This scam is NOT condoned or ran by Google. There are actually legitimate ways to use Google AdWords and other marketing tools to make money off of affiliate marketing with Google. However, the program is not “easy as 1-2-3″ and not everyone can succeed with “little effort”. Working with AdWords and similar PPC campaigns takes a lot of work, and knowledge of internet marketing, search engines, and the rules of these services.

There are hundreds of scam websites dedicated to the Google work at home scam. They send out thousands of e-mails and attempt to recruit anyone telling them that for the “low price of $299″ they can get all the secrets of making millions with Google, doing nothing. It’s really not that simple. These sites are convincing to the unsuspecting eye, though. The problem lies here: people see others making money off of programs like Google AdWords and Yahoo! PPC, and they want a piece of the pie. They don’t realize that these people are marketing specialists and know what they’re doing, and that they work hard for their successes.

All the websites, spam emails and infomercials that spew promotions for “internet success” and “making millions off the internet doing nothing” have us brainwashed to believe that if we pay someone enough money that they can teach us the secret to becoming a millionaire. With so many people hurting for cash, scams like these are very attractive to the unsuspecting mind. Everyone wants to be rich, and if they can learn the “secrets” to financial freedom for only a few hundred dollars, they’re willing to do it.

This is the main problem with the Google work at home scam and other marketing scams. People are too willing to believe that they can actually make a decent living with little or no effort, and are so bent on financial independence that they are willing to pay someone to tell them how to do it. It truly doesn’t work that way. Yes, you can make money with Google. You can also make money with Yahoo!, eBay, and other online companies. However, it’s not as easy as the scammers make it sound, and you won’t be an overnight millionaire.

That’s not all. Are you ready for the best part?

Everything these scamming idiots try to sell you, you can learn for yourself simply by researching different affiliate marketing programs and ways to make money with different websites and companies.

Wait. What?

There’s no secrets? No “tricks to making millions”?

Nope.

The scam artists play on people’s desire to be financially idependent, and convince them that they can, if only through buying their book or training kit with all the “secrets” exposed. They seal the deal by telling you that you can’t find these tricks anywhere else, and that they’re “exclusive” to the program.

That, my friends, is a load of crap. Excuse my frankness, but it is. These people take money from unsuspecting people, and then leave them with marketing solutions that aren’t as simple or lucrative as they originally were told they would be, and people are left $300 or more poorer, with no real “secrets to success.”

The Google work at home scam is just one of many that are floating around the internet right now. Let’s hope that people start to wise up and realize the golden rule of working at home, and really for anything in life:

IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT IS.

Don’t let the scam artists win. Keep this information in mind, and tell all your friends so that no one is left high and dry by these con artists.

Finding the best work at home job for your needs will depend greatly on which types of jobs you’re looking for, as well as what skills you already have that may be useful in a home-based career. For example, if you have worked for the past ten or twenty years as an office assistant, you can find similar jobs in the work at home field. However, if you worked in retail, like me, and want to do something different, you may not have much prior experience or a skill base to go off of. No worries. You can still find work from home jobs without paying fees no matter how much (or how little) experience you have.

Your first move should be to determine what kind of position(s) you’re looking for. Then you can begin the quest to find them. Check out sites like CraigsList, Monster, CareerBuilder, and GetAFreelancer.com to see what work from home job listings they have available. All of these sites are free, and have job listings around the country, and even around the world. Most work from home positions are flexible in that they don’t require a specific location of their employees. You could reside in Southern Florida and work for a company out of California, Canada, or even Europe. Aside from the language barrier and the currency differences, nothing is stopping you from working with any company you want.

Back to my original point. You can find work from home jobs without paying fees in a variety of places online. The exact place that you’ll find your perfect job will depend on what you’re looking for, as well as what you’re capable of. But no matter what, finding these jobs is an option, as long as you know where to look.

I don’t have an “internet job”… don’t make me sound so simple minded. There is no such thing as an “Internet job”. There are jobs outside the home, and jobs that you can do at home. I work at home. And that doesn’t make my job easy. Just because I sit at home and use the internet for communication with the people I work with, doesn’t mean I have an easy internet job. No such thing exists.

So if you want to find an easy work at home job, stop searching now. There is no such thing. Work is called work for a reason. It’s not supposed to be easy. And working from home is at least twice as hard as working in a traditional job. Care to challenge that? I have backup:

* Joe goes into the office at 9 AM. He works a little, until 10:30 when he takes a coffee break. Then he sits back down at his desk and piddles around until noon, when it’s time for lunch. He takes his hour lunch break, comes back at 1:00 PM, and works some more. He takes another coffee break at 3:30, and then finishes up his work and is on his way home by ten after five. And he gets paid salary, so every minute of his day is paid, except for his hour lunch, regardless of whether he actually gets any work done or not. Of course, over time, Joe would get fired if he did nothing all the time, but you get my point.
* My day: I get up at 7 AM. I make coffee, and sit down to peruse my email and get my assignments for the day. I then write my blogs here, for which I am paid. Then I start on my next project. Ten articles that have to be done by a certain time. At some point, I stop to eat lunch, but then it’s right back to work. I move on to the next assignment, and will be lucky if I’m done by 5 or 6 PM. I get paid for each assignment that I turn in that day, but if I’m sick or don’t actually finish any assignments, I get nothing.

I can’t do nothing and still get my daily pay. Those who have succeeded in working from home envy those who still have a 9 to 5 where they can clock in and out by a schedule, regardless of what they do all day. So can I help you find an easy work at home job? No.

If you want to work from home, you have to be dedicated to the job. You also have to be self-motivated, because there will be no boss breathing down your neck, making sure you get your work done. And sitting around the house can get old really fast, and there are always a million other things to do. As I sit here at my desk, I turn toward the kitchen and see the dishes from dinner staring me down. I see the laundry piling up. But doing those things HAS to wait until I’m done working. Working from home takes focus; honestly, some days, I don’t even have it. But I pay for it, because I get paid less (or nothing at all) if I don’t get things done.

So if you want to work from home, that’s great. I’m glad that someone else wants to join my quest for doing what they love. If you want to find an easy work at home job, don’t bother. The job you have, regardless of what it is, will be far easier than any home based position, because on those days you just show up and aren’t feeling productive, you’ll still get paid. I won’t.

The best work at home jobs are the ones that work for you. The jobs that suit your specific skills, abilities, and/or needs are the ones that you should look into. There isn’t a Top 10 list of the best, and you certainly can’t choose a job just because it’s popular. What if I told you that the best work at home jobs were only for aerospace engineers? Exactly. So keep this in mind when you’re searching.

So, what are the best work from home jobs?

Well, the best jobs are the ones that you check into, that are legitimate. They’re also the ones that pay you what you deserve to be paid, and that meet your skill set and needs in the way of employment. For example, if you’re a writer, finding a writing gig on Craig’s List or another freelance site is the best option for you; conversely, a programmer will be best suited to find a programming job that needs their skills and pays what they’re looking for.

Be prepared to negotiate when it comes to finding work from home positions. Too many people expect us to work for free, or close to it, nullifying the validity of our work. Just because we work from home doesn’t mean we’re willing to work for recognition or ad revenue sharing. We have real bills and need real paychecks, too. When someone needs a job, they need a JOB. Not a free consult, a profit sharing gig, or a “just out of the kindness of our hearts” project. If kindness paid bills, it’d be another story, but it doesn’t so it’s not.

What are the best work from home jobs?

In summary, I guess you can say the best work at home jobs are ones that:

* meet your skillset
* make use of your talents
* pay you what you deserve or need to be paid
* appreciate you for all you offer
* don’t expect you to do something for nothing

Hopefully, this will give you a better perspective on working from home. I know that you’d like to see a list of the best jobs, but “the best” is totally dependent upon each individual person.

Scam #1: Sell stuff on eBay without touching any product:

This scam works by convincing you that a legitimate person doesn’t have the time or effort to list items to sell on eBay. They ask you to have an account with a good feedback score, so that people are more likely to buy the products. Then, you list the products, they sell, the people pay, and you pay the person you’re listing for. That’s all good and well, but what happens when the people don’t get their stuff? Then you are forced to refund their money, and by that time Mr. “Sell my stuff on eBay” is long gone, and you’re screwed out of a lot of money.
**NOTE: THERE ARE LEGITIMATE SELL ON EBAY JOBS, BUT YOU NEED TO RESEARCH FULLY BEFORE YOU GET INVOLVED BECAUSE IT’S HARD TO TELL THEM FROM THE SCAMS**

Scam #2: Learn how to make millions, doing nothing, with my training package:

You can’t get money for nothing. Really. The people that run these marketing scams will have you pay for their training package, choc full of “secrets to unlimited wealth”… and all for the great price of only $199.99… YEAH RIGHT. There are NO secrets. There is no “magic product”… they just send you the training kit, which teaches you how to scam others into buying the training kits… Sounds dumb, huh? Too bad so many people are still falling for it. It’s not their fault though. Everyone wants to be a millionaire, and if they can do it by just paying a little money, why not? These scam artists are good, so watch out.

Scam #3: Any position that makes you pay a large sum of money for “exclusive leads or information”

If there is a job to be had, you can find it online, free of charge. No one is going to have “exclusive information” or “secret listings” that you have to pay for. Too many people pay $20 to $50 or more each month for “exclusive access” … for no reason whatsoever. If you want to invest in a business opportunity, expect to pay money to purchase the product or business. Otherwise, if you’re just looking for a job, you should never have to pay for it. Would you pay A.G. Edwards to hire you as a financial advisor? I didn’t think so.

There are many more scams related to work at home jobs, but these are the three categories that most of them fall into. If you see something that resembles one of these, report them to the BBB and run the other way.

There can be a rare occasion where you find a really good job and it does seem too good to be true when it really isn’t, but those are few and far between.

If you’re going an alternate route, and looking for Yahoo work at home jobs in the sense that you actually want to work WITH Yahoo, you can find those positions as well. They might not be as readily available, but they are still easy to find. If you visit Yahoo’s home page, you can scroll to the bottom and click on the “careers” link, allowing you access to all of their openings. Many of the positions you find will require you to be on-site in their various offices around the country, but a few will allow you to work from home and still be employed by one of the most popular companies in the internet world.

It doesn’t matter what type of Yahoo work at home jobs you’re looking for; whether you want a job with Yahoo or just listings for other jobs, you can find exactly what you need as long as you’re willing to take the time to search. A little time and effort will always yeild great results when it comes to working from home and finding the jobs you want.

Second, are you willing to apply for job after job until the right one comes along? And if you do project-based work, can you afford to live from one project to the next without steady pay? If you really want to do it, you should, by all means, but it’s not as easy as it seems. Let me give you an example. If you’re still pondering the ‘will I like the work at home job’ question, here you go:

I get up at 7 AM. I have coffee, breakfast, and do the morning email ritual. I work from about 7:30 or 8 until noon. Then I eat lunch. Then I work some more, some days till 5 or 6 if I don’t have a lot to do, but most days, I take a dinner break and go back at it until 9 or 10 at night. Then I get up and do it all over again. Sure, the money is awesome. But I work ALL the time. Because I like to, but also because I’ve got so many people who appreciate my work and I can’t bear to turn any of them down.

So, now, hopefully you are better poised to answer the question. If you still aren’t sure, give it a try. If it sucks, go back to the working world outside of the house.

What’s the catch? All work at home job scam companies will have some sort of catch in their ads. It’ll cost you X amount to sign up, or you’ll need this much money for the training package. Maybe it’s free, buy you’re expected to NOT sign any contracts and produce a whole month of work before being paid. Companies are getting much better at pulling the wool over your eyes, because they know that we’re getting better at finding the scams out there. Once, I was given a “job” where I worked myself to death doing these tiny little Q & A things, and made some pretty good money. However, about 3 weeks or so into the job, I get told the contract has ended, and that we’re done, just waiting on final pay. Then, when that happens, I wait. And I wait. And I lose $250 that I was owed because I got hosed by not signing a contract or some sort of legal agreement that I had to be paid. I was hard up for work, naiive, and will never fall for that again.

So if you think you’ve found a work at home job scam, move on. Don’t even bother investigating it; just go with your gut. If your gut says “run away”, don’t look back. However, if it just seems like luck that you didn’t think you deserved, research the company, their policies, and make sure that you have some sort of contract or binding agreement. For me, I work with companies in the long term and have contracts with them. If it’s a project based job, I require half payment up front, before work begins. Then we both have something to lose, so we both do our job. I do the work to get the rest of my money, and they pay me so that they can reassure me that they’re legit. After time, I’ve acquired a couple of gigs that are more personal, and that don’t require me to get money up front anymore. But you can NEVER be too careful.

When it comes to avoiding a work at home job scam, these are just some things that you should keep in mind, along with the golden rule of working from home:

IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT IS.

* Look for JOBS, not business opportunities. Check out sites like Craigslist, Monster, CareerBuilder, and more. They have actual job postings, not just “make $5,000 a week” scam opportunities.
* Research, research, research. You will likely get sucked into something you didn’t intend on if you don’t take the time to research your options and find the right job for your needs. You wouldn’t pay a traditional employer to hire you; why should a home job be any different?
* Know what you want. Finding and applying for home-based jobs is just like conducting a traditional job search. Instead of reading your local classifieds, though, you’ll be searching online. Make sure you find reputable sources and only apply to jobs that you’re suited for.

Keeping these things in mind will help you to find work at home jobs without paying a fee. You should always remember that if you are looking for a job, it will offer an hourly or project based pay rate, and require you to invest nothing. Just as you wouldn’t pay McDonald’s to hire you, you should never pay a company to hire you for a work at home position.

For those looking to take inbound customer service or sales calls, you’ll need to have a dedicated phone line for your work from home telephone work. This will likely be patched to an 800-number or call center, where the calls are routed to your line accordingly, based on the type of call that comes in. Inbound call centers are the most popular type to use home-based employees and their personal phone lines for their services, because it’s easy to patch users through to a remote person or employee that is taking the call from their home. It’s also more cost-effective than setting up a call center and paying the physical overhead. There is much to be learned about this type of work, though, and you’ll need to make sure that you take the time to be properly trained. You’ll also need a quiet environment that is secluded so that you can appear as professional as possible.

Outbound calling, also known as telemarketing in the world of work from home telephone work, is a little more complicated to do from home. You’ll need to be properly trained, and again, you should have a phone line dedicated to your work for this position. You can’t have the kids running through your office space, or the television cranked to maximum when you’re making phone calls. This will appear unprofessional and make the customer or potential customer feel like they’re not being taken seriously or contacted by a professional company.

No matter which angle you take, work from home telephone work can be a very rewarding career if you’re good on the phone and able to have an environment that allows you to appear professional and focused on the customer.