McAfee SiteAdvisor Blog

Misleading Work-At-Home Web Sites Better Left Unclicked

Ever wish you could work from home in your pajamas? Say goodbye to cubicles, commuter traffic, deadlines, and corporate politics? Well, according to numerous Web sites promoting home-based work opportunities, earning an extraordinary income from the comforts of your living room could be just a mouse-click away.

Onlinejobcorps.com claims big income potential from its work at home program.

Unfortunately, these money-making propositions are often extremely deceptive. As the FTC warns, many work-at-home Web sites make exaggerated claims of potential earnings, provide misleading job descriptions and charge users for products or information before explaining what the work entails.

When we searched the Web for work-at-home opportunities, we found 65 sites with misleading offers. We've rated these sites yellow to warn users to be skeptical of advertising claims on these sites.

What They Say

Dataentrybank.com promises substantial earnings.

Work-at-home scam sites lure consumers by promising rapid wealth, leisurely lifestyles, and relief from common job frustrations. These sites use emotional language about the hardships of financial distress and the toil of the daily office grind followed by aggressive claims about the income that can be expected from their opportunities or strategies. Type-at-Home.com claims that users can make $25-50 per hour with no experience necessary. MyDataJob.com claims that a mere 30 minutes of work per day can generate daily income in excess of $3000. Very enticing -- but also extremely exaggerated and unrealistic.

What They Mean

In sharp contrast to claims of guaranteed wealth, the fine print found in sites' "Earnings Disclaimers" explains that many people will not make money from these work-at-home opportunities. The disclaimer on ultimatewealthpackage.com notes that earnings claims presented on the site "should not be considered 'typical'" and "any testimonials and examples used are exceptional results, which do not apply to the average purchaser." There is no indication of what percentage of users has made the advertised "$1,000 to $30,000 per week in residual income" and what percentage has made absolutely nothing. Claims on these sites imply that everyone will easily make a fast fortune, but the probability of earning income may be extremely slim.

How To Lose Money

Dataentrypro.com charges $49.99 for its "Data Entry Profit System."

Rather than make users rich, these sites can actually add to users' financial problems. Scammy work-at-home opportunities typically require an initial monetary investment of $20-$100 for information, materials, program enrollment, or products. Many users may not even recoup their initial investments.

The $49.95 Pyramid

"Data entry" programs, such as Dataentrybank.com, are common work-at-home scams.

One common scam claims to offer extremely lucrative home data entry or typing opportunities. Dataentrybank.com claims that for a fee of $49.95, users will be able to earn over $1000 per day just by typing short ads. Their claims are misleading for many reasons.

Dataentrybank.com fails to provide a reasonable statement of tasks until users pay Dataentrybank.com's fee. Users have to pay the fee before they learn what the fee gets them – a design that's unsavory at best.

We're also concerned about the strategy Dataentrybank.com provides to users. Dataentrybank.com's materials show a troubling similarity to pyramid schemes. Dataentrybank.com provides instructions on how to become an affiliate for companies that pay referral commissions for driving online sales through sponsored ads. But Dataentrybank.com's tutorial simply shows how to become an affiliate of Dataentrybank.com itself. Having paid Dataentrybank.com its fee, what is an affiliate trained to do? Recruit others to Dataentrybank.com! But this kind of cycle is exactly a pyramid scheme. (See FTC definition: "Pyramid schemes … all share one overriding characteristic: … profits based primarily on recruiting others to join their program, not based on profits from any real investment or real sale of goods to the public.")

It's true that it's possible to become an affiliate of ecommerce sites and then potentially earn reasonable commissions. But becoming an affiliate just requires filling out a web application form. Applicants need not pay an intermediary like Dataentrybank.com $50 for the privilege. In fact, most of the information Dataentrybank.com charges for are accessible for free. The site's advertisement claims to set you up with a ClickBank account, which collects your earned commission. But all Dataentrybank.com does is provide a link to ClickBank.com's free account sign-up page -- which is itself an affiliate link whereby ClickBank pays Dataentrybank.com for each referral. The site also claims to give you "access" to a list of companies offering affiliate programs, but once again, it merely links to ClickBank's freely accessible directory. There are also many other free lists of affiliate programs available online (Refer-it.com's list includes well-known companies like Amazon and BestBuy, which are not found on ClickBank.com).

Dataentrybank.com's earnings claims are not true representations of the expected income of average users. They are anecdotal at best, perhaps representing the maximum amount an affiliate marketer once made in the past. Making money as an affiliate is time consuming, hard work that requires a strong understand of Internet marketing, pay per click advertising, and consumer psychology. It's hardly the cakewalk Dataentrybank.com suggests.

Paid Surveys: Our 2 Cents Worth

Surveyscout.com charges for paid survery information which is available elsewhere for free.

Another popular scheme involves charging users to participate in paid survey opportunities which, in fact, are accessible for free. For example, Surveyscout.com charges a $69.95 membership fee for a list of companies that offer paid surveys. But users do not need to enroll in a Surveyscout.com membership or pay any fees at all to sign up for these surveys. Anyone can make a request for consideration directly to the companies offering surveys. There are also many sites which provide lists of companies free of charge. Technicaljobsearch.com and freefromscams.com, for example, provide lengthy lists of market research companies that offer incentive-paid surveys. (These lists include such well-known companies as Nielsen NetRatings, Harris Interactive, and Ipsos. ) There is no need to pay for access to surveys, and users that do fork over the enrollment fee are no more assured of earning any money than those who don't.

Scammy survey sites also exaggerate how much money users can earn from these surveys. For each survey, survey companies screen users for target demographics, so users will only receive a survey invitation if they qualify. Compensation is therefore limited by the number of invitations a user receives. Most survey companies offer compensation in the form of sweepstakes or reward points that can be redeemed for merchandise. Cash rewards are often very small. (Common Knowledge Research Connections offers $1-5 per survey.). Therefore it is highly unlikely that anyone will earn thousands of dollars per month completing surveys – despite suggestions to the contrary as suggested on getpaidtosurveys.com.

We'll Tell You Later

Elevenf.com makes big claims but does not provide a detailed job description.

Poor disclosure and lack of information are common themes amongst work-at-home sites. Consumers are therefore likely to end up making uninformed purchase decisions based purely on blind faith – hoping that the benefits of the a program will significantly outweigh the costs. Weeklycashincome.com charges $97 for its "Personal Instant Cash Machine System" which it claims can generate $1000 per day. But the Weeklycashincome.com site never describes how the system works and what the user will have to do in order to make money. Elevenf.com breaks the money-making process of its "Mobile Cash E-System" into the following steps: "Site down at your computer. Check your emails. Return your emails. Check your income accounts online to see how much you made. Do three to five simple transactions." Not exactly a thorough job description.

Better Off Selling Lemonade

It would certainly be great to find a work-at-home opportunity that generated substantial income with minimal effort, but such claims are generally too good to be true - otherwise we'd all be multi-millionaires. We're concerned by work-at-home Web sites that may mislead consumers with false promises of wealth, only to make quick profits themselves. Job hunters should not have to pay to get for work, and at the very least, they should be given full job descriptions prior to making any purchases. Job hunters should be given realistic earnings expectations and be made aware of any risks involved. In addition, much of the information that these sites charge for is available elsewhere for free. Users who pay to enroll in programs may never actually receive any income and therefore may never recoup the amount of their initial investment. By rating these sites yellow, we aim to warn users before they jump on an opportunity that might not deliver as promised.

Tips on avoiding work-at-home scams:

Click here to view our list of 65 misleading work-at-home sites.