The Work-From-Home Rules:

How to be Safe and Smart When Working From Home

By Andrea Nostramo

            Nothing feels better than making money from the comfort of your own home.  You can usually make your own hours, and right now, as I sit here and type these words, I'm in my pajamas watching House & Garden TV.  Working from home and finding jobs online can be rewarding, fulfilling, and great for young adults who don't yet drive, or are still going to school, or for stay-at-home moms, etc.  But, if you are going to look for a job online and work from home, there are some tips you should follow to make sure that you avoid being scammed.

Scammers try to sucker us all day long, from fake bank e-mails asking for our account numbers, to the phony African lottery we've conveniently won yet never entered.  A savvy Internet user is one who knows the perils of his/her terrain.  So Rule #1 of finding a job online is to first make sure that you familiarize yourself with the Internet and its vast array of attempted scammers and spammers alike.  Get to know your e-mail's spam blocker utilities, and what they can and can't protect you from.  Know about clicking on bad links.  Just because a link says it's from one place doesn't mean it is.  Hover your mouse cursor over any link to see the embedded URL in the tool-tip.

Rule #2: Know where to look.  For me personally, Craigslist is my sanctuary.  You can search for jobs by location; first narrowed down by state, then city.  e-Bay now has their own version of Craigslist, called Kijiji.  Although it's still just a start-up, Kijiji, combined with Craigslist, offers a fairly good selection of jobs that allow telecommuting.  Also, if you're a college student like I am, your school may offer a good place to search for jobs.  Many colleges have job fairs or ads posted on bulletin boards, etc.  I saw an ad in my college for http://www.workforstudents.com.  I wrote it down and visited the site when I got home.

Rule #3: Nothing in life is free.  And neither are you.  Because online jobs are often for poor pay, or involve websites that are poorly funded, many employers "offer" no pay or they say something like, "I can't pay right now but hopefully as soon as ad revenue kicks in..."  Avoid these situations.  While the employer may literally be broke and not out to scam you, you should never supply a service and receive nothing in return simply because there is no tangible commodity.  With online services such as writing jobs, employers often say that their offered compensation is merely "exposure."  By playing into this common ploy, employers don't have to charge for services because there will always be someone who wants to see their name in print so badly that they'll do it for free.  Don't.  Skip that ad and go to the next one.  Imagine you were a plumber and someone said to you, "I need my toilet fixed...and I'll pay you in exposure."  You'd laugh your way out of their house faster than they could flush.  Online jobs should be no different.  Don't be afraid to offend either; say something simple like, "Sorry, I only do paid gigs; exposure can't pay the bills."

Rule #4:  Employers pay you, not the other way around.  I've come across ads for work-at-home jobs, mostly data entry or blogging, etc.  And when I apply, I get an e-mail response right away explaining to me how rich I'll be from this job if - and only if - I cough up the ever-so-small  amount of $15 (or some such amount) to cover "training expenses."  Here's the deal:  First off, an online work-from-home job will NEVER make you rich.  Sorry.  Secondly, if a company really does charge for training materials (which they shouldn't, but some do), then they'll take the amount out of your first paycheck.  Never - I repeat, NEVER - pay someone up front for "training materials," because what will happen is, they'll take your $15 and you'll never hear from them again.  You won't be able to track their e-mail address and they'll be laughing all the way to the bank.  $15 may not seem like much, but if an ad like that is placed and a hundred people apply, and fifty of that hundred fall for the scam, that scammer now has $150.

Above all else, don't expect too much and be aware.  Check your e-mail often so that you can correspond with potential employers quickly.  And last but not least, if something feels weird, if an employer asks to meet you alone or late at night, trust your instincts and say NO.  You're always better off safe than sorry.