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• Additional Info:

  Work-at-home con artists have always preyed most heavily upon senior citizens, the disabled, mothers who want to stay at home with their children, people with low income and few job skills, and people who just want to get rich quick.
  To protect yourself, learn to recognize the most common work-at-home scams.
  
  MYSTERY SHOPPER: While there are many legitimate opportunities, many are schemes. Consumer receives unsolicited mystery shopper opportunity offer and a check that looks very legitimate in the mail. One of the supposed assignment is to evaluate effectiveness of money wiring companies such as Western Union or Money Gram by cashing the check received and wiring a portion of it out. Later, consumer finds the check received was noncollectable. Wired money becomes consumer's pocket expense.
  
  PAYMENT PROCESSOR: Consumer receives an e-mail from a company supposedly located in a foreign country, and solicited to become their payment processing facilitator. Company claims that check in US dollar is difficult to process in their own country. Consumer's duty is to cash those supposed payment checks from US clients for the company and wire the cash out to the company and keep a portion as commission. Consumer starts receiving notices from his or her bank for noncollectable checks, or starts receiving complaint letters from US clients regarding their unfilled order.
  
  ENVELOPE STUFFING: When answering such ads, you may not receive the expected envelopes for stuffing, but instead get promotional material asking for cash just for details on money-making plans.
  
  MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING: Many people have successfully sold the products of reputable companies to their neighbors and co-workers. On the other hand, illegitimate pyramid schemes can resemble these legitimate direct sales systems.
  
  ONLINE BUSINESS: This is typical of advertisements showing up uninvited in your e-mail. You pay for a useless guide to work-at-home jobs-a mixture of computer-related work such as word processing or data entry and the same old envelope-stuffing and home crafts scams.
  
  PROCESSING MEDICAL INSURANCE CLAIMS: Generally, the promoter of this scheme attracts you by advertising on cable television and, perhaps, by inviting you to a business opportunity trade show at a hotel or convention center.
  
  CHAIN LETTER: The only people who benefit from chain letters are the mysterious few at the top of the chain who constantly change names, addresses, and post office boxes. More informaiton on this is also available at Federal Trade Commission's web site at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt075.shtm.
  
  ASSEMBLY WORK AT-HOME: This scheme requires you to invest hundreds of dollars in instructions and materials and many hours of your time to produce items such as baby booties, toy clowns, and plastic signs for a company that has promised to buy them.
  
  Avoiding Fraud
  1. Closely examine any offer which promises or guarantees income from work-at-home programs.
  2. Consider it a warning sign if you must buy something in order to start the program.
  3. If you must cash a check to wire portion or all of money back for any reasons, it is a red flag.
  4. Those interested also should take into consideration that, by becoming involved in a work-at-home scheme, they might well be perpetrating a fraud by selling the program to others, and risk investigation by postal authorities.
  5. Check with the BBB for a reliability report on a specific work-at-home company.
  
  If you become a victim of a work-at-home scheme, ask the company for a refund. If they refuse or give you an evasive response, tell them you plan to notify law enforcement officials.
  Keep careful records of everything you do to recover your money. Document your phone calls, keep copies of all paperwork such as letters and receipts, and record all costs involved, including the time you spend. If the company refuses to refund your investment, contact BBB.
  
• Additional Info:

  Here are some tips you can use to avoid becoming a victim of employment schemes associated with mystery/secret shopping:
  
  - No legitimate mystery/secret shopper program will send payment in advance and ask the employee to send a portion of it back.
  
  - Legitimate companies will not charge an application fee and will accept applications on-line.
  
  - Do not respond to unsolicited (spam) e-mail.
  
  - Do not click on links contained within an unsolicited e-mail.
  
  - Be cautious of e-mail claiming to contain pictures in attached files, as the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders. Virus scan all attachments, if possible.
  
  - Avoid filling out forms contained in e-mail messages that ask for personal information.
  Always compare the link in the e-mail to the link you are actually directed to and determine if they match and will lead you to a legitimate site.
  
  - There are legitimate mystery/secret shopper programs available. Research the legitimacy on companies hiring mystery shoppers at www.bbb.org.