Work at home Job and Nigerian Scams Collide, Combine

By Martin Meyers for Work-at-Home.org

It’s hard to believe that anyone is still naïve enough to respond to those spam emails… “Hello, my name is HAMALADA YADAYADA and I am the wife of the exiled Finance Minister from the country of Nowhereland… My husband was forced to flee our country in a coup attempt. He almost died.  But fortunately, he did not die and he was able to leave with more 100 million dollars but we need your help you get it into our own bank account. If you help us I will make sure it is very lucrative for you.” You look like a complete idiot, so please… trust this SPAM, believe these words, and give me money.... the email seems to say.

Then there is the newest of the home-based job scams in which these scammers pretend to be artists, nonprofit organizations or companies outside the U.S. who need to “hire” people to work at home accepting payments. They claim your job is to deposit the money, take your cut and forward the balance to their “employer”. The scheme either pays you with fake money orders (which you unknowingly replace with your own real money) and causes you to lose a lot of money, or it involves you in either a fraud of some sort of even money laundering. You can actually go to jail for getting involved in these types of “jobs”!

Congratulations to us as a society: Now these two cunning scams have collided and combined. Now you can be scammed by fake foreign diplomats of foreign lands who are also trying to hire you!

Now they’re not only spamming. They’re infiltrating job search engines and pretending to offer you a work from home job.

WATCH OUT FOR WORK AT HOME JOB ADVERTISEMENTS THAT SOUND LIKE THIS:

The listing goes on to say that applicants must be 18 years or older and have a computer. Of course, they must be reliable. They must also have an email address and be able to work three to four hours per week.

If you meet all of these qualifications, you too, can be scammed by these criminals.

WORK FROM HOME JOBS
YOU SHOULD NEVER TAKE:

NEVER take a work from home job that involves you accepting money. Unless you’re working for a reputable brick and mortar business in your own local city and you actually KNOW your employer, such jobs do not really exist and you will encounter nothing but trouble – possibly even incarceration – if you accept a job like this. Don’t even respond to them. Ever.

You've heard it before but here it is again:  Be careful as you shop the internet for the perfect work at home job. For sites that are SAFE, consider JobsForMoms.com as a source of scam-free work at home jobs. That site offers over 1600 great work at home jobs that are 100% pre-screened and scam-free for members. Another site that seems to be fussy about the quality of content it will post is www.cranky.eons.com. On ANY reputable site watch out for sponsored links which are often work at home scams.