Please note that we are not providing legal, tax, accounting or other advice.  Please seek the advise of a competent attorney for legal advice and accountant for financial, tax and/or accounting advice.

1. How can I protect myself from work at home and home based business scams?

2. Why are there so many work at home scams and questionable business opportunities out there?

3. How effective are the Better Business Bureau(R) and other consumer agencies at helping protect me from work at home and home business scams?

4. Do you know a source of SCAM-FREE business opportunities and work at home jobs?

5. How difficult is it to open my own home based business? What qualifications does one need to have to open their own home based business?

6. Is envelope stuffing real? What about paid survey sites?  Are there real jobs like that and can I trust them?

7. How long does it take to make money with my own home based business?

8. Should I quit my job to start my own home based business?

9. I'm afraid to start my own home business because I'm worried about the taxes. I'm used to having them taken out of my paycheck.

10. What about benefits (like insurance, 401(K), etc.) when you own your own home based business?

11. What is the best legal entity for my new business?  A corporation? Partnership? LLC? Proprietorship?

Answers

1. How can I protect myself from work at home and home based business scams?
The most important thing you must know to protect yourself from unscrupulous business opportunities on the internet is not to believe everything you read. Don't believe testimonials, awards, security endorsements, advertising claims, claims of affiliation, claims of income, claims about how long someone's been in business, nothing.  Assume that every word is a lie. Now, having said that, we have to realize, of course, that not all work at home or business opportunity websites are dishonest or unscrupulous!  How do you separate the two?  First, question the claims made at the website carefully.  Watch out for promises that no honest company could possibly keep (such as guarantees of certain income or a guarantee that you'll get a job.) If you find a website that seems credible and you feel you're really interested in, get their exact company name and address. Ignore the phone number. If a company doesn't provide their address and company name, ignore them! Once you have a company name and address, call directory assistance (this is worth a dollar, we promise) and ask them for the telephone number of the company you are considering doing business with. Be sure that the company name and address match.  If directory assistance gives you the phone number that matches, call it and see if it is the type of company you're considering.  If so, you've just accomplished two important things:  1) You've eliminated 99% of all scams and greatly improved your chances of success, 2) You've established that the company is reputable and solid enough to have a real business telephone number , and 3) You've verified that you at least have a telephone number to call if you need to reach the company.  Check with consumer agencies, too, but we strongly recommend you read this page about the Better Business Bureau.

2. Why are there so many work at home scams and questionable business opportunities out there? Unfortunately, there are so many scams because there are so many people to fall for them.  If we could make one wish it would be to educate everyone about how to protect themselves from work at home scams and unscrupulous business opportunities. With the internet just about any lying idiot can open a website and if he's creative enough, he can make it extremely credible to you.  We urge you to do LOTS of due diligence before trusting any work at home or business opportunity website and feel free to use the information at our site if it helps you. Incidentally, if we recommend a company at our website and specifically refer to it as 'scam-free' it means we're confident you can trust them.

3. How effective are the Better Business Bureau(R) and other consumer agencies at helping protect me from work at home and home business scams?
Most consumers are very misled about the Better Business Bureau.  They don't know, for example, that The Better Business Bureau SELLS memberships to companies.  Companies pay very large amounts of money to the Better Business Bureau in order to appear more trustworthy to you. BBB Members are not necessarily just great, honest companies that provide great customer service.  They're just companies that paid a fee to look good! Also, the worst of all the scams, the websites that appear and disappear, the companies that do mailings and spam under many different names, and the companies that hide their addresses and telephone numbers, are all very successful at evading the BBB's radar most of the time because of the way the BBB compiles reports.  In fact, the more reputable, stable companies that are in business at the same address under the same name for a long time can actually appear less trustworthy than fly by night scams according to consumer agency reports, simply because they sit still long enough to accumulate reports and complaints, even if from a very small percentage of their customers. Use reports from consumer agencies as one of your tools of protection, not all of it.

4. Do you know a source of SCAM-FREE business opportunities and work at home jobs?
If we know of valuable resources such as scam-free sources or jobs or business opportunities we will usually post them at our site where you can find it and we'll properly note the fact that we believe the resource is scam-free.

5. How difficult is it to open my own home based business?
Some businesses are very easy to start and require little more than some hard work and a good attitude while others are very difficult.and/or require specific training or education and are not available to most people. IT DOES NOT TAKE A FORMAL EDUCATION TO BE QUALIFIED TO OPEN YOUR OWN BUSINESS. In fact, according to work at home statistics published by the U.S. Department of Labor, higher education seems to be a handicap to owning your own home based business. All educational groups (those with less than high school ed, those with only a high school diploma and no college, those with some college, those with advanced college education), have a virtually equal shot at owning their own home based business according to the statistics. At Open-Your-Own-Home-Busines.com we LOVE to list home based business opportunities at our site that most people can do by working hard and self-educating in the areas where they're weak. Even if you've never run a business before, or you don't understand business math, or you don't understand marketing... many of these things can be learned from other business people, books, or informal education. If you want to own your own business bad enough, there is very little that can stop you.

6. Is envelope stuffing real? What about paid survey sites?  Are there real jobs like that and can I trust them?
Legitimate envelope stuffing jobs that pay more than 2 cents a piece to stuff do not exist.  We repeat:  Envelope stuffing jobs that pay more than 2 cents a piece to stuff do not exist.  PLEASE DON'T PAY MONEY FOR AN ENVELOPE STUFFING JOB. To avoid getting scammed, please also avoid the modern versions of the envelope stuffing scam... the email processing scam, the order processing scam, the paid survey scam and the data entry scam. Real jobs do exist in these fields, but they will never expect you to pay for them.

7. How long does it take to make money with my own home based business?
Every home business is different.  If you start a home based business, for example, that provides a product or service to existing clients, you may be profitable from the first day since home businesses are usually so much less expensive to start than traditional businesses. On the other hand it may take years to for your new home business to be profitable.  It's just impossible to say.  When you do your original business projections, it's always best to be thorough and conservative with your numbers.  There's no such thing as being disappointed when you make more money than you expected or can pay our bills faster than you expected.  It's an entirely different matter, though, to be overly optimistic in your projections and then be disappointed or put in a serious financial bind because your home business isn't measuring up to your projections.  Be conservative.

8. Should I quit my job to start my own home based business?
Everybody's situation is different.  If you've consulted the proper legal and accounting professionals, have done the due diligence on your business opportunity and worked out a solid, realistic business plan and projections and you feel confident you can survive financially until your business is realizing the profits you need and projected, perhaps you can take the risk and quit your job.  If you don't have money in savings or are not in a position to go without income, it's probably not a good idea to just end your source of income to do something risky like start your own business. Everyone's situation is different and you can benefit from talking to competent advisors, like the free business counselors at the Small Business Administration.

9. I'm afraid to start my own home business because I'm worried about the taxes. I'm used to having them taken out of my paycheck.
Yes, owning your own home based business is in some ways completely different from having that old, traditional job. Taxes is one of the things that changes. A competent accountant can advise you on ways to eliminate the hassle and risk from paying your own taxes.

10. What about benefits (like insurance, 401(K), etc.) when you own your own home based business?
Unless you have a work at home job as a regular employee (versus a work at home job as an independent contractor), you will probably be required to pay your own benefits as someone with their own home based business. This will include providing your own health and other insurance and retirement programs.  Depending on the form of entity you choose for your business, you may still be able to contribute to your own IRAs and similiar retirement programs.  An accountant can advise you on such matters.

11. What is the best legal entity for my new business?  A corporation? Partnership? LLC? Proprietorship?
Each form of business structure has its own degree of difficulty or ease in operation, it's own protection or lack of protection of your personal assets, and cost of setting up. This is a very crucial decision can have huge impact on your financial situation, your financial security and your taxes.  Discuss this with a competent accounting professional.