Avoiding Scams During a Recession
Losing your job during a recession can be a scary thing—especially when your checking account has emptied out or gone into overdraft. Criminals also use situations like an economic recession to intensify their scam efforts against you who might be without a job. Here are some things to look out for and avoid scams during a recession:
Do not get desperate. When people get desperate, they make hasty decisions and fall into the scams that are numerous during a recession. Keep a cool head. Things don’t happen right away. You don’t miss one payment on your home and they foreclose the next day. You have time although not much.
You can’t make $5,000 per week working from home. You’ll notice these scam ads more when you are on your hard luck. These ads are not true but you might be tempted to give it a try. Don’t waste your time.
Never pay for the opportunity to find work. Don’t pay money for a list of job leads. Don’t pay money to register on freelance job boards. Avoiding scams during a recession means only spending money on sure things and not speculation.
Making money on the internet is primarily focused on marketing. Some who run scams will tell you the internet is a gold mine and there are many millionaires made on it. However the truth is that since the dot com crash of 2000, most money to be made on the internet deals with marketing and selling ad space and you won’t be a millionaire from working in these areas on the internet.
Never take on any job that requires you to collect payments. These scams are usually employment offers from a foreign company asking you to collect payments from clients in America and then you send them a check via Western Union after taking your commission. What happens is the payment checks bounce and you are stuck liable for the amount. It sounds like an easy job and is tempting during a recession but it could clean you out.
Be careful of freelance jobs for high dollar amounts. If you decide to go freelance to hold you over between jobs during a recession, be careful of freelance work offers where the payoff is $500 or more. These jobs are rare and those running scams will try to lure you in by this attractive payout. The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to get a non-refundable deposit before starting work.
Be careful of working for family and friends. You would be surprised how many times family and friends take advantage of the freelancer trying to make some income while in between jobs in the recession. For example, you might offer a service repairing PCs and get a call from the uncle you have not seen in awhile. He might have some really difficult PC problem when what he really needs to do is get rid of the dinosaur computer and buy a new one. So he calls you up with total confidence that you’ll fix his problem. While this may not be a scam, it will certainly be unprofitable for you because you’ll spend more time than the job is worth. Plus, when it comes time to pay, you more than likely will cut your uncle a break and charge nothing or very little. Many uncles will gladly accept your gesture and you still won’t be able to buy groceries during the recession.