New work-at-home job and business opportunity scams are launched every day. That’s why we started this scambusting series and why we’ll continue it every Friday until we run out of scams—in other words, not anytime soon.

There’s obviously no honor among thieves in this business so rather than inventing something new, the majority of the shysters out there simply copy the work of their soon-to-be-cellmates. Here’s a classic you’ll see frequently as you comb the web in search of work from home opportunities:

The Work-At-Home Bait and Switch Scam:

A work-at-home or home business opportunity web site offers you free access to their listings. So far, so good. They’ll even email you new listings as they’re added. Sounds good.

Unfortunately, when you click on the listings the jobs look great, but—and there’s almost always a but—they don’t tell you who the employers are. If you want that little bit of information, you have to sign up for the web site’s resume distribution services.

For a mere $29.99 they’ll allow you to apply for as many jobs as you want for 3 months. Or, choose their $59.99 premium service, and they’ll forward your resume to their phantom employers for a full year. Best of all, their $199.99 super-duper service offers to email your resume to thousands of employers so you can just sit back and let the job offers come to you.

I followed one of the more prominent bait and switch web sites to see where it led. The first thing I received was this email:

Hi Kate:

When you first signed up with us you were taken to a special page that gave you the opportunity to apply for work directly with us. However, our support desk has recently been getting emails from people who missed that link. So, in case you missed it…here it is again:

When I clicked on the link the email provided, it took me to a full page of ads for other bait and switch sites. At the bottom of the page was a line that offered a link to the many jobs they themselves were offering—as a result of their overwhelming growth. There were so many, they had to assemble them into categories. Feeling geeky, I chose the programming category. Click, blink, and I’m on a page with more ads for bait and switch programming job links and, as always, lots of links to sites that offered salvation from scams:

• Data Entry Jobs Exposed

• Avoid Work-at-Home Scams

• They’re All Scams

• I Was Scammed 101 Times . . .

Stay on that site and you can be scammed 101 times too! The entire site, and all the sites it links to have one purpose—to get you to click on the ads so they make money.

Stay tuned each Friday for more in this Work-At-Home Scambusting series.

If you missed earlier posts in this series, these links will catch you up:

• Feds Target Work At Home Scams

• Scambusting Work At Home Intro

• Home Business Scam—Free Money

Future Scambusting posts will include:

• How to Spot a Work-From-Home Scam or Home Business Opportunity RipOff

• 10 Questions To Ask Before You Sign Up for a Home-Based Job or Business

• How to Use the Web to Investigate Prospective At-Home Work

• Getting Even—What to Do If You’ve Been Scammed

And if you haven’t been following our Finding Work At Home series, you can always catch up here:

• How To Search For Work At Home Jobs—Intro

• Part 1: Finding Work At Home Jobs On Monster.com

• Part 2: Finding Work At Home On CareerBuilder.com

• Part 3: Finding Work At Home Jobs On Yahoo HotJobs

Future posts in the Finding Work At Home series will include:

• Jobster.com

• Indeed.com

• SimplyHired.com

• MomCorps.com

• DreamJobs.com

• Tjobs.com

• Dice.com

• IT Toolbox.com

• ComputerJobs.com

• Cybercoders.com

• JournalismJobs.com

• Jobs.Problogger.net

Home-based business owners stay tuned for posts about how to make the most of these and other project and freelance job boards:

• Elance.com

• RentACoder.com

• Guru.com