Writer beware, work at home scams

I was browsing through some writing blogs when I saw a reccomenedation to visit a site called Work at home scams exposed I thought this might be a helpful site so I paid a visit. I was quite shocked to discover that the site in itself is actually, a scam.

The site offers to show you the top 10 work at home jobs on the internet, in fact it just shows you 2. It's a single page, showing it's supposed top 2 work at home sites. I guess they are hoping you wouldn't notice that they both are ran by the same company.

The first one is Freelance home writers it offers, for a one day sign up of $2.95 or a monthly subscription of $47.95. In exchange for your hard earned money, it says you have the potential to earn $500 a day. (If this is starting to sound too good to be true, then you're right.) It says you can get paid $12-$50 per hour to write in blogs, $25-45 per hour to write simple articles, fiction & non-fiction stories for $450 each!

Now if you've enough episodes of The Real Hustle, or you have a bit of common sense, you'll be able to see that this is basically the set up of most online 'work from home' scams. While the potential of earning $500 a day, (that's about £354.95 at the current exchange rate,) sounds great and being paid up to $50 just to write a couple of blog posts sounds like a quick and easy way to add to your income, these flashy promises are designed to make you forget you are spending $47.95 a month to subscribe to this website.

A quick read of their disclaimer tells the real story:

"THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL EARN ANY MONEY USING THE TECHNIQUES AND IDEAS IN THESE MATERIALS"

(Translation: You will not earn any money)

"EXAMPLES IN THESE MATERIALS ARE NOT TO BE INTERPRETED AS A PROMISE OR GUARANTEE OF EARNINGS."

(Translation: We lie to get your money)

"EARNING POTENTIAL IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT ON THE PERSON USING OUR PRODUCT, IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES. WE DO NOT PURPORT THIS AS A “GET RICH SCHEME.”"

(Translation: There is no chance that this will work, because it is a 'Get rich quick scheme')

"NO GUARANTEES ARE MADE THAT YOU WILL ACHIEVE ANY RESULTS FROM OUR IDEAS AND TECHNIQUES IN OUR MATERIAL."

(Translation: This won't work, but give us your money anyway.)

To read the full thing for yourself, it's not that long, see here: disclaimer.

The second site that 'top 10 home jobs' shows you, (incidently it's last), is home survey workers.

From it's set up you can tell instantly that it's ran by the same company as freelance home writers. This time they offer you an earning potential of $423 a day, for the same sign up fee's as freelance home writers. Participation in focus groups could earn $50-$150 an hour or you could preview movie trailers for $4-$25 an hour or even get paid to take online orders, $12-$25 an hour.

Let's take a look at their disclaimer shall we?

"THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL EARN ANY MONEY USING THE TECHNIQUES AND IDEAS IN THESE MATERIALS"

(Translation: You will not earn any money)

... hang on...

Sounds familiar? It should, it's exactly the same disclaimer as freelance home writers and although the browser address is for home survey workers, at the top of your browser (for me the bit that has at the moment Blogger: The Big Magazine Experiment - Create Post - Mozilla Firefox) it still says at the top of their disclaimer page: Freelancehomewriters - disclaimer. Those lazy scammers!

So I did some research and looked around the net to see if I could get any reports from anyone who had actually used their site. People seem to report that they pay the trial fee, then find they get continually charged for monthly subscriptions, they find themselves having to cancel bank accounts to stop the payments with some of them still recieving phone calls afterwards.

The following is a short list of sites I found, they either are discouraging the use of freelancehomewriters OR homesurveyworkers, or they offer advice to avoid scams.:

Tips for freelancers: Genuine good advice
Writer beware blogs!: Haven't had chance to read all their articles yet, but the ones I have read are pretty good. I'd reccommend subscribing to them.
The complaints board: A detailed reoprt from someone who actually used both freelancehomewriters.com & homesurveyworkers.com, the comments feature a lot of complaints from people who were hit as well.
The complaints board: Here's another one who got stung.
The complaints board: And another one.
A blogger account: This lady wrote quite a good article on why these guys are scammers.
Rip-off report: Another account of someone being ripped off.
Rip-off report: Another one.
Be wary of this one: The guy who wrote it doesn't call the scam a scam because he's trying to push his own site on people.
I've tried that: Very good article about them.

And remember: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.