My friend was, until recently, one of the millions of unemployed. He lost an excellent management job back in August and was thrown into the scary, mine-filled waters of the online job search.

He’s smart, so he was able to avoid most of the turds floating around in that lagoon.

One of them caught his attention, though. He signed up for a free resume critique at The Ladders. Theladders.com caters to executives and claims to help its members land career management jobs paying more than $100k per year.

It offers a free critique of your resume. You upload it and a resume expert goes through it and gives feedback on it. My friend uploaded his and got really good feedback about why it wasn’t landing him any interviews.

But, along with the feedback came an offer. We will rewrite your resume and cover letter for a mere $700!

Wow. Time for a big pause. To be honest $700 is nothing if it helps you get a job that pays more than $100,000. But could ladders.com really deliver on its promises? A careful search through a skeptic’s eyes (mine) turned up this:
A client of a resume writer certified by the National Resume Writer’s Association (the NRWA, who knew?) submitted a resume to the ladders and got back a blistering critique. The accredited writer found that “After reading the critiques that bashed the resumes they created, I found that the information they provided was not only subjective, but it was often inaccurate and incorrect.” (Read the discussion.)

Got that? Inaccurate AND incorrect! That’s a double negative!

I also found that the Wall Street Journal offers a similar service—free critique and a fee-based rewrite—for less. And the NRWA can also refer job seekers to certified resume writers who would do the rewrite for even less.

Bottom line, friend rewrote the resume himself based on the feedback he received, got interviews, and is now once again employed. And he didn’t spend $700 to do it.

More and more people are turning to the Internet as a tool to find jobs. It’s almost indispensable, in fact, to any job search. Even if you don’t use the big job sites, you will need to visit your potential employers’ Web sites to learn all you can.

That’s why Jon’s experience caught my eye. He was laid off some time ago and did what millions of others do. He put his resume up at Monster.com, Yahoo Hot Jobs, and career-builder.com.

The result?

[I received] nothing but scam-scheme-fraud job offers left and right (which I spent the better part of every day looking for information on these companies sending job offers), reported them to their security dept. and several other agencies, and nothing was ever done to these scams-schemes-frauds.

After some BBB complaints I actually received an email from Careerbuilder saying that they are not responsible for scams-schemes-frauds and it’s up to the people using their site to find out what’s a scam-scheme-fraud.

Didja catch that? CareerBuilder.com says it’s not their responsibility to determine what is a real job offer and what is not. Buyer beware. Or in this case, broke and maybe desperate job seeker beware.

What-the-hell ever.

Is it the responsibility of these sites to hold your hand through the process? No. They’re not your mother. You’re supposed to keep your brain turned on.

But any Web site offering a job-related service messes with the real lives of people. They have a moral obligation to either (1) do something to prevent fraudulent use of their service, or (2) post a big giant warning that says, If someone says they found your resume on CareerBuilder, it’s a scheme. Don’t waste your time!

Jon continues:

With that said, I also believe that any legitimate company offering customers a product/service should check anything out before they advertise/offer it to anybody. They however don’t, come to find out their claim is there is too many calls coming in to check everyone , but have a dept. for after the fact situations of scams-schemes-frauds posted on their site. Isn’t that a little backwards? So basically as long as any company/person pays to advertise on your site they can put up any scam-scheme-fraud job posting.

What Kind of Junk Jobs?

When you post your resume at public sites, you are in a sense posting a target to your back. Not always, of course. Not everyone. But far, far too many people receive scam invitations disguised as job offers.

Here’s the kind of crap that CareerBuilder and other large job sites enable:

This is where I was contacted by wealthdci.com-Angela Penbrook productions for rebate processing, which at the time this company didn’t show Angela Penbrooks name or had any ratings with the BBB or any other consumer agency. So I kept reading their site and it looked like something I could do and signed up, which is when I then found out it was one of Angela Penbrook Productions out of Irvine,CA. A quick search lead me to numerous complaints websites going back for years, I quickly felt a punch in the gut feeling and emailed for my 90-day money guarantee. No answer to several emails then I called and called only to receive Lie after Lie that we are processing your refund that never came, so days before my 90 days was up I called my credit card company faxed copies of my emails and their answers to them for proof. I was lucky and received my refund through the credit card company ,which after a few days they acknowledged their investigating dept actually has known about this Angela Penbrook Productions companies.

Jon’s experience with fraudulent “jobs” doesn’t stop there:

Then the emails/calls for representatives out of country jobs> “We heard you were looking for a home business type jobs, since you filled out an application to our service/product” type of stuff was overwhelming. Every day almost 40-70 emails/calls. First I forwarded some of them to the FCC, FTC, BBB, SEC , Attorney General, but none of them had any registered business names with any county clerks office-using mail pick up places as company address’s-etc. etc.

Most stopped and then I recieved an email from HiringMax (Fountain Valley,CA) saying Careerbuilder gave me your info and I am posting your resume on our site for companies to view, you should also stop by one of our work fairs too. I checked this company out, but there is no business registered by that name either with any LA/OC county clerks office for 2 different main offices listed on their website, plus they were using hotel work fairs address’s as one of their company addresses.

So I confronted Careerbuilder about them sending my resume info to HiringMax and was told by a manager they never did any such thing. Then I confronted this “Fred” at HiringMax and he kept claiming CB sent him my info. I asked him how can that be when they said they never did any such thing and my resume was off their site for 2 months? Then he got really rude and, long story short finally said he would take my info off their site, but after searching this company/person out more, I found Ripoff Report complaints from employees and customers that said he would send employees to other companies job fairs to get/sometimes steal people’s info from their lists.

We have seen too many complaints like this about CareerBuilder for me to just cast it off as one person’s bad experience. Monster.com and Yahoo Hot Jobs post plenty of junk jobs (ever search for “telecommuting?” Don’t.), but I’ve never heard of people being directly contacted by fraudsters who say they got their resume from Monster.

Just be extra cautious. As the number of people searching for work increases, so does the number of scum-sucking bottom feeders who are working hard to take your last grocery money from you.

I want to turn our attention to jobs for this post. The traditional kind, you know, where an employer interviews you and hires you and pays you. Today’s post is inspired by a comment left on the West at Home post. West at Home is a company that hires customer service reps to take calls from home. Check out the post if you’re looking for that kind of work. People really seem to like the company.

I’m hoping one of the WAH employees can answer this question by SweetDee:

Hello I received an email stating that West wanted to talk with me about a “touchpoint interview” Could someone advise me on what to look for?

I don’t know what West at Home means by a “touchpoint interview,” so someone else can probably give Dee a more specific answer. I do know that the interviews advertised on its Web site are automated. So be careful, Dee.

But her question reminds me of the scammers that are out there targeting people who are looking for jobs. Dee, if you haven’t applied to West at Home, run away! It’s not a real interview.

Here’s how these kinds of scams operate:
You answer a job ad or the scammer finds your resume online. You are contacted saying that you’re perfect for the job, and can you meet with Mr. Smoothralker for an interview?
This is the first red flag. Real companies looking to fill real jobs never tell candidates they are perfect after just reading the resume or application. They want a more complete picture of you, which they will get from the interview.

“Yes!” you say, flattered.

“Great!” they say. It turns out Mr. Smoothtalker can meet you at a time and place that are convenient for you. In fact, he’ll be at a cafe right around the corner at 2:30 today.
Uh-oh. Be careful. Real employers don’t come to you. You go to them. You know who does come to you? Salesman, thieves, and scammers. You should now be thinking, hmmm…these people have my home address.

Wow, you think. Finally! Somebody sees how great I am. And so convenient, too! So you go to the interview. Here’s a promise: The interview will go swimmingly. You could have the verbal skills of Mike Tyson and all the confidence and presence of an orphan from Oliver Swift, but you’ll still ace the interview. Mr. Smoothtalker will compliment you on your resume and your skills and will tell you you’re just what the company is looking for.
Back on planet Earth, there are no perfect interviews and no such thing as a perfect match of job with job seeker. Everyone gives up something in order to get what they want: in your case, a job you can live with; in the employer’s case, an employee they think can to the job well enough to be profitable.

Then the bomb: All you need to do to get started on your new job is buy the training. Or the equipment. Or the software. Or whatever. This is what the whole process has been leading to. You’re such a perfect employee and the job is so convenient and so perfect for you that it’s hard for you to say no to anything. The salesman/scammer has built it this way. And the “investment” is usually no small thing. $500 and up is not uncommon as a price for whatever you need to get started. But no matter, they say, you’ll make it back in your first couple of weeks.
Real employers never ask you to pay them. Real employers never ask you to pay them. Real employers NEVER ask you to pay them! Tattoo it on your forehead before you go to the interview.

If you’re smart, you’ll realize now that you’ve been had. There is not and never was a job. They just used your job search as a hook to get you to buy product x. Yes, they are that devious. And yes, they will lie that blatantly to your face. No, there’s nothing anyone can do about them, except you.

Get smart. Then help all of your job-seeking friends get smart.

These programs teach you how to start from “I know nothing” and build potentially large incomes with an online business.

On one recent post, Rachel added in the comments:

Yeah these are great if you are wanting to do your own online business, but this does not help at all for those wanting to find actual online jobs. No programs or MLM, no stupid ebooks or blogging that Never really pays in the end and no online business crap. Just plain simple jobs that can be done from home that are legit. That’s all people are asking for and no job list websites that have you pay for a useless membership to only get programs, ebooks and build-your-own business systems.

She makes a great point and I agree with her core claim. (I don’t agree that these things “never really pay in the end.” I am living proof that they do. But that’s the subject of another post.) But she’s correct that the excellent training programs we have found do not help those readers who just want to find online jobs.

Jobs Defined

Part of the problem with the whole idea of searching for jobs online is the terminology. So let me be very clear: a job is an arrangement in which you trade a known amount of time for a known amount of money. $15 per hour, say. You might also trade your skill for a known amount of money, such as when you get paid a flat fee to transcribe a document. But that’s still a negotiation of how much time you spend.

There is also a key difference between online jobs and finding jobs online.

An “online job” would be an arrangement in which you trade known amounts of time for known amounts of money to do tasks over the Internet.

I hate to say it, but these are extremely rare. I can count the legitimate ones I’ve seen on one hand. However, many of the scammy sites we’ve exposed manipulate these meanings and your expectations. They lead you to believe that such jobs are common and easy to come by. They are neither.

“Finding jobs online” is the best way I know to use the Internet to make money if a job is what you’re looking for. You won’t do the work online, probably. But you’ll use online sources to find the jobs. These are jobs you can do at home or around town. You’ll trade time for money, like in a traditional job, but you won’t necessarily work over the Internet.

The good news? There are many jobs like this. Most of them call for a fairly specialized set of skills, such as these:

• Writing, editing
• Programming and scripting (including Perl, PHP, SQL, and so on)
• Web site design
• Bookkeeping
• Graphics design

The (maybe) bad news? You will probably be an independent contractor, not an employee. That means you pay your own taxes.

So how do you find jobs online? You have to know where and how to search. And it’s not Google. Here is the quick version of our system, which I have used to find several well-paying jobs.
1. Go to Craigslist.org.
2. Find the jobs category that matches your skills.
3. Search for jobs where the telecommuting option is checked.
4. Send an awesome inquiry/application letter.

The full details of this system are in our e-book, The Complete Guide to Telecommuting. Check it out by clicking the link. It’s only $10 so it’s not much of a risk.

I could even be persuaded to give away a few of them to deserving, broke job seekers. Is that you? Drop me a line and convince me: joe[at]ivetriedthat[dot]com.

We have lots of experience with job ads at IveTriedThat. Steve reads so many that ads spill out of his mouth whenever it’s open. Call him on the phone sometime and you’ll hear, “How much money you make is up to you telecommuting is ok live the life you’ve always dreamed of Hello?” It’s sad, really. But his friends are helping him through it.

We’re going to share with you our secrets on how to read work-at-home job ads. This post will show you how to spot a scam after reading just a few words of the ad. No more wasting time reading fruitless ads and writing inquiries only to be disappointed. And these amazing secrets can be yours for a one-time fee of $59.95 $29.95! Act now! Just kidding. It’s free. All you have to do is keep reading.

Stark Differences

Here are two ads from Craigslist, each advertising a work-from-home job:

The one on the left is for a legitimate job, by which I mean an arrangement in which a company or individual pays you a predetermined sum in exchange for your time and/or skill. The one on the right is a “hook” ad for Ameriplan USA. I’m not saying Ameriplan is a scam because I haven’t tried it, but it’s definitely not a job that will bring you a known figure in exchange for a known amount of time. You can learn to identify the “hook” ads in three seconds or less. Here’s how: pretend you’re in an interview.

What if you were in a job interview and the interviewer kept making vague statements about how much money you’re going to earn? What if you asked what kind of work you’ll be doing and he said, “You’ll be helping people achieve financial freedom,” or a similarly vague answer? You’d know something is not right. So take that interview mentality with you when reading work-at-home ads. The following are red flags in part because you’d never see or hear them at an interview for a real job. Individually, they don’t automatically indicate a fake job or “hook ad,” but ads containing more than one of them are almost certainly selling you something other than a job.

• General job description: After reading the ad on the left you know exactly what you’ll be doing. What kind of work will you be doing for the ad on the right?
• Exaggerated titles: If a title uses any combination of the following words: money, income, freedom, unlimited, earnings, or success, proceed with caution. Surprisingly, if a title has the phrase “work at home” in it, it’s most likely a scam. Real employers tend to use the word ‘telecommuting,’ or ‘remote’ employees.
• No specifics about pay: You’ll earn “commission.” Next time you fill out a credit application, write “commission” in the Income line and see how far it gets you. Real employers know exactly how much they’re willing to pay you.
• Talk about Big Money: While they never give specifics, hook ads do often tantalize you with large numbers. $500/week! Part time! Up to $100 per hour (like the one below)!
• Exclamation points!!! The hook ad on the right doesn’t have any, but they very often do. Truly exciting job opportunities don’t need exclamation points. That they’re exciting should be self evident from the detailed description.
• A hyperlink in the ad. Sure, legitimate companies can link to their business Web site, but they often do not. Hook ads need the link because they’ve got to get you to the pre-sell page. Look at this ad, for instance; it contains ONLY a link (and to an unidentifiable short url, at that):
  

  SIMPLE Data-Entry-At-Home: up to $100 Cash Per HOUR
  (get paid to shop)

  http://5nz.com/c72a3c

  * Location: anywhere
  * Compensation: see website
  * Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
  * Please, no phone calls about this job!
  * Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

• Insistence upon the job’s honesty and legitimacy. Here’s an actual headline for another Craigslist hook ad:
  

  Work From Home $1,500 to $3,000 PT or FT Legitimate & Honest Job!!!

  Here’s the thing. Do you believe the guy at work who says he was the funniest and best-looking dude at last weekend’s company picnic? Of course not! By the same token, it never occurs to legitimate employers to tell you that they’re legitimate. If you doubt me, go to your next job interview and ask, “Is this a legitimate job or a scam?” It’s a quick way to end the interview and the funny look on the interviewer’s face might be worth sabotaging your chances.

There are others, but these are the ones we see all the time. With practice, you can learn to identify them at a glance and you will no longer be wasting time pursuing leads that only end in somebody asking you for money.

Have you explored our archives yet? This post is one of the earliest posts we wrote about how to find real work-at-home jobs. Click on the category links on the left to find past articles of interest. We’re closing in on 400 of them.

I was self-employed for eight years, and did very well. Last fall, my only client canceled my contract. Unfortunately, this was right after I had moved into my newly-purchased house. I went searching online for opportunities, because I didn’t want to leave any stone unturned, and I was having difficulty getting bricks-and-mortar work. The results have been mediocre, although I have signed up with a company that hires call-center consultants. I would like actual real-world advice for getting online work. I don’t want to get rich; I just want to be able to pay my mortgage, ski a bit, and travel. I don’t want to buy someone’s “how to get rich with adwords” book, because everyone seems to have one out right now, nor do I want to hear about someone’s close friend, who made 50K last month in passive income – if it were that easy, we’d all be doing it.

A brand new house and suddenly out of work. Ouch. I’m sure there are hundreds of other stories like it, many probably more painful. This person is going to be fine, though. It might get tight, but she’ll pull through, and won’t lose money to scams in the process. I believe that because of the smarts and attitude she reveals in her note.

“I don’t want to get rich,” she said (and then used a semicolon correctly! Be still my heart!) “I just want to be able to pay my mortgage, ski a bit, and travel.” By aiming at a realistic income, she inoculates herself against the Angela Penbrooks of the world who are ready to emote all over her with promises of freedom from suffering and the fulfillment of all her dreams.

She also said, “I would like actual real-world advice for getting online work.” You can’t ask for something more solid than that. No gimmicks, no programs, no e-books. Just real-world advice. So here is my best attempt to provide it in 100 words or less.

Find Jobs at Craigslist

I have found real jobs that pay well at craigslist.org. For example, here are a couple I would apply for today if I had time and needed the money:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/wri/1037680696.html
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/wri/1039754944.html

Our ebook teaches you how to search Craigslist efficiently and weed out the scams.

The Downside
You have to have specific, advanced skills to find telecommuting work through Craigslist, and the competition is stiff. But, like I said, I have found several jobs this way.

Create Your Own Work

This idea appeals to the independent and entrepreneurial part of me. In Your PJs, an ebook we promote in this post, teaches you how to create an income by starting a business that meets an existing need.

The book and its online resources are idea generators, not magic pills. They’ll help you think of ways to get out there and make your own income happen by doing what businesses in your area are willing to pay someone to do.

The Downside
In Your PJs costs about $30 today (the price fluctuates). Worth every penny, in my opinion.

Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

One of the online businesspeeps I most trust is Yaro Starak, founder of Blog Mastermind. I recommend his post about doing a little mental surgery as you work toward your goal of online income. And follow the link at the bottom of the post to subscribe to his blog. You’ll get a free report out of the deal, “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online.”

Keep those stories coming. They’re inspiring to read.

Professional Organizers? I didn’t know that such people existed. And yet, why not? Disorder is everywhere you look in offices and in homes. (You wanna hear about disorder? My family just moved. Boxes everywhere and stuff for which we can’t find a place.)

From what I can tell, professional organizing is a legitimate home-based business opportunity. You can read about it at CNN Money. And there is also a professional organization you can join, called the National Association of Professional Organizers, or NAPO.

Just be careful about how much you spend to get started. Unfortunately, that’s the best assessment we can give because we won’t be trying this one out. it’s more than $500 for the startup system, and it’s far enough outside our niche that we can’t justify the expense.

And if you want to get many more realistic ideas for businesses you can run from home, check out In Your PJs.

What is a Professional Organizer?

Just like the title suggests, professional organizers sell their organizing services to businesses and homes, helping other people bring order out of chaos.

According to the National Association of Professional Organizers,

A professional organizer enhances the lives of clients by designing systems and processes using organizing principles and through transferring organizing skills. A professional organizer also educates the public on organizing solutions and the resulting benefits. Professional organizers help individuals and businesses take control of their surroundings, their time, their paper, and their systems for life.

What is the Professional Organizer Business Complete Startup System?

This system advertises itself as a comprehensive guide to getting started in and running your own successful organizing business. If its advertising is true, it does seem to be quite comprehensive. Expensive, too, at $549. I also note that the kit’s main feature is software, and it is sold by a software company, not a professional organizer. For what it’s worth.

However, if you really can make up to $60 an hour as a professional organizer, and the system can help you get there, a $500 investment is perfectly reasonable. Reviews of the system by that name are not to be found online. What you will find, though, are dozens of other programs and information sources for a wide range of prices. For example, check out this book and its reviews at Amazon.com. One glowing review says:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book covers all the bases …, July 15, 2007
I checked this book out from my local library. Because it has been such a great resource I kept renewing it – over and over. I finally broke down and bought my own personal copy to keep handy. Dawn covers evaluating your readiness to be an entrepreneur to determining business growth strategies. Similar to Sara Pederson’s book but more thorough. Great tips and forms to get you started.

Chances are very good that, by the time you finish a cheap book on the subject, you’ll know whether it makes sense to spend $549 for a startup kit. That’s how I would recommend you check out the opportunity. Start small and invest more as it seems necessary and appropriate.

Straight to the Source

You might also want to contact a professional organizer and ask them the tough questions: How much do you charge? Do you have enough clients to keep busy? Is it tough to find work. NAPO can put you in touch with a professional organizer that might be willing to tell you the hard truth about the business. Click here to find one in your area.

Are You a Professional Organizer?

If you are, we would love to hear from you in the comments or through the “Email Us” link at the top of the page.

I am in a lather over this e-book because it gives you answers to two stubborn problems:

• It’s hard to find legitimate jobs.
  Our e-book (which is not the one I’ve been reading) helps with this problem by showing you where and how to find real telecommuting jobs. But those jobs require pretty specific skills in writing, coding, design, or more.
• What if I don’t have great computer skills?
  This is where the new e-book can help. It shows you step by step, practical ways to create your own jobs. No affiliate marketing, no fees up front. Real work, real paychecks.

The book is called In Your PJs: Simple Strategies Anyone Can Use to Work at Home Forever, and if you’re looking for ways to work from home, either as a supplement to your income or as a full-time career, you gotta have it. Get it now because it’s on sale for 20% off the regular price.

An Inside Look at In Your PJs

You know that we hang on to $ around here like a feathers hang onto a chicken. So I hope you believe me when I tell you this book is worth every penny. Here’s what you get when you fork over your hard-earned cash:

• A 221-page e-book bursting with outstanding advice and ideas
• A Telecommuters Resource Guide: 53 pages of links to tools that will help you get and keep paying clients
• Access to the online home business idea tool

What’s In the Book?

Chapter 1: The author’s story. Don’t skip it—it will inspire you.
Chapter 2: The truth about working from home and changing your approach to your search (powerful stuff); personality traits and equipment you need
Chapter 3: Cover letters and resumes
Chapter 4: Where the real jobs are hiding
Chapter 5: The book is worth the purchase price for this chapter alone. It shows you how to fill existing business needs in your area and create your own home business. More detail below.
Chapter 6: How to market yourself to build the business in chapter 5.
Chapter 7: Great-looking templates for cover letters, resumes, flyers, brochures, and more.

More About Chapter 5

I said the book was worth the purchase price for this chapter alone. Here’s why: It teaches you how to create your own at-home business by filling an existing need that businesses around you have right now. Here are some of the business ideas that come out of those needs:

• Provide “Company watch” research services
• Provide Paper Management services to local small businesses
• Provide a specialized typing service to local colleges and universities
• Compile database of targeted leads for companies to use for their sales and marketing efforts
• Become an Internet Press Release Agent
• Specialize in preparing materials for trade shows and conferences
• Provide monthly bookkeeping service subscriptions to local businesses
• Offer recruiter assistant services. Specialize in locating and filtering resumes for recruiters
• Specialize in generating sales leads for companies
• And many, many more

And they aren’t just ideas. You’ll get detailed instructions on how to set up each business.

Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

Choose not to participate in the recession by taking control of your work status. You can start today by learning how to find work at home jobs, and more important, how to create work you can do from home. There is no need to wait for a job to land in your lap—go out and make it happen! In Your PJs will convince you it can be done and will show you how. And there’s a 90-day guarantee. Check it out by clicking here.

We get occasional emails asking us for work-at-home ideas that are not Internet-based or that don’t require computer skills. I have to admit, the question is a little above our pay grade because Steve and I are both computer dorks. We make money using the Internet and computers, so when somebody asks us about other ideas we’re like, What? Does anybody make money without computers?

Of course they do. Lots of people make lots of money without broadband and html knowledge. So if you’re looking for a home business opportunity that doesn’t involve blogs or affiliate marketing, you’re in luck today.

Foreclosed Homes Mean Opportunity

When a bank someone else takes over a home and it isn’t ready to sell, they need someone to take care of the house. Clean out the yard, get rid of owner belongings, maybe do basic repairs. That kind of thing. If you can get banks and property owners to give you the work, it could become a good small business. Here’s how one such “property preservation” company describes what it does:

Our goal is to give financial institutions a quick way to turn their non performing assets into a quick sale by performing property preservation from start to finish within 48 hours of receipt of property assignment. Once property preservation has been accomplished, our clients can immediately place the property for sale.

See more about what this company does on its Web site.

If you’re living in an area where folks and the housing market are not doing so great, there might be lots of work out there for you.

A commenter on our HUD refunds processing thread is offering an e-book that teaches you how to get into the business. Yeah, I know. There’s always an e-book, isn’t there? We haven’t seen the book so we can’t vouch for it. We asked for a review copy, but they weren’t interested.

Still, if you’re serious about earning some extra cash around your neighborhood, it could be worth a look. Just keep all your filters turned on. Also look in your area to see how many competitors are already doing that kind of work. The site selling the book is here.

If you look into it, are working that kind of job now, or buy the ebook, let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Junk Ads at Craig’s List

Why repeat ourselves now? Because our favorite source for finding jobs online, Craig’s List, has been found to contain fake job ads. A fake job ad pretends to be from an employer looking to hire someone, but is actually an ad that’s trying to sell you some kind of program.

Craig’s List is still a good job source because the community of readers does a good job of monitoring ads. When an ad is found to be not what it appears, it’s removed pretty quickly. However, some junk ads still slip through, like this one:

Hi there,

This is Lyleah James with the Data Entry position offered on craigslist by www.innerambition.com that had been listed craigslist.com and can be done from home. I was out of my office for a good portion of the morning, taking care of a few things and was unable to respond right away. I’m sorry for any inconvenience this may cause any of you. In the meantime however, I wanted to get back with everyone that had responded.

In the meantime, If you are still interested in the position you can click the following link to fill out the online application form: http://www.[removed].com/apply/?s=471756

Although my account with live.com is having some trouble, you can feel free to contact me at this address if you need help at any point. Make sure to place HELP in caps in the subject line and I will return your email as soon as possible.
I wish you a wonderful day,
~ Ly
http://[removed]/apply/?s=471756

http://[removed].live.com/

What do you get if you follow the links to “apply” for this “job?” Alert reader, Cat (from Ireland! I think I’m in love!), explains:

I applied for a telecommuting job on craigslist that was in fact a scam that entailed the “employee” posting similar ads on craigslist and sending all the responses to a website, that then got them to do the same thing, and so on… From about 35 ads in the job section, 33 were people posting this same type of ad! The company’s name is innerambition.com.

What is Innerambition.com?

We don’t know, and we don’t care. Because any program that advertises itself as a “job” and then requires you to post ads and drive visitors to a website is junk because the people promoting it are dishonest from the start. It may very well be a legitimate affiliate opportunity, but it sure as hell isn’t a job.

Does Careerbuilder.com Sell Your Information?

Their privacy agreement says they don’t, but commenters on the Al Snyder fraud posts say they were contacted only after posting information at Career Builder. We have another bone to pick with careerbuilder.com: Angela Penbrook and Process at Home are paying advertisers. We know from experience that vetting every advertiser that a script throws up is just about impossible. But anyone with a Google knows that Penbrook and rebate processing are scams. I expected careerbuilder.com to put a little more thought into advertisers than John McCain put into his VP choice, but I guess that was too much to ask.

We’re still believers in Craig’s List, but you have to be just as much on your guard there as anywhere else. Be smart and cautious; there are telecommuting jobs to be found online. But as you know, it’s also easy to step in bear traps while you’re looking.