• Research Before You Take The Plunge

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.