There are a growing number of online employment services that either specialize in telecommuting or have a special telecommuting section. But watch out, some of them are nothing more than scams.

Everything may seem like it’s on the up and up–reasonable salaries, professional website, even a warning to watch out for scams–but when we looked closely we spied something fishy going on.

Our first clue was that the website required you to pay to register. Now what sense does that make? If the site is in the business of finding good employees they can rent to employers, why would the block the road to success with a toll booth?

Other sites don’t charge to join or register, but they do charge a fee to cover their ‘administrative costs’. That’s total bull. All businesses have administrative costs, and those are paid by customers (employers) not employees. Remember, a temp agency charges employers for your work, say $25/hour, and they pay you, say $20/hr. That $5 an hour difference is supposed to cover their costs and also a bit more–that’s called profit.

Our second clue something wasn’t right with some sites was that they charge you before they even look at your resume. If they were serious about getting you work doncha think they’d might be interested in what you can do, even to the extent of testing you on things you claim you can do? ‘Real’ temp agencies certainly do. Temp agencies are very interested in qualified folks because their income depends on an on-going relationship with their clients, your potential employers. If they hire incompetent people their customers will be unhappy and look elsewhere.

The smoking gun clue, though, was the fact that these sites charge employers, their customers, a fee to register. Why would an employer pay a penny before they knew the company had qualified candidates for their job openings?

But don’t get the wrong idea, just because a site doesn’t charge a fee to join doesn’t mean it’s not a scam. The safest bet is to be sure you don’t pay a penny to get a job. Honest employers are happy to pay recruiting and training costs.

I’m working on a chapter about Medical Transcription for our forthcoming book about work at home jobs, Undress4Success. If the subtitle The Naked Truth About Working From Home was ever appropriate it’s here. There are oodles of nasty scams associated with the field, and the truth needs to be revealed.

Three-quarters of MTs work from home, and on the face of it, it seems like a job anyone with some typing skills could do. Trust me, it ain’t. But that doesn’t stop unscrupulous rip-off artists from preying on people who don’t know any better.

Several industry insiders have told us about one company they love to hate that they affectionately refer to as TransScam. Their concerns are backed up by website reports that describe a scam that goes something like this:

• You post your resume on one of the job sites such as monster.com and mention something about typing skills or anything to do with the medical profession.

• They send you an email saying how impressed they are with your background, and ask if you’d be willing to take a free medical transcription test. If you pass it, they say, they’ll pay for your training and guarantee you a work at home job. All you have to do is buy some piddly transcription software.

• You pass the test with flying colors, of course, and they rave about your potential. You’ll be rich!

• But you’re cautious, and ask if they’re legitimate. “Why of course, silly, we’re members of the Chamber of Commerce,” and email a logo. Now that is impressive, isn’t it?

• So you fork over 400 bucks for what turns out to be awful software, and they try to up-sell you on “professional” software and a foot pedal to make you more productive.

• But that stuff’s junk too, to so you ask for a refund.

• They say read the fine print, we don’t do refunds, have a nice day.

Still, if you have an affinity for language, are good at interpreting what you hear, can learn quickly, and can type about 100 words per minute you are a good candidate for a rewarding job as a medical transcriptionist. There are some very reputable schools, such as The Andrews School and CareerStep that in about six months can teach you what you need to know to make a go of it. And MTs are definitely in demand.

ANY school that you talk to should have the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) approval. But even if they do, do your homework; some companies claim to have accreditation, but it’s only from a phony made-up outfit of their own. Rummage around the web, and see what people have to say about the school you’re considering. If you can’t do that, you probably shouldn’t be thinking about being an MT anyway.

There are other renditions of this theme in every industry, so if your interested in finding a work at home job, in telecommuting, or freelance work look before you leap. In fact, if you want, leave a comment here about a company you’re interested in and we’ll check ‘em out.

If you work from home, freelance or telecommute you’re a likely target for a variety of fraud attempts so listen up.

Since you are a company of one–Exec, Admin, HR, Marketing, IT, Central Supply, and even the grounds keeper you have to make decisions about computers, telecommunications, banking and all the other facets of running a business that big companies spread over dozen, hundreds, and even sometimes thousands of people. So you’re a good target for people who want to take your money.

In fact, the FTC received over 800,000 complaints during calendar year 2007. Consumers reported fraud losses of over $1.2 billion (at an median amount of roughly $350 per person).

Shop-at-Home/Catalog Sales was the leading complaint category, so if you buy online (and you do) be sure you know who you’re dealing with. Internet Service rip-offs were the second largest category followed by Foreign Money Offers (those idiots just don’t give up do they), bogus Prizes/Sweepstakes and Lotteries, Computer Equipment and Software, and Internet Auctions (can you spell eBay?). Health Care, Travel, Vacations and Timeshare, Advance-Fee Loans and Credit Protection/Repair, Investments, and Magazines and Buyers Clubs fill out the list.

Wire transfer problems continue to increase. It used to be you could assume a cashiers check was good, but not any more. So wire transfers becomes the option of choice. But 28% of the consumers reported wire transfer as the payment method involved when they were scammed.

But here’s the (almost) bottom line: Half the fraud complaints where electronic mail related. We’ve said it before but we’ll say it again: if it’s spam it’s a scam.

Let’s be careful out there!

If you want to work from home and are developing a home-based business around a website don’t waste your time or money trying to buy traffic.

Even we, experts that we claim to be, considered using a company called iWeb Marketing (www.i-web-marketing.com). At least we did until we started checking them out. Here are a couple of posts from their unhappy customers:

Here is a letter that I sent to them.

READ IT!! It will save you from making the same mistake I did…

Buying traffic from you has been very disappointing.
I don’t believe that you even delivered that traffic because my personal stats don’t show it.
I would like proof.
It says the Number of visitors delivered as of Apr 2nd 2007 01:25:22 AM: 95,216
Bull.
If (big If) they were delivered, the people did not even see the site. It is not quality traffic, it was not “thousands of visitors per hour”, I had zero response out of 95,216 people to a high converting site. Worthless Junk Traffic. You are running a scam and I will put the word out in my blog, marketing forums, Marketing Tip E-Books, Ezine and to my opt-in list. I will never waste my money here again. It’s because of companies like yours that the internet traffic companies get a bad name.
I want to see a list of ip addresses proving that you delivered. because My stats don’t show the same numbers you claim.
If not, expect a listing on all the scam watchdog sites and BBB too.

I am posting copy’s of this email everywhere and expect to see some proof you delivered. there is no indication to me besides your hit counter and I don’t trust it.

In response to a query from a leery potential customer another unhappy user responded:

We signed up for their service in July for 1 millions hits per month for three sites. Their records showed more hits coming to our site then we were getting. When I called them they said they had a glitch and their system was counting blocked ads. They turned off our account until the problem was fixed and promised it would be fixed the next week, one week went by and it was not fixed, another week went by and it still was not working. We asked for a refund on our American Express and was told that they would deduct what hits we actually received. How would they know this? I was told they would not issue a credit back to our card but would mail us a money order which we never received. I called them two weeks later and they were going to mail it again. Still haven’t received it. We are disputing the charges. I hope this helps your decision

Like other schemes that appear to too good to be true, you can’t buy happiness, or traffic. Google has publicly warned webmasters that if they are discovered to be selling links for the purpose of conferring PageRank and reputation, their links will be ignored.

Emails offering a job where you work from home processing rebates are common. Some suggest you can make $15 for each one you process and they claim you can do ten or more an hour. Yeah, right. And if you haven’t fallen for that line they offer you double your money back.

I have to send you money to get a job? Wrong.

You don’t even have to read this garbage to know it’s a scam. Mainly that’s because if it comes by email as spam you can assume it’s a scam. Nobody pays anyone $150 an hour to do clerical work. And nobody who has a dream job to offer advertises it by sending out unsolicited spam email. What’s more, no legitimate employer will require that you pay them to land a job.

Envelope-stuffing is another similar scam, which is ridiculous on the face of it. Why would anyone pay you to stuff and seal maybe 4-5 envelopes a minutes when they have machines that can do 100 a minute? But they make the job sound easy and they claim you can make $200 a week. Of course the ads ask you to send money for more information, but what you get is an explanation (poorly written, we might add) that explains how to get into the envelope stuffing scam business yourself. You’re instructed to place a classified newspaper ad, photocopy the material you’re reading, stuff it in an envelope, and send it to any dummy who sends you money. But that’s mail fraud, and illegal–which is why it was sent as spam email to begin with.

Spam equals scam.