Tips to help you avoid online job scams
With the proliferation of the internet and the high demand to integrate family and work, more and more people are opting to resign from their day work to the more leisurely legitimate work from home jobs and other types of online jobs.
And although the online work-from-home trend was initially identified with lactating mothers in the US, thus the common ‘work-at-home-mom’ phrase, more and more diversified groups of people are finding it easier and prudent to work at home. Young unemployed youth in the third world countries now form the bulk of people who etch a living from work-at-home online jobs.
Finding a well-paying and genuine work-at-home online job is however not as simple as you may think. There are possibly 100 online job scams for every genuine one.
Apart from the job scams however, there are certain other type of online jobs that an online job seeker has to be very wary of. These are jobs that pay you less for a truckload of your efforts.
Identifying these online scams and mini-scams will help you on your path to finding a genuine and well-paying online job that you can well resign to. So, how do you tell whether that job that you are applying for is genuine or is part of the numerous work-at-home online scams that flood the cyberspace? Here are ten indicators to look out for to avoid falling prey to online job scams.
- Receiving emails for Jobs that you had not applied for
Let us get real, there are thousands of people out there struggling to lay hands on a genuine job, so what makes you think that you are so lucky that some bloke somewhere has decided to offer you an online job with nada contribution from your side. This is probably some scam and you needn’t even read that email, leave alone trying to reply it. What is more revealing is the amount of junk emails that the said-employer will keep sending your way.
- Being asked to pay some up-front amount before you get the job
This is one of the most common online job scams that exist. You shouldn’t, and I repeat, you should never pay upfront money for any kind of online job. It doesn’t matter how much they are promising to pay you once you clinch the job. The simple sense is that no employer will demand some form of payment to as a guarantee for a job.
- Vague and uninformative websites and contact details
This one is a no brainer. Most of the online job scams will have vague websites/blogs with a ‘contact us’ page possibly missing or with contacts that do not work.
- Referral urls
The type of URL in the online job posting will automatically tell you what kind of job you are applying for. There has evolved a new kind of scamming where the job is 100% genuine but most of your pay is directed to a person they call a referrer. So what happens is that you work but gain little income from your work.
Legitimate work from home online jobs from reputable companies will have a simple and straightforward URL, whereas the referral job link will have a mixture of numbers and letters (that identify the referrer) added to the end of the url-something like www.kenyanpridespot/ED345S.com.
- When the deal is too good-
Ever seen those online job adverts that promise to pay you 18,000 dollars for a day’s work, and they are not even in the Fortune 500!!! Seriously, I shouldn’t be telling you this!
Ok, here is the deal, either the company and the job only exists in the schemers mind and on the online advert. Or the job really does exist, but you will probably earn $40 per month. Fullstop.
- In case of doubts, consult good ol’ Mr. Google
Honestly I don’t know why a lot of people get conned out of their money by online scammers and cons, or maybe I know-it has a lot to do with Greed and desire for get-rich-quick schemes. With Google providing all the answers for you, only a dumb or maybe reckless person will go diving into any online deal without carrying a little research on it. So next time you are applying for an online job, make sure to consult Mr. Google, he may be only ten years old but he has all the answers.
Patrick Mahinge is a prolific digital marketer and "serial webpreneur". He runs multiple profitable niche websites and blogs monetized through affiliate marketing and advertising. Patrick generously shares his expertise in affiliate marketing, blogging, and online business through his Facebook group of over 5,000 aspiring entrepreneurs.
Great advice! I believe it should be switched around where the asking for money part is #1. Unless you go to an employment agency where they find you a job, you don’t pay for a job.