Here’s a first-hand account of a brush with scammers, from one of our readers. Fortunately she did her homework, and avoided wasting her hard earned money paying for a bogus kit.

Hello readers, my name is Jill and I would like to tell you about my experience. I am an educated woman and worked as a manager until recently, but due to personal reasons I have had to take a career break. However, I still wanted to earn some income, so I’ve looked at ways at working from home.

I have been viewing various websites, but have become quite skeptical about some of them. I wanted to make sure that any job advertised working from home was genuine, realistic and not a scam!

I came across sites about surveys at home, selling products via websites, writing blogs, etc., but was very dubious about them. Every so-called ‘company’ wanted me to pay for introductory packs upfront, and would continue to contact me via email knocking the price down each time.

I then came across a company called ABC Marketing Limited based in London, and the job involved stuffing envelopes at home. It seemed pretty easy, and once I left my details they sent me information via the post. This information was very interesting indeed, and very professionally done. However, they wanted a fee for an instruction pack which made me start to think, and also do my homework on this company.

From the small print on the back of their information I knew they were registered with Companies House and a VAT registered company. I researched Companies House and yes there were indeed registered and seem legitimate although I had to pay to see any reports on the company. I then looked up the BBC Watchdog website to view their details on Internet scam companies and was pleased they weren’t listed. However, I still was not 100% convinced. I then stumbled across this site ‘Undress4Success’ which lists information on all scams on the Internet. This site was full of information and confirmed the doubts I had, even though they had only one detail of an envelope stuffing scam – was this my company?? I emailed Tom who very quickly replied to my email and gave me advice and direction.

I then emailed ABC Marketing Limited a list of questions I had regarding the information they sent. I emailed again and rang them twice leaving messages either to ring me on my mobile or to answer my email . . . I am still waiting!! Obviously they are not that desperate for home workers or perhaps they are avoiding me and do not like the content of my email as they may realise I am not one to be sucked in!!!!  We may never know.

Be sure to look carefully at work-at-home job offers. You can bet, if they ask for money, that’s it’s a scam. Don’t lose your shirt when yuou Undress For Success.

If you work at home and on the road, Nissan may make your life a whole lot easier with their 21st Century Mobile Office. Here are some details about it from their web site:

Luckily for most white collar workers in the 21st Century, the “Office Space” atmosphere of  your workplace is becoming extinct. From four-day work weeks to telecommuting and working from anywhere via wireless networks, most companies are as liberal as ever with their employees - long as some work is still getting done. Nissan has taken the concept of working from outside the cubicle and turned it into working from the road - check out Nissan’s NV200 Mobile Office concept.

Nissan calls its NV200 Mobile Office “A Smart Business Tool of New Generation, for Active Professionals.” It combines storage with an office space that has the ability to extract its interior out like a drawer. This allows all your workstation items to be at arms reach while traveling. When parked, you can extend a large storage space to reach any valuables or tools. You can contact clients or get your paperwork done while parked at a lake or beach - then take your scuba gear out for a run during a lunch break.

The inside of the NV200 Mobile Office concept creates an efficient work space with a human touch. Its cargo area is customizable, so you can switch and swap out storage areas for whatever your hobby or business requires.

No word from Nissan about when and how much but the plan is to have you and your co-workers on the roll sometime in the next few years.

If you’re starting a business and  need money to turn your dreams into reality, you have several options:

• You can borrow the money you need and incur a debt, a debt you’ll have to repay;

• You can sell part of your company to investors and exchange equity for the money you need; or

• You can do both.

How much debt you can take on and how much equity you should sell is a tough decision, because the right mix varies from industry to industry and from business to business. In any case, the decision is often made for you based on what a given source will qualify you for, rather than what you might want.

So what kind of financing do you qualify for, and where can you find it?

Debt capital (a loan) is generally cheaper than equity capital (venture funding or angel investment) in the long run, and it’s typically quicker and easier to find. Plus the real advantage to debt financing is that it doesn’t dilute your ownership. The bad news about debt capital is that lenders require regular monthly payments of principal and interest regardless of your profitability. When you’re just cranking up, or if things aren’t going well later, don’t expect a lender to cut you some slack.

Investors on the other hand are, almost by definition, willing to gamble on your success. Early in the life of your company investors usually don’t expect a return on their money, because they’re really hoping for a huge success returning 20x to 30x in three to seven years. Note the emphasis on ‘huge’—if you’re starting a home-based business to basically earn a living you can forget venture capital as a source of start-up funding. An ‘angel’, perhaps, but not a VC. In any event, as owners, investors also share in the risk of failure. They may not require monthly payments, but you can be sure they’ll be checking on your performance to make sure the company is doing what you promised it would.

Incidentally, while the concept of financing your business purely on Other People’s Money or OPM has been widely touted by a number of self-appointed gurus, it rarely works that way in the real world. For one thing, studies show that only about 10-15 percent of companies find someone to invest money in their start-up. (And keep in mind, those statistics are based on fast growing manufacturing and service companies. You can be sure that the chance of a slow-growth net-based retail or distribution company being financed by an investor is much lower.) Which leaves lenders—and lenders shy away from what they call an “undercapitalized” company, one where the owners have too little of their own money at risk. Your investment in your company is a lender’s best guarantee of your commitment through thick and thin.

To summarize, then, if you finance your company with debt and you’re successful, everything you make is yours after you pay off the debt. On the other hand, with equity capital you may grow larger or you may grow more quickly, but you’ll have to share the wealth and some control with investors. If the thought of sharing ownership and control bothers you, but your company really needs the money, you have to ask yourself: “Would I rather own 1% of General Motors, or 100% of I-Wanna-Be-General-Motors?” It’s an individual decision that has to be weighed against the possibilities and potential trade-offs.

Secret: This is one you probably don’t want to hear, but the fact is you’re probably better off to struggle through start-up on your own nickel, with money from family or friends, or perhaps with some money from a bank if you can qualify. If you can put a couple of years of success under your belt before you approach lenders or investors, you’ll be able to attract more money, at a lower cost, than you would’ve at start-up.

In the end, the best approach will be one that fits you and your company’s needs, wants, personality, and financial realities. And if you haven’t already gathered, by financial realities we mean the Golden Rule of Finance applies: Those who have the gold rule.

Do you own a small business? Wanna make your banker love you? Well, maybe not love you, but certainly like you enough to renew that line of credit? When economic times get tough, bankers worry about their business borrowers. If they don’t think you’re payin’ attention to the economic downturn, that could mean curtains for your annual line of credit renewal.

Before their recent demise (no fault of small businesses), one of the nation’s largest banks, Wachovia, did more than just wring their hands—they watched over ya, by looking for ways to help their customers’ preempt financial difficulties.

And guess what? Telecommuting was one of the ways they recommend companies lighten their expense loads.

Citing research conducted by Noel Hodson, a U.K.-based telecommuting consultant, Wachovia recommended telecommuting as a way to:

Increase Productivity

Office interruptions account for 18% of a typical office-bound employee’s day.

Reduce Travel Costs

Once telecommuting technologies are common, face-to-face meetings are less necessary

Improve Employee Availability

Research shows that people who work at home are, on average, 15% more available to their co-workers than traditional workers.

Reduce Sick Days

People who work from home typically continue to do so, even when they’re sick.

Reduce Turnover Costs

Hodson’s research shows that it can cost as much as $100,000 to replace and train a high level executive.

Have you hugged your banker today? If not, send your workers home and run right over for a kiss!

Full disclosure: I used to be a banker.

I did a radio interview about the growth of telecommuting recently. The host had that revved-up style that’s presumably intended to help commuters stay awake on their trek to and from work and he wasn’t buying the whole work from home thing. “It would never work for radio station employees,” he said. “They’d all be getting sloshed and playing golf—especially the sales guys.” I countered with the usual argument of how good companies manage based on performance, not presence. If the sales team is selling just as many ads, what does management care about how and when they do it. He still wasn’t buying it. So I told him that if companies were that worried about being able to monitor their employees, a variety of technologies make it possible to watch their every keystroke.

One company, oDesk, I went on to explain, even makes it possible to see remote employees at work in their home offices.

Well that really got him going. “What, you mean they’d actually be watching me? Now that’s going too far! What about privacy? No one’s going to stand for that!” He went on and on. When I finally got a word in, I asked how is that any different than working in a cubicle farm. Don’t you think you’re being watched there? Don’t you think your internet activity is being monitored?

Our twenty minutes were up so I wasn’t able to to tell him about the American Management Association study that showed that two-thirds of employers monitor their employees’ Internet connections, 28% percent have fired workers for misusing email, and 30% have fired people for misusing the Internet. More than 300 companies participated in the poll. They cited the following reasons for the firings:

E-mail Misuse
Violation of company policy 64%
Inappropriate or offensive language 62%
Excessive personal use 26%
Breach of confidentiality rules 22%
Other 12%

Internet Misuse
Viewing, downloading or uploading inappropriate/offensive content 84%
Violation of company policy 48%
Excessive personal use 34%
Other 9%

Only Delaware and Connecticut, require employers to notify workers that they are being monitored, but most of the companies surveyed said they did let them know.

If remote monitoring is what it takes to convince employers to allow their people to work from home, I say bring it on. My only beef would be having to actually get dressed in the morning.