Work at Home Scam Letter

Last week I received a letter in the mail addressed to me at my home address with a nondescript return address in New Jersey. Curious I opened it up and found a generic letter letting me know about a wonderful work at home opportunity assembling booklets at home. My first thought was “really, this kind of stuff is still around?” I’m really hopeful that very few people fall for it.

Here is a scan of the letter (I’ve removed any kind of contact information as I don’t want to give them a free advertisement).

Work at Home Scam Letter

I find it sad that these kind of scams still exist. If you are looking for a way to work at home legitimately the first rule is to never, ever pay someone to do so. This scam will most likely have you stuffing the same envelope and letter that I received and mailing it out to other people at your own expense. The return slip had a unique code written on it, that makes me think this.

So what is a legitimate work at home opportunity? I personally am a big fan of Affiliate Marketing, but there are a number of ways that you can make money while working at home.

• Find something that you are passionate about and blog about it. You can then recommend products and services to your readers with affiliate links and sponsored posts. You can also sell advertising space on your blog as well.
• Pick up jobs as a contractor on Elance, Odesk, or Fiverr. Everyone has a unique skill or something that they are good at. Translate that into a paying job. Are you a writer, programmer, graphic artist, good with videos? There is someone out there that needs you.
• Look at online job boards. Be careful out there as there are always scams listed (remember paying for the job is a red flag), but there are many legitimate opportunities as well. FlexJobs, WAHM, and Simply Hired are some of the places to start looking.
• Ask around. Network with your friends on Facebook and create a Linkedin account. You never know which of your friends will either have some work for you or know of someone that is hiring.

There are a number of other ways as well, the world has endless opportunities. I would love to know of other legitimate opportunities and ideas. Have one? Please share it in the comments.

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