Guest Post by Alice Jackson
More and more people are looking for a work-at-home job. But with the increased desire for home based jobs, there has also seen a rise in number of job scams that leads to people losing money, and giving up hope for finding a work-at-home job.
If you have made up your mind to get a work-from-home job, don’t let these scam jobs deter you. You can easily filter out genuine jobs from the fake ones. Here are five tips for avoiding work-at-home scams in your email.
1. Research properly
Once you have made your mind to look for work from home jobs, do research on the types of job available, the pay scale, companies that offers such jobs, qualification required, etc. One of the basic mistakes people make is that they do not research the company that is offering the job. If you receive an email about a work-at-home job, the first thing you need to do is to learn more about the offering, company, etc. This can be done in various ways, like calling on the company’s number, searching on the web for the company and its review, etc.
In fact, because employers don’t seek out and email job hunters, you should treat every email offer of work with suspicion.
2. Do not pay money
What if you went for a job interview and the HR person asked you for money to hire you? You would definitely know that the job is fake. The same is the case with work-from-home jobs. Legitimate jobs never ask you for money (the only exception is to pay for a background check).
Note, some work-at-home programs ask you to pay for a kit. While that’s not necessarily a scam, it’s definitely not a job. Scammers might ask you to pay to cover their expenses or to know if you’re serious, but again, that’s the sign that it’s not a legit job.
3. Never provide too much of personal information-
Mostly a scammer would send you a mail asking for a lot of personal information that might include your social security number, bank account detail, etc. Remember, never share any information that might compromise your identity or can cause you financial losses. Initially, you should only provide your name and email. Only when you have reached a final stage of hiring and are sure of the company’s job offering, should you share your other details.
Also, many email jobs have attached files with job description, company info, etc. Never download these files. Many of these attachments contain viruses that can harm your system.
4. Don’t consider offers with poorly written text and sketchy email address
Emails containing scam jobs are mostly written in poor English, unreadable fonts and are sent from free commercial email accounts (as opposed to an account with the business’ domain name). A genuine company would always send you mails from a company email.
5. Be patient
In the initial days, it’s not easy to get a work from home job that has a good paying potential. Competition is high and the job hring process takes time. It’s important that you don’t let impatience lead you to be tempted by these fake job opportunities that sound too good to be true.
Legitimate jobs exist, but the odds of one showing up unexpectedly in your email is zero, unless you’re receiving a reply from an application you’ve submitted. If you receive job offers in your email without having applied, you should automatically be suspicious, because the change is nearly 100% that it’s not a legitimate job.
About the Author – Alice Jackson is a business consultant, blogger, social media enthusiast, online market analyst, amateur designer and an avid author at Designhill. She has written on several topics including social media marketing, SEO, content marketing, startup strategies and e-commerce. When she’s not writing, she loves spending her time reading romantic novels. Connect with her on Twitter: @jackson_alice1
