Better Business Bureau Warns Employment Seekers to Look for Red Flags During their Summer Job Search - Tucson Citizen

Many students are off for summer break and find themselves searching for temporary work. Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona is warning high school and university students looking for work this summer to avoid common job scams.

“Many students seeking summer jobs may have little to no previous work experience, And are tempted to apply for jobs that require limited work experience but offer high salaries,” said Kim States, BBB President. “However, the reality is these offers may be scams rather than legitimate work opportunities.”

Ads are posted everyday in newspapers and on the Internet that promise “Summer jobs; make $300 a day” or “last year our employees made $10,000 over the summer”. The intent of these ads generally is to gather personal identity information or to get money from job seekers.

Here are 10 tip-offs that the “employment opportunity” could be a scam:

1. Big bucks for simple tasks. Watch out if they promise to pay you a lot of money for jobs that don’t seem to require much effort or skill. If it sounds too good to be true, it might be a scam.

2. Job offers out of nowhere from strangers. If they offer you a job without getting an application from you, meeting you, or doing an interview, it’s probably a scam. Don’t hand your personal information, especially your Social Security Number or credit card information to such people. This could lead to identity theft.

3. Requests for up-front payments. If someone wants you to make an advance payment to partake in a new business opportunity – especially if it’s a big investment, or you don’t have much information about the deal – this is a red flag. “Advance fee scams” are very common and they come in many varieties.

4. They ask you to wire the money. If you wire a payment to somebody, it’s gone forever. Wire transfers of money are a convenient and perfectly legitimate service. But scam artists often ask you to wire payments that they are requesting (especially to destinations in other countries) because they know you won’t be able to get your money back.

5. High pressure to do it now. Don’t be in a hurry to accept an unsolicited offer of work, or to make a business investment, particularly if the other party is asking you to spend your money on the deal. Take your time and check it out. If somebody tries to convince you that this is a “limited time” offer and you have to act now, just tell them to forget it. High pressure is a common sign that something’s wrong.

6. Refusal to give you full details in writing. Ask for complete information in writing. Look carefully at any documentation they might provide to make sure it answer all your questions. If they won’t give details, or don’t respond to questions, don’t do business with them.

7. References are missing or a bit suspicious. A real business should be able to give you professional references, ask for references and check them yourself. Even if the references seem good, don’t make your decision based on references alone. Do a careful background check; free Business Reviews are available at www.tucson.bbb.org

8. Contact information is missing or doesn’t make sense. Be very cautious if a company is trying to get you to accept a job, but seems to lack any established physical location with a real street address. A cell phone number and website address are not enough contact information. If there is an address, it’s worth taking a moment to check it out on the Internet.

9. They want you to buy expensive items. Be cautious if they expect you to make a major purchase of equipment, software, inventory, or information in order to get started in business. It seems like it might be a real business opportunity – but it’s not; the buyer makes the purchase and never receives the things needed to set up the business.

10. It has a bad rating with the BBB! Victims do complain to the BBB about work at home scams. It only takes minutes to check a company’s record with us at www.tucson.bbb.org

Your BBB can be reached 24/7 at our website www.tucson.bbb.org. For more valuable tips, visit our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/soazbbb.

For more consumer tips, visit www.tucson.bbb.org

This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2012 at 5:23 pm and is filed under alert, Life, scam. Tags for this post: BBB, Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona, job hunt, job scam, job search, looking for a job, scam, summer, temporary jobs, Tucson, unemployment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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New Work-at-Home Regulations Offer Consumers More Protections - Tucson Citizen

Effective March 1, amendments to the Federal Trade Commission’s Business Opportunity Rule go into effect. The changes implement new disclosures that work-at-home businesses must provide to ensure consumers have the appropriate information they need when considering a work-at-home program.

For decades, Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona has heard from consumers scammed out of money by work-at-home programs. Since January, BBB has given out more than 175 business reports to southern Arizona consumers interested in local work-at-home companies. And in the past 36 months, more than 10,000 complaints have been filed with BBB’s nationwide.

To help consumers make informed decisions about work-at-home programs, there are five key items work-at-home businesses must now disclose using the FTC approved disclosure form:

1. Its identifying information (i.e. the name, business address, and telephone number)

2. If earning claims are made, the basis for that claim

3. Whether the company, its affiliates or key personnel have been involved in certain legal actions

4. Whether the company has a cancellation or refund policy

5. A list of people who bought this business opportunity within the previous three years

While these new regulations will help consumers better understand these work-at-home programs, consumers still need to be vigilant and cautious. Here are common red flags to watch for that could indicate a work-at-home scam:

1. Non-compliance with the FTC’s new regulations. If a company is not willing to provide you all the information now required, walk away and report them to your BBB and the Federal Trade Commission.

2. Big bucks for simple tasks. Watch out if they promise to pay you a lot of money for jobs that don’t seem to require much effort or skill.

3. You are asked to invest money up-front. If someone asks you to make an advance payment – especially if it’s a big investment, or you don’t have much information about the deal – this is a red flag. Or, if they expect you to make a major purchase of equipment, software or inventory in order to get started, be careful. Often these are the most persuasive kinds of scams.

4. They ask you to wire money. If you wire a payment to somebody, it’s gone forever. Scam artists often ask you to wire payments because they know you won’t be able to get your money back.

5. High pressure to do it now. Don’t be in a hurry to accept an unsolicited offer of work, or to make a business investment, particularly if the other party is asking you to spend your money on the deal. Take your time.

If you feel you have been a victim of a work-at-home scam, file a complaint with BBB or with the FTC at www.ftc.gov.

To check the reliability of a company, visit www.tucson.org.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2012 at 2:24 pm and is filed under alert, Life, scam, Tips. Tags for this post: advertisement, BBB, Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona, complaints, sales, scam, Tucson, work at home, work from home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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