What Actually Happens When You Sign Up for One of Those 'Work from Home' Scams

We’ve all seen the ads: “Make £2,000 a week working from home,” or, ahem, “Start working at home with Google..” but have you ever wondered what happens when you actually try to sign up for one of those programmes? Planet Money figured that out.

First things first. In most cases, a work at home scam is almost always about selling 'helping' you start your own online business. Which is to say, surprise, you don’t get to just sit around in your pants and look at the Internet all day. I’m guessing you can see where this is going, but here’s Planet Money on how it typically plays out:

Here’s how it works. When you respond to one of those ads, you give them your name and your contact info. Then, you get a call from someone at a call centre saying so, you want to work from home...

You want to set up a website? They can build it for you. They’ll coach you on how to run a web business, handle all the paperwork, the accounting...

Of course, what’s actually delivered is either a terrible website or nothing at all, but that comes well after they get a bunch of money from someone. The whole scam follows a very specific script that builds rapport with the person before extracting a credit card number. It’s a pretty obvious scam and it’s amazing that it actually works.

Still, even if you fancy yourself savvy on these types of things, Planet Money goes through a ton of sales tactics that are applicable beyond just 'work from home' scams that are worth looking out for.