1. Internet business opportunities
Be careful here because if they require down payment to become a “partner” the person paying the fees could be stuck being liable for a business which is later sued on various merits unknown to the new “investor.”
2. High Yield Investment Programs
into with people who are not willing to meet face to face. While these are often risky investments, many of them are Ponzi schemes so be careful when someone suggests you jump on board the next hot thing.
3. Buying real estate and “flipping” a home DIY style
Some people made quite a bit of money flipping houses, others lost everything. Make sure the market in the area being considered for the flip has actually rebounded first before buying a foreclosed home or one on short sale for the best chance of seeing real returns on resale.
4. Stuffing envelopes at home
This includes writing letters, backing envelopes or other envelope jobs from rogue companies which offer pennies (or even a tenth of a penny) on the dollar for each envelope “stuffed.” It will take thousands to make any money and this usually results in the person paying for the privilege of working for a few dollars a day.
5. Books/Seminars/Conferences/Webcasts
Which promise you’ll earn big in real estate/marketing/business/the stock market understand that these people make their money up front by taking payment for the people who attend the conference or meeting. What they say after you have paid for your ticket does not matter and in many cases are complete fabrications on the truth of what happens in that particular industry.
6. Ponzi schemes
The name Bernie Madoff might immediately come to mind, there are other Ponzi schemes to watch out for. Traditional Ponzi schemes take money to one investor to provide returns for another while lining the pockets of the scam artist. Eventually, the money is gone and investors lose out.
7. Selling magnetic “power bracelets” to people in your community who play sports
These have not been uniformly proven to enhance performance so don’t push them on friends, neighbors and family members just yet. You may be stuck with boxes of inventory (bracelets) and no outlet to sell them off to others at the end of the day.
8. Pyramid schemes
These include any scheme where you buy something, are encouraged to get 12 more people “under you” to do the same and you have to encourage them to each bring in 12 more people. Remember, you are never going to really be on the top of this mountain, you are only one of 12 people someone else brought in and will never get much money from this effort
9. Getting paid for Pay Per Click ads online
Understand that these ads are going to make someone rich, but it is not the person who is not owning the website. If you are a writer of a blog and have PPC ads, you will see pennies on the dollar as a result of your creative effort and the webmasters usually put the ads on which they prefer, not which you would rather see adjacent to your content.
10. Getting paid to write reviews online
These include book reviews, reviews of movies or restaurants or the like will never pay out big money in the long or short run. This is because the reviewers are offering their opinion and some never even see the movie, so the reviews are inaccurate and are paid accordingly.
11. Online writing jobs which ask for your personal information in exchange for up front advances for work to be performed in the future
If this sounds too good to be true, it usually is. For this reason and others, no one should ever be given your social security number even if the “employer” claims that he needs it to fill out the appropriate tax forms for your services rendered online. Any online writing job should be verified or it may be a scam where the identity thief is the one who gets the bonus at the end of the assignment, not the writer.
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