Protect Yourself From Online Job Scams

If you have lost your job or are simply looking to supplement your income there are steps you can take to protect yourself from falling for a scam.

• Do your homework- Before you even contemplate contacting the company or responding to an ad, take a few moments to see if the company has a rating on the Better Business Bureau. If there is a report on the BBB take note to the number and nature of complaints lodged against them (if any) to get a better feel for the type of business you are dealing with. In addition you can also do an internet search on the company looking specifically both a physical address or business listing to ensure they are a “real” business.  Last but not least see if you can find any reviews or comments on forums from other people who may have worked for or with the company.
• Don’t pay upfront- Many of these fraudulent businesses make their money by requiring you to purchase a product that will “teach” you how to make money. Before you can move on to making thousands of dollars per week you will have to pay for their “secret” tips or strategies to increase your income. It is no secret that 9/10 of these programs are scams.
• Why isn’t everyone doing this- If the job entails doing something so simple that anyone can do it, while earning huge amounts of cash ask yourself, “why isn’t everyone doing it?”. If everyone could make hundreds of dollars taking surveys or stuffing envelopes we would not have to worry about a recession.
• What are the job requirements- While there are companies that do in-house training specific to their job most postings that require no experience or worse -no resume are likely a fraud. Who would hire you to work for them and pay you large amounts of money without knowing your background or work experience? The answer: a company that doesn’t intend to pay you at all.
• Use Common Sense- When it comes right down to it, if a job sounds to go to be true-it probably is, avoid wasting your time on get rich quick schemes and invest that time researching legitimate companies that can offer you “real” employment opportunities.

Too Good To Be True- Beware Of Online Job Scams was created by and is property of American Consumer News.

WordPress offers blog systems that can be downloaded and run off your own server. This means you “own” it. When you use a system like Blogger, for example, the content and blog itself is hosted by Blogger.com; and they can decide whether or not to remove your blog at any time and for any reason.   For most people this isn’t an issue, but here’s a story about someone I read about:

There was a man who was running about 20 different blogs through his Blogger account. On each blog, he would write on a different topic, and he earned about $2,000 in income each month through adsense. Blogger.com removed all of his blogs one day- claiming it was a violation of the service as they felt the man was using the blogs to create “Spam” or in this case, “Splog”; blogs created for the sole purpose of driving traffic to other websites and not provide any value to the readers.

If you don’t want to be subject to having your blog deactivated, you definitely want to go with WordPress and host it all on your own server. It costs a bit more to get started- you need to have a domain name and web hosting set up- but if you’re going to be blogging over the long-term, this is absolutely the way to go. WordPress itself is free though, and you are even able to download various themes to install to create the appearance of your blog. There are also literally hundreds of plug-ins that can be installed to provide additional functionality to your blog which can benefit you greatly if you plan to use your blog for professional reasons.

It’s fairly easy to get started with a WordPress blog. In fact, you get get started in just three, easy steps:

1)download your copy of WordPress: http://www.wordpress.org/download/

2)purchase a domain name and host if you don’t already have one.

3)Install your WordPress blog- and get blogging!

Blogging for Dollars was created by and is property of American Consumer News.