It’s time for yet another public service announcement about work-at-home scams. By now, you have probably figured out that I like to let people know about the different types of work-at-home scams that are out there. It is very important for me to spread the word about as many different types of scams as possible because my wish for each and every person who wants to work from home is that they do not fall victim to a scam. Scams cost good people their hard-earned money and can even cause some people to abandon their dreams of working from home.
Today’s word of caution is about “Google Business Kits”. When many people see the word Google, they connect it with reliability and trustworthiness. This is a correct connection, and this is not the problem. Google is a wonderful thing, and from what I have heard, an excellent company to work for. The problem is that scammers have used Google’s good name to get into the pockets of people that want to make money working from home.
What does this scam look like? Like any scam, the “Google Business Kit” can take on a number of different forms. In many cases, the ads for this one show either a blog or a “newspaper” type of page with pictures of a young person showing off a big check that appears to be from Google. These ads have been showing up on Facebook a lot, so if you see something on there that looks like this, run the other way. The promoters of these fake blogs and fake news sites claim to be able to show you how to make money using Google Ad Words by sending you a cd in exchange for a small shipping fee. The promoters often insinuate that they are affiliated with Google, which is a lie.
One of the worst things about this particular scam is that when you enter your credit card information to pay the shipping fee for the cd, you inadvertently agree to pay a monthly “membership fee” which is usually around seventy dollars. The reason that I say inadvertently agree is that the authorization to charge a recurring fee above and beyond the shipping for the cd is hidden in the fine print and people do not see it. These people are shocked and displeased when they get charged a large fee some time after the expected shipping fee has been charged, and that is usually when they realize that the whole thing is a scam.
If you come across the type of advertisement that I have mentioned, run the other way. If it is on a friend’s Facebook page, be sure to leave a comment about it to warn others about the scam. Above all, don’t forget to do extensive research on any home-based business opportunity that you are interested in.