online-business-group.org

Home business opportunity scams abound in this slow economy. Having recently become a victim of such a scam due to desperation of being out of work for eight months, I took a leap of faith and researched many of the \”business opportunities\” listed on several job sites.

Many of the work-at-home jobs include data entry or accepting diet orders. The biggest draw of all (and what makes them seem legitimate) is a guarantee. If it doesnt work, your money will be refunded. The testimonies appear promising so what could go wrong? Thats what I thought!

I examined several opportunities quite thoroughly, trying to avoid the ads that simply sold software that taught me how to make money and focused on those that made me an employee and had specific instructions on pulling information from a website and enter into the forms provided. It seemed foolproof.

Again, there was the guarantee. If I wasnt happy, Id get all of my money back and besides, I was also getting a special deal since I was one of the first 100 people to respond. What I got versus what was promised was completely different. I had no longer entered my personal information, including my credit card data, when I realized Id become a statistic: Id been scammed.

My job was to promote credit cards. I was to get their name on hundreds of search engines and others sites like \”FaceBook\”. I had not been told that a condition of being paid included my having to apply for several credit cards. On top of that, I also had to be applied by them to get my $20 pay from my employer. Then, I was told that another requirement was that I had to make $500 first or I couldnt get the $20 per credit card.

There was also another excuse for why I couldnt yet get paid. I couldnt reach anyone at the company in person. I could only go through email where I usually got a preprogrammed response. It was impossible to get any real answers.

I repeatedly requested a refund to no avail and finally tried to call the number that was on my credit card bill. It was based in Australia and the voicemail requested to leave a message and someone would get back to me. This never happened as well. I ended up filing a fraud complaint with my credit card company and currently await a credit to my account.

I am utterly humiliated to have fallen for such a con. I am college educated with several degrees. Desperation will cloud one’s mind and lower defenses. I have no problem working hard for my money and did not count on it being \”easy\” money. I just assumed you only would make as much as hard as you worked whether it was three hours a day to 10 hours. I write this to remind others as well as myself the sound advice that if it looks to good to be true it most likely is.