Work-from-home scams

Work-from-home scams are common and sometimes advertise on websites, and can be attractive if you are looking for work. If a job seems too good to be true, it usually is! Always thoroughly research any work-from-home offer and do not get involved unless you are 100% sure the business is legitimate.

You should also be aware that some kinds of work-from-home schemes may actually be pyramid schemes, which are illegal under Irish law – and you can face a fine or imprisonment for setting up or being involved in one.

Here are four common types of work-at-home scams:

Envelope stuffing

An advertisement appears offering work packing envelopes and asking you to forward a fee for the materials. When you respond to the advert with the fee, instead of getting materials to send out on behalf of a company, you get instructions to place an ad like the one you saw, asking people to send you money for information about the same work. This is an illegal pyramid scheme because there is no real product or service being offered. You won’t get rich, and you could be prosecuted.

Making products and selling them back to the company

An advertisement offers work putting products together, like model kits or toy dolls, and selling them back to the company. When you return the completed product you are often told there is no market for the product or that the work is poor or defective.

Either way, you don’t get paid and the company get their manufacturing for free.

Reshipping fraud

This is also known as the "postal forwarding" scam. You get offered an at-home job that involves repackaging goods, which may have been stolen, and forwarding them abroad.

Scammers ask you to pay your own postal charges, and then repay you with a fake cheque. Those who fall for reshipping scams may be liable for shipping charges and possibly prosecution for fraud or handling stolen goods. To add insult to injury you have paid the postal costs as well.

An advance on your pay

This scam takes the form of an advertisement offering a work-from-home job where you get paid an advance before you do any work. You receive cheque as an advance payment but then you are notified you have been overpaid. You are also asked to send a cheque for the amount of the overpayment back to the “employer”.

By the time it becomes clear that the cheque has bounced, you may find that the cheque you sent back has been cashed. Victims of this scam are known as “money mules”.