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5/3/2008 - Guaranteed Extra Cash Online
For college students and other people who feel burned out trying to
balance paying the bills and living at the same time, ads like these
can prove to be irresistible. Many of them make perfect sense and
easily hook you based on good concepts. Unfortunately, many times the
product or service does not match the brilliance of a great idea for
making money from home or through the Internet. As I’ve learned myself,
the further you go down this road, the more excited you get. You
basically get hooked, and if you aren’t careful, you will end up
working hard and falling further into debt than you can imagine. Much
like gambling, the lure of easy money and independence can make just
about anyone fall prey to work at home scams that feed off your dreams
to get to your wallet so they can go on to the next victim.
Hopefully, you will never fall victim to these scam artists. However,
the fact of the matter is that these scammers would not be wasting
their time if they were not making any money. And as long as people
continue to get mixed up in this business, these scammers are going to
stick around to trick more and more people.
The best way to keep a scammer’s claws away from your credit card
is to do thorough research on each opportunity that you are
considering. This means doing much more than simply reading a bit about
it online. In my personal experience, I have been taken by companies
who were savvy enough to pollute the Internet with staged testimonials,
guarantees, questionable references to big name endorsements, and even
appearances in the Better Business Bureau.
A colleague of mine who invested in vending machine placement services
even went so far as to physically go to the manufacturing plant to tour
the warehouse as well as contact the Better Business Bureau of that
state. What he received, in return, were twenty malfunctioning candy
machines with a list of local businesses who had apparently agreed to
receive them. Not only did none of these businesses know what he was
talking about, many of them were hostile when he showed up to place
them.
What you want to do is check message boards such as the ASK section of
Yahoo.com. Another simple method of weeding out the scams from the
genuine opportunities is to go to a search engine and simply type in
the company name followed by the word “scam”. If you do this, and you
are barraged by an endless list of complaints, you my friend have found
a nugget of gold in a sea of mud.
In terms of the Better Business Bureau, it is best to contact them
directly to ask about any complaints, and also find out how long a
company has been listed. The Better Business Bureau operates state by
state. They will be able to tell you if they have any complaints on
file. If they do, you will want to avoid the opportunity at all costs.
But if it appears that a company is doing business the right way, you
can continue your own research.
Being in the Business Bureau is not necessarily that hard to
accomplish. Many scammers can use their money and connections to set up
a front to initially qualify for the Better Business Bureau just long
enough for them to collect their cash from unsuspecting victims, close
shop, create a new identity and start again.
Before you decide to do anything, attempt to get in touch with the
company that you are interested in. Can you get a human being on the
phone? Do they have an actually physical address? How long does it take
them to respond to your e-mails, if at all? If you cannot even talk to
the company before you start, there is not chance that they will be
around when you really need them. I once made quite a bit of money
selling vacation vouchers on auction sites. The marketing plan was
sound, and the money saving vouchers was a hit. Only problem was, I
could never get in touch with their customer service department to
handle my customer inquiries and complaints once I realized that the
promises that existed in writing on the vouchers were misleading at
best. This proved to be such a problem that it took me over a year to
recover from the negative publicity on my auction site.
Of course, there are legitimate home based businesses out there.
With the Internet and all the low cost, web producing tools available,
there seems to be a renaissance in entrepreneurship. Basically, just
find a product or service you can market online, and do your research.
Sell on EBay if you don’t want to build your own website. You can have
a website their and all search engine marketing is already done by
EBay. The Small Business Association has an office in downtown Tacoma
and contains invaluable information on their website http://www.sba.com.
Since small business is the backbone of our country economically,
sources such as these are eager to help you create a plan with
realistic expectations.
However, like anything else worthwhile, you have to do your
homework and work hard at it. The problem is that too many people make
you think you can practically go online and make money just clicking on
a mouse. You want to steer clear of any business that asks to you to
pay for their “Top Secret” e-book that will teach you how to make an
automated income.”
Think about it, if you are in dire need of cash, can you imagine any
other situation in which you would not only work for free, but pay for
the privilege to work. There are no magic formals or secrets worth
paying for. All of the information in these e-books can be found for
free through your own research if you have common internet skills.
If you don’t want to work hard and just make a few easy extra bucks
without donating your blood or volunteering to be a guinea pig, it is
possible to make some good extra money filling out online surveys or
through mystery shopping. There are real opportunities out there which
require no fee to get started. Not only that, several of them will even
give you a $5 bonus just for signing up. If a company such as this is
legitimate, they would be making lots of money through the success of
its members. Companies that require that $49.97 start up fee only make
money through the fee and only want to teach you how to get other
people to do the same. The products are all useless lists and general
information that anyone with a functioning mind could figure out on
their own, or get for free by doing their own research.
Peter V. Ruble
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