pay little, and be honest about it. Because the ‘employer’ could gain such a massive labor force then they wouldn’t need to pay much at all. There is perfect competition for the jobs.

But they tell you that you can earn mega-bucks, don’t they?!

So walk away. It’s a scam. Leave well alone. Look for that janitor or food-taster job instead.

As Rachel Zupek quotes on the CNN Living blog : if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Two great resources for genuine home-based businesses

1. Start & Run a Real Home-Based Business is a full-on practical guide that avoids the hype and is based on sound business practice, especially on the marketing side.

2. 450 Home Business Ideas is jam-packed full of inspirational business ideas to run from home and in your part-time.