5 ways to spot a work at home scam

FlexJobs provided us with five ways to avoid these fake  work at home job scams!  Trust your gut if it sounds too good to be true it probably is 

1. Never Pay for an Interview

The company may want you to pay them to train you, purchase software or invest in some way in order to get the job. Legitimate companies won’t make you spend money in order to work for them.

Often, legitimate job postings will list the equipment or specific software you need or provide it as a part of training once you are hired. You can usually find this information in the job listing.

For example Uhaul often hires work at home workers  here are some of their requirements 

The following technical requirements must be met to work from home:

*Computer requirements and internet speed will be verified as part of the interview process.

Have a non-wireless USB headset with a microphone.

Have a web cam for use interacting with your manager. Not for use with customers.

Have minimum Internet speed requirements: 10MB down / 5MB up

Windows or Mac OS allowed;

If Windows then Windows 10 is required.

If Mac then Mojave or newer is required.

Minimum RAM requirements: 8GB of RAM or greater.

Work at Home By Teaching English Online

2. Watch Out for the Type of Interview the Company Offers

Usually, companies will do in-person, phone or video chat interviews. If the business you apply to only wants to conduct interviews via online chat, be careful.

A huge red flag for instant message interviews is when the company doesn’t ask many in-depth questions about your skills or offers you the job immediately.

Pressuring you to accept their offer quickly is another bad sign. A scammer might try to get you to act without thinking, so always take a step back and consider if this offer is too good to be true.

However, some major companies like Amazon have been known to do chat interviews with people applying for specific customer service positions. Doing a lot of research about the company before your interview is vital, especially if they only want to conduct interviews over chat.

3. Look for a Detailed Job Description

Real jobs need people with specific skills, so companies will lay them out in a real listing. If a job description looks vague, only highlights benefits or has noticeable grammatical errors, it’s likely illegitimate.  I  often call these vague ones that you are posting a job link for others to pay call mailbox money scams.  

Benefits highlighted will usually be things like how much money you’ll get for relatively little work.

Another red flag here could be a lack of responsibilities listed in the posting. A real company will tell you what work they expect you to perform as an employee.

4. Research the Company!

This is extremely important during any job hunt. Typing the company name and the word “scam” into a search engine is a simple way to find out if a company is legitimate.

You should be able to find reports from the FBI or FTC and Better Business Bureau ratings. You can also look for forums where people post experiences with a company.

A company’s website can also tell you if they’re legitimate or not with a quick glance. If the site has grammatical errors or weird punctuation scattered throughout, it’s probably a scam.

5. Ask a Lot of Questions

Another simple and effective way to spot a scam is to ask questions like:

Why did this position become available?

What are the key qualifications?

How long has the business existed?

Who are some of your clients?

If you get a bad feeling or the interviewer struggles to answer, you probably want to ditch this company.

Another common scam is where they will send you a check or payment for equipment and ask for the difference we had someone report this one 

Below is one of the messages from him regarding the equipment. Does this look legitimate?

The funds for the software's cost ($1,958.00 Dollars) The company will provide you the Funds for the software's by a Scanning Company check Sent to your email, you will print it out the check with your printer , cut the edges of the check both the front and back Cut it into shape then you will endorse the back of the check and sign, snap the front and back of the check with your Mobile banking app for mobile Check deposit directly into your account with your online banking App , The Funds will be process and available in your account and ready for use, you are to deduct $115.00 as your sign on bonus and the rest of the funds will be for use to purchase of your working software's. I will be here to refer you to the vendor whom you will be making the purchase from. Do you understand this part?

Finally!   trust your gut. If you think something is fishy for even a moment: Stop, think and research.  Also ask in our facebook group, I am really good about being a detective and can usually spot even the smartest con artist out there.