CraigsList Posts Job Scam Alert

CraigsList can be a decent place to look for work at home jobs, although it has its issues. Among them are that you can only search one metro area at a time and that CraigsList draws a lot of scammers so you need to be careful in screening which work home jobs you apply for. As I was visiting CraigsList today, I saw the following alert, directly from CraigsList with respect to job openings in general:

SCAM ALERT - affiliate scammers are posting bogus ads promising (nonexistent!) employment, paid research trials, or other compensation, but then notifying repliers that they'll need to jump through a hoop first, directing them to:

• background checking services
• credit checking or reporting sites
• sites where you are instructed to enter your resume or other personal information
• sites where you are asked to sign up for a "free" trial offer
• sites offering training or education
• sites offering a "system" for making money
• survey or focus group sites
• sites designed to deliver malware or misuse your identifying information

all in hopes of earning affiliate marketing commissions or otherwise profiting at the expense of persons seeking employment.

Lots of variations on this scam, but each generally involves dangling (nonexistent!) compensation, and then directing you to a website where you are asked to sign up for something, use your credit card, or input personal information such as your email address.

Then there is a link to the job postings in the category you selected so you can proceed, but you might want to continue reading the scam alert before you do so, for the following information:

FUN FACT: If you are able to determine a scammer's "affiliate ID" and report it to their affiliate marketing program, this will often result in termination of the scammer, and confiscation of the scammer's ill-gotten gains by the affiliate program.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the Google Work at Home Scams listed in CraigsList, since those work at home programs seem to be actively recruiting affiliates who are probably unaware they are participating in something that's often seen as a illegal.

Be vigilant, regardless of where you seek work at home. I sometimes use CraigsList as a source for my weekly Work at Home Jobs List and although I scan for clues that the ads I post are legit before I pass them on to you, it's impossible for me to apply for each posting to determine if it fits the mold of the scam job ads that CraigsList warns about.

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