Scams

Chain Letters

For those of you who don't know: A chain letter is a letter that you receive telling you to forward $1 (or more) to five people on a list. You are then instructed to remove the top name on the list and mail the letter out to as many people as you can. The next person will remove the top name and mail as many as well.

This sounds great but there are a few problems:

1. Most people are only going to throw the letter away and not do anything. Probably 99.9%. The 5% returns they advertise are a joke. There isn't any way this is going to happen.
 
2. Chain letters are illegal. There is no real product or service being exchanged. Nothing people would pay $1 for. Don't be fooled by variations with recipes because they are not legal either.
 
3. Since the chain letter isn't controlled by any one group, people are going to remove all the names and put on their friends and family. That way they are getting $5 from each sucker instead of $1.

Most people think that some crazy guy or gal started this chain letter but that is really the funny part. All chain letters (without exception) are started by mailing list companies. That is why there are ads for either one or two mailing list companies at the bottom of the chain letter.

They are getting free advertising because when people decide that they are going to sign up with the chain letter, they buy the cheap mailing lists from the company (or companies) that are listed on the letter.

Home Assembly

Ads for home assembly litter the back pages of business opportunity magazines and newsletters. There are probably 10 to 15 different companies right now, selling information on how people can work at home.

Here is what happens when you order most home assembly manuals: You get a book or manual that lists 50 to 100 companies that offer work at home. The problem is that 99% of these companies in the manual you just paid $39.95 for require a set up fee.

Supposedly, this fee is refundable with the first completed project that you submit. Most of these operations make their money off their setup fees. Not from actually buying back peoples' work and reselling it.

You will often get letters back with your work saying that it isn't up to company standards or that it isn't acceptable. This is from personal experience. One of my first online work at home ventures was one of these. Assemble beaded jewelry to be exact. For my $49 or so I received a bunch of itty bitty plastic beads that had little tiny holes in them. You would have to take a needle and fishing line to put them together - bead by bead. I would say a day later I had one earring done and could tell right away that this was a total scam.

Stuffing Envelopes

You pay to receive a manual instructing on how to make money stuffing envelopes. What you receive are instructions telling you to spread the news about the enveloping stuffing biz, then you'll get paid. As you read the literature in the package, it slowly dawns on you - you're not going to get paid $1 or $2 for every envelope you stuff. The instructions tell you to spread the news about the enveloping stuffing biz, then you'll get paid.

How, exactly, does that work, you ask?

By advertising the envelope stuffing program, of course.

Yep, they want you to help them earn those up-front fees by sending out the same letter you read and got so excited about.How might one be instructed to advertise the program to others?

Well, you can place an ad asking people to send you a dollar to find out about the envelope stuffing program. That's how you earn $1,845.20 every week.

One dollar at a time.

Or they might tell you to purchase a mailing list and send out a thousand or more of their "special sales letters".

Or perhaps you could put up a web site? They won't tell you this, but make sure you don't post a legit phone number or a physical address. People tend to get angry when they've been scammed.

 

Product Testing Product testing frauds usually begin when you receive a handsome brochure showing dozens of products and a sales pitch asking you to enroll as a product evaluator. The cost for postage and handling is purported to cost from $5 to $9 and you get to keep the hundreds of gift products you receive for testing. There is usually some sort of enrollment fee ranging from $10 to $25 dollars. Many consumers never receive a response after sending their enrollment check. They are the lucky ones. Those who are enrolled and request products for testing may end up paying hundreds of dollars in postage and handling for items worth far less than the fees. Reading Books for Money You respond to an ad which claims you can make a potential $30,000 per year reading books at home. The ads indicate that all you have to do is ask for a list from which you pick a book, submit a report and then get paid right away. You send along your one time fee of $57 and what they send you back is a listing book of publishers, without even contact addresses. After tracking down several publishers, you discover from them that publishers don’t hire people for this purpose sight unseen and certainly not without prior experience and proper educational or vocational background. Home-Based Computer Work You respond to an ad which proclaims: "PC Users - do overflow work and earn $14/hr from the comfort of your home!" They indicate there is a money back guarantee after 90 days so you send off your $65. In return you receive a disk containing generic information on running a business and a list of 500 business names around the country. You attempt to contact the ones that are still in business and determine that while some require actual visits to the distant office, most pay an amount which works out to only about $2 per hour. You remember after 90 days to call for a refund but the line has been disconnected. Behind the scenes, the business has once again changed names and phone numbers and continued on with its nationwide advertising, knowing that their victims seldom make a fuss over the small amount they have lost to this deception.