New Work at Home Site

This Blog is continued at HonestInternetMoney.com

Work at Home Scams getting a little Harder to Spot

This article is about a woman who was contacted about a job through her resume on CareerBuilders.com. The company seemed perfectly legit (except for the extrememly high salary) until they would only pay her by direct deposit and she had to open an account with an out of state bank. Then, they somehow convinced her to wire her paycheck to an out-of-the-country coworker, and, you guessed it, the money was stolen from another account at that bank.

Free Small Business Startup Ebook - Zero Dollars a Little Talent and Thirty Days

Free Small Business Startup Ebook - Zero Dollars a Little Talent and Thirty Days is an interesting collection of articles written while the author was attempting to launch a new business for with no startup costs. This is a perfect guide for anyone with little or no web business experience. The author actually had a major headstart in that she already knew a lot of marketing people online and her position as an SEO generated a lot of early interest that resulted in free PR. However, anyone can replicate her ultimate achieved goal (profit) with hard work, even if it will take longer for most.

How To Explore if a Home Business is Legitimate or not

I stumbled across this article that at first glance appears to be an informational article about how to create a happier life by working at home, but upon further exploration, seems to be nothing but a pitch for Family Franchise.

So, with the initial pitch, then all the hyperbole at the Family Franchise site, this really seems like a good business, huh? Well, I don't think so. It might be a good kind of job for some people, but not for me. How about you? Let's explore ways to determine if it is legitimate and worth your time:

The $49 startup cost doesn't scare me. If you wanted to start doing affiliate marketing, which is what I do, you probably would have at least an $89 startup cost, which would cover only 1 year of internet hosting costs and domain name registration .. so you'd have to pay that $89 again next year. $49 to start a business is not outrageous, as long as it is startup costs for a business and you are not paying to get a job. If you are concerned about any fees you are considering paying for another business, leave me a comment here and I'll tell you what I think of them.

So, the upfront cost isn't unreasonable, and I actually am not mad about this website, which I do get about a lot of similar sites. Many websites like this won't even tell you what the product is unless you give them your phone number so someone can call you and give you the hard sell. Grrr I hate that. I hate being sold like that and I will click off of those types of sites in a second - you need to understand that any business that hard sells to you is going to need you to hard sell to your customers. If you don't like or want to do that, then stay away.

So, this site tells you right away what the products are - nutritional supplements. Well, nothing fantastic, but certainly a viable product. Personally, I am not a vitamin taker, so I would not be a good vitamin seller, but perhaps you are? If you took these vitamins and believed them to be powerful facilitators of good health for you, you would probably be a great vitamin seller. You would be able to speak easily and covincingly about your product.

So, in order to start exploring if we think this website is a scam or not we first start by searching the business name:

Family Franchise. hmmm, nothing good, nothing bad, nothing at all. This means it could be a new business. Let's see. (if we had found people complaining about the business then we could have just written it off right away.)

check the website at whois.net to see the particulars of the domain Some are protected - for legitimate reasons or for spammy reasons, you'd have no way of knowing, but this one isn't. It shows the website first registered in Dec of 2003. Well, that's fairly recent, but not recent enough to worry me. If the domain had been registered within the last year that would be a huge red flag to me that something could be wrong.

Check the registration information against the website contact info. At this website, the contact person, the business name, an address, a telephone number and an email are prominently displayed and completely match what is given on the whois page. This is great. This much transparency in who is responsible for the information usually means that this person is not planning on cutting and running with your money. Of course this can be faked, but when the website info matches with the whois info, that's a big flag on the good side, a blue flag, if you will.

Next Step is to do a search on the company name - and this search is perhaps the most telling for this site. From this search you can see that this person (this company) has several websites selling these same nutritional supplements he's going to ask you to sell. There is nothing wrong with this - in fact, since none of them are spammy this actually speaks strongly for him. This man is guaranteeing or attempting to guarantee a steady income by diversifying which websites it comes from. That way, if one site goes down or is effected in the search engines, the other ones are still around making him money - this is a smart way to do business on the internet and it tells me that he is going to be around for a while.

Also found by searching the company name is the distributor this man uses. It matches the distributor he says he uses.

So, it looks to me like this guy is making money selling vitamins, and now he's trying to make more money by teaching you to sell vitamins with a home business the same way he does. If you buy your vitamins to sell from him or he gets a commission for whatever you sell, well then it's worth it for him to spend the time teaching you. If you do as well as he is doing, then he'll make continuing money down the road from a few months of work he does now.

We certainly could go farther in examining this business and this website, but after everything I've seen so far I don't think we have to -- after my initial misgivings, I have to say this is probably a legitimate business, and a viable one. Just remember you may be asked to approach your friends and family and maybe you'll be encouraged to set up a table at the local farmer's market or whatever, but if you're OK with this, then this might be a good business for you. You'll have to make that decision.

Ask Annie - Want to Work From Home? Maybe You Can - FORTUNE

Ask Annie - Want to Work From Home? Maybe You Can: This article offers solid advice and links to two sites that will help anyone wanting to work from home, but still work for someone else (instead of themselves). A must read.

How to Start Your Own Online Business Ebook Review

I read the Ebook How to Start Your Own Online Business and highly recommend it to all Internet newbies just starting out and wishing to make some money off the Internet.

Who the ebook is for
This ebook is for absolute beginners. It is for someone who knows they want to try to earn an income, part time or full time, from the Internet but they aren't sure how. It is for anyone who wants to start their own business but isn't sure where to start. It is even for people who think they might want to get into Internet marketing or selling, but they aren't sure. The author does a lot of pep talking and a little hand holding to convince you that anyone can make money off the Internet (and she's right!).

What's in the ebook
In this ebook you will find information on how to make money with affiliate marketing, how to decide on a business idea, how to avoid scams, how to accept credit cards, how to evaluate businesses for sale, web site building basics, domain name legal issues, detailed information with screenshots on ordering a domain and setting up your domain's email in outlook express, how to spot fraudulent orders, getting visitors to your website, advertising, product shipping, customer service issues, taxes and business licenses, and more.

Why I recommend this book
I recommend this ebook because it is right on and totally correct in every aspect. I learned everything in this book the hard way, and it took me over 5 years to start making some serious money with my websites. I sold products, I did affiliate marketing, I did direct advertising, I sold on ebay ... I have probably tried everything in the book and more. I had had just enough money trickling in each month to keep me interested since 1997 but I didn't make more than $300 in a month for about 5 years. Now though, I have made as much as my husband makes in a full time job every year since then. If I had had this book in the beginning, I wouldn't have had to learn it all through trial and error. If I had had this book to teach me the basics, I could have gotten a lot more serious a lot sooner. My loss.

So, I suggest you get a copy of How to Start Your Own Online Business for yourself. It is sold through Clickbank. Clickbank is safe - I have sold and bought ebooks through them for years now.

Lisa

Hiring people for great job from home form Email

Last post I talked about the woman who got bilked out of $35,000 because of an email she got offering her an importer, exporter job .. well, I think I just got the same darn email! -- it follows below:

-- start email --

Dear Sir/Madam. here

Are you looking for a job?info
Are you not satisfied with your income? You think you can earn more and\par
you want earn more? We can make an offer to you !add
Solid Job Company WorldWide had proved itself long
ago as a stable financial investor into social projects of thirdworld
countries. We had built numerous chruches that are successful now,
several hospitals, institutions for children with hard childhood. site
Currently our project is "Movement for making better an environment
for woman in arabian countries". best
We also own a organization "Old New Orleans". Basically we are renweing
a territory and giving a place it's original look. As you can see, we
are not about earning money like any other company, we are working with
people and for people! and Our capital consists of invests of big companies
and private individuals. We are in contact of thousand of government
individuals, as well as with common people.told


Our vacancies: Now clients of our company conduct financial operations
all over the world including USA , but due to sufficient
perfection in Banking Service we have some difficulties in translation
and reorganization of our business, therefore we are planning to open
branches in which we require USA.own Now we are looking for financial
assistants who will be responsible to accept payments from our clients. here
At this moment we provide and offer work at home, after opening offices
in Americans, you will have an opportunity for working in our offices as
well. you


Today we are looking for financial assistants that will be responsible
to accept payments from clients through bank transfer, because of
imperfection of bank system. mode Americans partners of our clients have some
difficulties with sending bank translations and cheques to East
Europe. You can make 10 % commission from every transfer you will
receive through relative to our business. The rest needs to be
transferred to our company's representative by Western Union; all
Western Union fees are paid by us. On average you will be making 3,000
US Dollars per week. know


We believe that you can get good future and achievements in our
business.task If our offer is interesting to you, please feel free in
sending a mail to our HR office.that For more information our crew of
Human Resources is ready to answer all your questions.love


If you are ready to start working with us then you need to register on
our personal website of our company and you will get a personal
account that you will work with .wish After you done that and you got an
account - we start working with you within 24 hours. Go to
http://solidjob.org please click " REGISTER"


Best Regards have
Solid Job Company always


-- end email --

So, let's take this apart and see why you should throw it right in the garbage.

1. Horrific spelling and grammar
You may excuse the poor grammar and spelling because it is obvious that the author is not a native english speaker, but this would be a mistake, because even a non-native english speaker offering a legitimate home job would still be a professional. He or she would hire a proofreader or even a copywriter, not just slap up any old junk.

2. It came to me in my email. I didn't request this and that almost automatically makes it spam. Legitimate companies do not operate via spam, not if they know anything about the web.

3. Looking at the URL in the message: http://solidjob.org and the URL in the apparent header (I won't duplicate it here, they probably had nothing to do with this spam), they don't match. This is a HUGE tipoff to something sneaky.

Now, I went to the website to check it out. I wouldn't advice anyone do this, as sometimes these websites are dangerous. My computer is well-protected so I decided to risk it. You may think that because the website is a .org site it is OK. Actually, anyone can get a .org site, you don't have to provide proof of validity.

So, the website is the same - lots of spelling mistakes. Low quality. Doesn't look finished. Junk.

And, as a final check, I ran a google search on the title of the email and found a prior similar emails sent to mailing lists, archived on the web, with a different website. This website led to nowhere. My guess is it was shut down for fraud.