Forget the fact that you’re basically alone, you have to manage time between your “work” and everyday home activities and all the other distractions that keep you from being focused when you work out of your home. Yes, working from home is MORE TOUGH than one would think. But for some like myself, it’s truly liberating.

Fool’s Gold?

It’s tough landing a job or finding a way to make money from home. There are thousands and thousands of people in the hunt on a daily basis and we’re constantly surrounded by scammers waiting to grab hold of our credit card. In our haste to land a job or the promise of a job that will allow us to work from home, we become very trusting. Not only do we become trusting, we jump at the first “job” that comes along.

Rewind time 16 years ago…

We were out on our own and had to find a place to live or brace ourselves for the harsh Canadian winter on the street. We visited many rental apartments, but were turned down time and time again. We were still students, were getting help via welfare and didn’t have any credit history (good or bad). Not 1 landlord took us seriously. Luck would have it that we found an ad for a basement apt advertised in the local papers. Called, then went to see it. I had heard horror stories about basement apts being cold in the winter, no real sunlight, and could flood when it rained. But we were desperate. Luck was finally on our side? We agreed to the terms set by the landlord and the place was ours. Not even a month into it, it finally hit us… flood. Then we started to really notice that the noise from the people above us was getting unbearable. I guess with our desperation to have a place to live we didn’t even notice that we couldn’t walk upright in the shoe-box living room area or that the floor slanted to the road. We had a place to live, but was it what we really wanted?

Lesson learned from this experience.

Sure there are times when desperation will kick in and you’ll feel you have no choice, but don’t settle for the fool’s gold. It will look nice and shiny and seem like the right thing at the time, but all that glitters is not gold. Don’t settle for the first crappy work from home job that comes along. Take time to consider what you’ll be doing and what it will mean to you and your family.
Also note that this is EXACTLY what scammers prey on, our desperation! If you get a job offer…

- do some research on the company

- check online (forums) and the BBB

- get specific details from the potential employer to know exactly what your job will be (you don’t want to get caught-up in one of those cheque cashing scams or anything else that’s illegal)

- if you’re asked to pay a fee THERE’S THE SIGN... it’s a scam. NO employer will ask you to pay them to fill a vacant position they have.

Share your thoughts by leaving your comments below.

I completely forgot to make my usual work from home Wednesday post yesterday… things were a bit hectic with work.

Have you ever been prey to an online scam? You know, the ones who ask for $35.95 and in no time you’ll be earning thousands of dollars? How about the ones who ask you to pay for some material to be able to get a job with them?

At Genuinejobs.com we often get emails from jobseekers who were burned by these scams. Not just one or two times, we recently spoke to someone who lost out 4 times.

Here’s a little tip (besides never paying for a job since no employer will ask you to pay them for you to work for them) if you ever use your credit card to pay for something (product or service) you never receive, simply contact your credit card company and tell them you’d like to do a charge back. You’ll be required to complete a short form detailing what was purchased and when / if you got it or not… basically your reason for requesting the chargeback.

They will do an investigation and in most cases you’ll get the amount you got scammed, credited back to your credit card.

Don’t let these bastards get away with your money.

Chris…