You may see the pop-up advertisements everywhere you look: claiming to offer high pay with hardly any work involved.

The trouble is, consumers are scammed every day by many of these “opportunities,” losing large sums of money to the unscrupulous who prey upon the unemployed in times like these. With Kansas’ unemployment rate at 6.5 %, there is no shortage of people who are desperately searching for ways to get a paycheck. The unemployed, the disabled, students, senior citizens and stay-at-home parents are targeted by these scams. The Better Business Bureau warns that victims of such opportunistic scammers can lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Avoid becoming one of these victims by watching for certain warning signs:

• It seems too good to be true. A promise of big pay for a job that requires minimal effort and skill is probably phony.

• These schemes come in many forms. They may want money for background checks, for credit checks through a particular “agency” or for special equipment or information. Be wary as well of a job placement company that wants a large up-front fee to find you a job.

• They are quick to ask for personal information like Social Security or bank account numbers. Only after a job is absolutely confirmed as legitimate by checking their references and checking with the Better Business Bureau, should you give out such information.

• Contact information seems incomplete or doesn’t make sense. If there is no street address, beware. P.O. boxes can be rented and quickly abandoned. Even an address that sounds legitimate can be fake. Use Google Street View or other online “who is” websites to verify legitimacy.

• The wording of messages to you is garbled or full of grammatical errors. Many online scams are the work of people located outside the U.S. and for whom English is not their first language.

• References are missing or sound too grandiose. You should ask for lots of references and you should diligently check them out. A simple web search on the company name can be enlightening.

The Federal Trade Commission, a government agency charged with protection of American consumers, has issued a Business Opportunity Rule with safeguards against get-rich-quick business opportunities.

Under that Rule, those who try to sell you business opportunities must give you a one-page disclosure document with important facts about that opportunity. In it they must identify themselves, disclose any legal actions against them and explain their cancellation policy. Additionally if they are making a claim about how much you can earn, they must give you a separate earnings claim statement.

That earnings claim statement clearly outlines the specifics of their claim. They must give you the start and end date that the earnings are achievable within. The number and percentage of people who got those results must be divulged. If something about those people might differ from you, like the country they live in, they must say so. Finally, they must be able to give you a statement that is written proof of their earnings claim.

If obtaining all this information seems like a daunting task, ask yourself how daunting the task of replacing your lost hundreds or thousands of dollars to a scammer might be.

Work-from-home opportunities sound wonderful during hard economic times. But don’t be fooled by those little signs and ads with the boa**********l claims of easy money that are sprouting all around us. Do your homework and check with the Better Business Bureau before giving in to their temptations.

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