How To Make Money Typing At Home

business mistakes
The ad reads:

Earn $500.00 a week Typing At Home

I read further on and got excited about the potential of earning money just from typing. Everything in that flyer made the prospect of earning money sound soooo eeeeaasy. My typing speed is over 50 words per minute and with that, I thought I could probably earn a lot.

I crossed my fingers, picked up the pen and filled out the form. I can't wait for morning to get to the post office first thing to mail the form together with my $65.00 check, which was broken down to $59.95 and shipping of $5.00. In my mind, I wanted to push the mailman to do a special delivery for me so the company can immediately accept my application and I can start receiving more than $500 a week! With my typing speed, I can probably ask the company for a bonus if I typed more than what they assign to me.

Results of the Ad

Well, after a couple of weeks, an impressive-looking big brown envelope came. I was so excited to open it up. Inside, I found one gray folder with a 35-sheet booklet consisting of almost blank pages. The whole "booklet" was a listing of companies, with addresses and telephone numbers, operating in the whole state (triple spaced between company names to increase the number of pages). The contents were printed only on one side of the paper, and triple spaced (not double spaced, but triple!). A motivational line saying "Years of Success and Profits for Joshua Moses" was printed on the cover as well as in the footer of every page. Flattering and motivating, isn't it? It sounded sincere, too.

The introduction page described the hard work done by their research staff compiling the list; but quick to say that the research company is not in any way connected or related to the companies listed on the supposed 'hot list.' Another page showed a copyright protection and an ISDN number for "The Broughton Hall 1998". It sounded legitimate and that real effort was put into the booklet!

The instructions included on the mailing reads that I basically have to contact each company and directly offer my typing services to them. Curious, I tried contacting some companies on the list on the remote possibility that they might indeed be looking for an extra typing hand. True to my expectations, not one of these companies know the existence of this list; and they are not hiring and do not need additional typists.

So basically the $65 I paid for was for thirty-five sheets of photocopied addresses and phone numbers of businesses in my state, which I can easily find in any phone book and yellow page directories. If the lay-out was more compressed, the whole booklet would be no more than 10 pages. Worse, it was a random list of useless leads of where to find jobs that will pay me to make money typing from home.

Why it is a Work at Home Scam

The packet I received after paying $65 was so different from my initial expectations about the work opportunity offered by the advertisement. I thought that the company will give me typing jobs directly, and that I will get paid after job completion. The ad did not specify that I would have to solicit the typing jobs myself!

The worst part was that there were no guarantees that the contacted company would in fact need typing services from an outside contractor like me. If you interpret it deeper, it sounds like, "We got your money, and now, you're on your own. Good luck — you really need it!"

The packet contained a note of thanks from the publisher, but there was no name, no address, no phone, nothing. There was no way to contact them to ask for a refund or even just to complain about your dissatisfaction.

Instead of spending your hard-earned money on scams like these, just go get the Yellow Pages because that is basically what you will get when you respond to ads like the above. As the saying goes, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

If you want to make legitimate money, read the article How to Legitimately Make Money Stuffing Envelopes.