Last week I wrote an article about Working from Home. After some feedback I got from a friend, I wanted to revisit the subject and clarify a bit on what I wrote.
The same day that the article came out, I got an e-mail from a friend. She had a number of things to say, and much of what she said can apply to other readers, so I thought I’d share some of her thoughts and questions, and my reactions.
She said:
I’m glad you wrote about working at home. I have been seeing a lot of advertisements for work at home and I thought they were scams. Now that you are recommending it, I am going to start inquiring to some of those work at home ads!
No, no, no, my friend. When I talked about working at home, I was not talking in any way about answering some ad that claims to be offering you work at home. What I talk about here on Virtual Earner, for the most part, is being self-employed. Working for yourself. Coming up with your own things that make money. I am not talking about making money for other people but making money for yourself.
She went on to say:
I was very unsure about these ads for work at home, especially when they required me to pay money up front, before they gave me work! I know I can trust you, though, Bob, and because you are recommending working at home, I am going to go forward and pay the fees asked for.
NO! Please don’t do that. Yes, I am sure that there are some legitimate offers for work at home, but if they ask you to pay them money up front, well, that’s likely a rip-off. Nobody who is offering to give you a job should ever require you to pay them anything. They are the ones who should be paying you, not the other way around! Do not… I repeat… do not pay anybody an upfront fee for a job. That is a rip-off waiting to happen!
I have been working at home for 20 years almost. In fact, I am only about 2 months short of my 20 year anniversary of working from home, except for about a 2-year stint in the late ’90s. At that time, I still worked at home, but I had a side job as well, which was away from home. Working from home has been a pleasure for me, and I am sure it can be a pleasure for you as well. But, don’t get suckered into some kind of rip-off scheme. Come up with your own ideas and start your own business that you can do at home. Be careful of the scams because there are plenty of them out there. If you see somebody offering you a job of sending e-mails after you pay a low fee… well… time to move on!
If you’re looking for a job, you should not expect to have to pay anything in advance. But if you are looking for a business, you will almost always have to make an investment. This is true whether you buy into a turn-key business opportunity, or you start from scratch and figure things out for yourself.
Either way, there will be obstacles to overcome. Just don’t quit trying.
That is very true, Dave. If you are doing some kind of online business, though, the investment required can be very minimal, though.
Great article, Bob. That’s one of the dangers of writing any sort of online advice … people read into almost every idea the ;job mentality’… and sadly, there’s a ton of folks out there looking to take advantage of the ‘old job’ idea. really no different than many years ago when the newspaper and the adverts at the back of magazines were always stuffed with ‘envelope stuffing’ or many other sorts of dubious ‘at home’ jobs.
People seem to think that going on your own, selling your own product or service is ‘risky’. Actually, even when there is little investment involved, following someone else’s scheme is often much more risky than doing things on your own.
For example, there are a number of ‘work at home’ schemes I have seen lately that involve writing AdWords ads for ‘not so legitimate’ sites. They do pay people money … until Google catches the unwitting ‘work at home’ person violating their terms of service and bans them. ‘Job’ gone? Yep, and so also any chance of working with Google in the future. Going on your own with a product or service of your won is really much, much lower risk.
Hi Dave – Thanks for your comment, and I’m glad that you enjoyed the article. You know, I consider doing some kind of business of your own online as being almost risk free. Honestly, you can start a business for almost nothing online, I have started nearly every online business that I own for under $100, so that is pretty much your maximum risk if you go it yourself online. Probably the amount of time you will spend is worth more than the monetary investment! 😆