Getting scammed is easy, making money is hard.
Last year I moved to a pretty remote area. I needed a good work-at-home business. I tried several things and boy did I get scammed! Some of the things that looked the best, and the cheapest to get started, ended up costing the most money!
I got tired of being asked for cash up front. Some companies wanted money before they would even tell you what it is they did. How you were expected to earn money, was the "big mystery" you had to pay for. I am more than willing to pay for training material, but to be asked for nearly $20, before anyone would even tell me what the company was and how they earned money was a rip off. It sounded to me like they were really in the business of collecting twenty dollar bills. One company even had a chatbox so you could ask questions. I asked the one obvious question "What do you do?" after several answers that avoided the question and always led back to "just pay us your money, or you'll be missing the business oportunity of a lifetime, I realized that the system was automated and there was no real-live person on the other end of the chat. Now there's a company I'd trust! (that was sarcasm if you didn't recongnize it)
Some company's were just pryamid schemes with heavy sign up fees. You made most of your money, by signing up family and friends for the same rip-off price.
Other companies had you pay for materials and make products at home, with a buyback promise. This only works if they will actually buy the items back!
Here are the stories of several of the online companies that proved to be in the rip off business, and how I eventually did find a way to make money online.
Making products at home for buy back
or not!
One company I was very excited about had you making a product at home, with promise of a buy back. They appeared to have integrity, so I was really eager to make a go of their business offer.
You had to buy the supplies to make these small items from the company at an inflated price. I know the price was inflated because one of the pieces used to make the item was a horseshoe nail. (The company stated that supplies were sold to you at cost.) My husband is a horseshoer, and the nails can be bought much cheaper at the local farm and feed. There were also a number of tools required.
The video that came with the kit says you can make each item, with experience, in a relatively short period of time. The actual time to make each item was much longer than stated.
Even though I tried for weeks and made many items, not one was purchased from me by the company. I read the reasons for the rejections, and on many of the items, not I or anyone could see a problem.
So, I started asking others to make them and see if by some chance I was just a dork, who couldn't figure this out. All concluded that the company probably just didn't really want to buy the items back. I was unable to sell them anywhere for a price that was more than I had payed for the supplies to make each one. End results, I had to give them away, and over $1,000 on the credit card and $0 income.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byShopping search engines
can be pyramids in disguise
Another company I experienced a few years ago was a shopping search engine. You had to pay a very steep fee, to have your own search engine to shop from. The idea was, you got paid a share of the royalties back (advertising dollars) on your own purchases. Oh, and you made some pretty handsome money from signing others up at an amazingly steep fee. Well the founders got rich QUICK! But it really was a pyramid because of the fee structure, and the shopping engine behind it was mostly a cover up for the pyramid scheme. The government shut them down. Good companies.......Bad management
a recipe for disaster
We thought AWESOME! The structure of the parent company was sound and created a win-win-win-win situation between the sales sights, the shoppers, the search engine owners, the parent company and agents. It had a regular sales structure and was not a pryamid. You could only earn money, if you actually worked.
I was in heaven..... until. The man who wrote the programming died and the company was left in the sole hands of a partner who had helped finance it. This partner provided no customer support, no agent training, they did not keep up the sight and affiliate companies started dropping off. They did not show up to sales meeting, did not return phone calls, even did not arrive on the plane when they were to show up to sales events.
The result was ,a company formed in genius, withered and died. (I'm still grieving, if you can't tell)
Little Red Book of Sales Answers: 99.5 Real World Answers That Make Sense, Make Sales, and Make Money (Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Books)
Amazon Price: $13.59 (as of 10/11/2008)
Your Portable Empire: How to Make Money Anywhere While Doing What You Love
Amazon Price: $16.47 (as of 10/11/2008)
I finally found a way!
I did find a way to make money at home, working online. It is not a get rich quick scheme, I probably won't make millions, but I did make money from the first month forward. It cost me nothing the first month, and the fees after that are very reasonable. So far, nearly all others I have recommended this site to have made money the first month. It depends on the effort set forth, and has ranged from $0-$1,500 the first month. It may take a small amount of capital to get started, typically $20 in your paypal account will cover it.I am reselling. I work with a company called www.razoopress.com They have a site with nearly 300 different products on it that I can add artwork, photos, text, etc to. When I add artwork, the site generates a picture of what each item looks like. I take that photo and list the items for sale on eBay. There are many other resellers that I compete with, but it is also a very large market and I do well.
Sign up free, and you can begin making products immediately. Once you have a number of products and have made a sale or two on ebay, it is usually best to sign up for a $19.95 a month reseller account. This let's you purchase the products at a reduced price (ie. more profit). It should save you the monthly fee many times over, once you are making regular sales.
And the first month is free!
There is another account available for those who want to make sales from their own website. I steered clear of this because I know, just enough to know, that it is really hard (and expensive) to get enough traffic to a website, to really generate good sales. Ebay is easier for the novice like me.
When I first started I generally worked 4-8 hours per day. I was making products and leaning how to use eBay. Now I usually work 1-2 hours a day, and my income stays pretty level. I'm not rich, but it is an awesome side income, and I didn't have to go into debt at all, to get started.
The moral of the story
If the company promises unbelievable pay, for little work, someone somewhere is getting ripped off. Morality and ethics matter!
Don't get scammed!
But there are some legitimate work opportunites out there. And you can make good money working at home.
I sure hope this helps!
Just be careful!
Below is a very funny matrix style food fight. Enjoy!
New Guestbook
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mikethehorseshoer
love the food fight Posted December 22, 2007 |
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mikethehorseshoer
like the video Posted December 07, 2007 |
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cherrypress
Good article! Wise words from someone who had to learn them the hard way. If you are smart, you can avoid the same mistakes. Posted December 05, 2007 |
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mikethehorseshoer
Great warning Posted November 20, 2007 |
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mikethehorseshoer
I also use this company www.razoopress and they have been great! Posted November 19, 2007 |
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elev8_baby
I've been going strong for over 6 months Posted November 19, 2007 |
