Creative Consumer: Avoid Work at Home Scams

Danielle W. wanted something she could do at home while on maternity leave. She paid fifty dollars for a kit to make twenty-four necklaces. When she got the kit, she discovered the string was too thick to fit through the beads. Undeterred, she bought her own replacement string. But the beads were so tiny that Danielle started getting headaches trying to see the holes. You'd have to have the eyes of an eagle and the patience of a saint to complete even one necklace.

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I once went undercover and ordered one of these kits to prove the point. We chose a woodworking project in which we were supposed to assemble teeny, tiny little wooden boxes. We took the kit to a professional wood shop and asked the experts to give it a try. After three painstaking hours, the pros gave up. Besides, who would want to buy a wooden box the size of a pack of gum?

Envelope-stuffing is the other classic work at home scheme. You've seen the want ads: "Make an extra $200 a week stuffing envelopes." The ads ask you to send money for more information. When you mail in your check, you get a packet that explains how to get into the envelope stuffing business. But there is no legitimate business. The packet teaches you how to take advantage of the next set of suckers. You're told to place your own classified ad then photocopy the very packet you're reading and send it to anybody who responds. That's the only envelope stuffing involved. If you follow this advice, you could be prosecuted for mail fraud. The postal inspector's office considers envelope stuffing an elaborate, illegal chain letter.

Often envelope-stuffing ads imply that there are big corporate clients eager to pay people to prepare their mailings for them. Just to show how ludicrous that is, I once did a little experiment. On live TV, I folded, stuffed and licked as many envelopes as I could in one minute. My total? Five envelopes. That's three hundred envelopes an hour --