The stories are all familiar. You are a stay at home mom and the economy is taking it’s toll, you are taking care of an elderly parent and can’t work, your husband just lost his job, you just lost your job. No matter what the circumstances you need to make some money and you can’t work outside the house. You need to find a job at home.

You google “work at home”, and voila! There are all kinds of great jobs. Is it really that easy? Oh look! Data Entry at home! that would be perfect! You read about all the companies this site has available that are just waiting for you to work for them. They promise you can make a few thousand dollars a month. This is great and just what you have been looking for. All you have to do is pay a small fee of $49 and you will be on your way!

STOP! This is the time to step back and really think about it. These places all prey on the desperation you are feeling.

It’s time to put some common sense into play. If it were really that simple and all those companies are looking for people to hire, why aren’t more people doing it? Why don’t you know of anyone working for these companies?

In the real world you would never walk into a business and be offered a job for just a small fee.

So what do you really get when you pay that money? Sometimes you get information on how to use clickbank (an affiliate program) as an ad placement program. You would be an affiliate marketer of sorts and you would have to PAY to place ads and then hope that someone clicks on your ad and makes a purchase. The experts in this type of affiliate marketing will tell you up front that you will need to invest at least $1000 in your marketing campaign and there is a lot of trial and error while you are learning how keyword bidding works.

Sometimes you get information on how to run a scam. They will tell you to place ads saying you have work at home data entry jobs and YOU charge the fee, then you tell others to place the same kinds of ads and do the same thing. Look for the words “order processing” or “processing orders” and you can be pretty sure you are looking at this type of scam.

Is it all just worthless? Are there really jobs at home and companies that will hire you to work from home doing real data entry? There are and you never have to pay to work for them, you don’t have to pay to find them either.

There are many jobs at home and lists of companies that hire for telecommuting can be found at http://www.katieshugs.com and http://itsfree.proboards43.com

Just always remember the number one rule.. don’t pay for a job at home and if you get that feeling in your gut… follow it.