This article is by guest blogger Sarah Lam - Writing Consultant.

“I will never get cheated”. People always say so. At least you think so.

Too bad you never know when someone will cheat on you.

It is time to review again, how you can avoid scams whether you are looking for work or business opportunities.

There are eight tips to remember.

1. Too good to be true.

When someone is making an offer you can’t even believe it, chances are the offer is a scam to lure you into giving all your hard-earned money to the irresponsible people behind the scam.

2. Use your common sense.

I am sure you are old enough to think logically at all times. If you come across a job offering you all the money you want and yet you have nothing much to do, just how true can that be? There is no free lunch.

3. Get rich quick? Think again!

There is no such thing as get rich quick scheme that really works. With so many stories around the world involving get rich quick schemes, you should have known better that they are all scams.

4. Think hard before you agree on any deals.

Yes, think, think and think again many times before you say ‘yes’ to any deals anyone offers to you. If someone offers you RM5000 a month just to work as a data entry at home, think of those who earn RM5 per hour as a data entry in the office. If it is so easy to earn RM5000 a month, then there won’t be anyone working for a mere RM5 per hour.

5. Why pay for a job when you are supposed to get paid to do the job?

This is the question you need to ask yourself when you are looking for a job. Job agency? It is better to do your research before engage in any job agencies to find a job. Never pay any money to get a job.

6. Ask as many questions as possible during interviews.

When you are going for an interview, make sure you ask the job scope, the salary range, the working hours, the terms and conditions and of course, the benefits of working for the company. Chances are if any of the answers are suspicious enough for you, they lied. Think of as many questions you want to ask so you get to know more about the company and the people behind it.

7. No one offers you a job before an interview.

Just as much as we want to know our potential employers, they want to know about us too. Therefore, usually before you secure a job, you have to go through interviews. If someone offers you a job without having an interview, beware!

8. Look out for work-at-home scams.

Scan the newspapers and I am sure you get a lot of classifieds claiming that you can earn big money while working at home. I don’t deny the possibility but it is the way they conduct the business that is the scam. I know there are many people who wants to work at home. In fact, I am working at home.

Once, I sent a payment of RM80 for an ‘instructional CD’ complete with the ‘materials’ I need to start my own home business. I realised that whatever I have received from them are useless or to be exact, garbage.

Usually, they will talk about how much you can earn by doing small jobs such as sending out letters and so on. Then, they will proceed to ask you to pay a ‘small’ amount of fee to get started. By that time, you will believe it is true that you will hand the money to them instantly. The payment is usually through bank-in. Beware! Never trust such a scheme. It doesn’t work. They are the only ones who will be rich and you will get poorer as soon as you bank-in the money.

With these tips, I hope you will be better equipped the next time you search for a job. Good luck!

Thanks to Rommel for informing us that we are mentioned in one of the section in New Straits Times Press (NSTP). In this article, they are talking about Data Entry Scam by job agencies. They suggest the readers to identify the scam companies with our list of scam companies.

Thanks to your community who report all the scam companies that cheated them. Our list had grew from days to days. From this point, we understand that many people is forgetting the rule of employment - "Never pay any money upfront before getting a job".

Feel free to click on the image below to read the whole article.

DataEntryPortal is a company for general Data Entry Work. However, as there are thousands of scam artists also trying to sell this kind of lucrative business opportunities, it has virtually become impossible to find a genuine one. This article will try to illustrate some point which will clarify that, DataEntryPortal.com, like many other scam artists, also falls into the world of black listed names.

First and foremost, they do not have any address or any person’s contact umber. Had it been a legit organization sincerely working towards its goal, it must have an office and customer support centre, but none you can find in the website, clearly signaling something fishy is going on.

The promised amount per day is around USD 400, which is really quite high for Data Entry works and thus naturally springs out an air of suspicion. This suspicion is further fuelled by the fact that when you see, just like other scam sites, it also requires you to pay a ONE TIME fee of USD 57. So, if it is a work that you will do, and will pay a commission to the company, then you should have no reason to pay any startup fees; but, here you have to pay which is obviously a telling factor that you are going to waste your money and nothing else.

In their testimonial section, there is no way to verify the so called “Satisfied” users who have put their comment to bolster the claim of DataEntryPortal.com. Therefore, you do not have any guarantee that the comments are really genuine or not. Further, on top of the page, they have assured you that they can not in any way help you to identify the person, thus, al these comments are just lies for sure.

Here is a comment from the victim:

I need to tell you about the biggest scam I have ever seen. The site is http://www.DataEntryPortal.com

If you want to see a scam to its fullest, this is it. I paid $57.00 and all I got was some links to other Data Entry companies that you have to pay more money…That was it! I could have found the same content and more by doing a search on Google for “Data Entry Jobs” So I contacted them because they show a “Risk free Guarantee” on their site which is the only reason I would have tried it anyways. BUT, when I requested a refund they said to read the fine print of their “Terms of Use” which states no refunds. Very deceptive advertisement. I see why they would not give the money back because if you see what you get for $57.00, they would have 100% of their customers demanding refunds.

Source: Joe

All in all, I’ll recommend you to stay away from such scam artists who claims to provide you Data entry jobs in exchange of fee and with no address or any person’s contact number. These are just imposters and cheaters who will rob you off your money if you give them any chance.

Last week, we received a request from Siddhartha as below:

"I want to know about the organisation called GoFreelance.com which is earlier known as freelanceworkexchange.com.Is it a fraud or genuine
organisation?" from Siddhartha.

We sent our fraud Investigation Team to review it. Here is the Report:

GoFreelance.com (Previously known as "Freelance Work Exchange") - Launched in 1998, it’s a freelance job search portal for freelancers. It is running by an effective group of freelancers by themselves. Companies requiring work done in the area of graphic design, programming, data entry, web development, article writing, copywriting or other freelance areas can easily find the right person for their work with great ease and in a very cost-effective way.

To start off, you need to be a member of the site. Membership fee is $2.95 and you end up getting a bunch of other free stuffs as well. To get an instant feel, you can go through the Job Search Page and can find out how many job postings are there on your chosen area of expertise. It has a whole section dedicated to writers about the immediate writing prospects and also postings from other clients.

Besides the regular contents, the web portal has good articles and some job pointers on how to initiate a home business, work at home trends, telecommuting, photography, videos and engineering.

For people who want to post jobs, it is free for them. What needed is few minutes to post a job and wait for the freelancers to pick up the offer. However, the client can always cancel the project if she/he is not satisfied with the freelancers proposed criteria.

Normally the freelancer’s base is extremely huge and extends to all form of freelance works. The client can easily go through the list of freelancers available and check out their particulars such as experience, expertise, minimum rate of payment etc.

It has quite a detailed section dedicated to customer queries and questions. In fact the common customer problems have already been discussed quite nicely in its Help section. You have to gain a ticket to get the full customer support.

Overall this web resource is a fantastic one-stop shop for clients looking to get their work done and a great platform for freelancers all over to find the project of his choice in a great number. Up to this point, this site is as genuine as AsiaPartTime. You should give a try.

Myfastcash.biz is an online business establishment mainly concentrating on data entry type of online work. It promises an earning of around $1,700- $7000 per week and vows to take only first 200 people that registered with it. 

The name of the establisher is happened to be Joe Kerz. The business offers the same inducements as the other Work From Home type of business. But before anything, we must verify it’s legitimacy as there are an umpteen number of fraudulent cases recorded already. Tips: always check the program with Better Business Bureaus (BBB)

Look and Feel

First comes the page design. Needless to say, it gives you the same look and feel of a regular scam site promising various kind of eye-catching dreams. It gives you images of some people who have been claimed to be very satisfied,  it will give you pictures of paypal transactions and few system related images such as a mere out of the rack login screen.

No Free Lunch

No touch of professionalism you can find at all from any aspect of the page. Then the big thing, that is, is it free or not, and you see that you actually have to pay around USD 50, which is natural for any scam sites. After a while, to your utter consternation, you will see that this program, that is the owner actually vows to you that he will instantly fill your account with USD 60, while you are having to pay USD 50 to start, and the could have very easily charge you nothing at all in exchange of crediting your account with USD 60 as a gift only.

High Rewards

This is enough to prove the actual motive of the claimed owner. And obviously, the amount they promise, that is $1,700 – $7,000 is way too high comparing any legitimate work-from-home business. Too good to be true.

Hidden Identity

Also like every other scam site, it has no contact address, you can email them, but you can not know the office address or anything like this.

Further, it has another URL, ‘www.fastdatacash.com’, which it never mentions anywhere, germinating another degree of suspicion in it already suspicious approach towards the data-entry business plan.

Conclusion

Considering their risible gift offer, too high promised payment, the look & feel of the website, lack of proper address and slyly operating one single website under two different URLs, we can safely conclude that it is indeed a scam as many other.