It’s a great time of the year to get an extra part time job and a lot of us will be thinking about working from home in our spare time.

How do you find that great work at home job that you can do in your spare time? Here’s how to avoid getting scammed instead.

Envelope Stuffing.

There are legitimate ways to stuff envelopes at home to make extra money, but possibly the most attractive work at home scam is the ever-popular envelope stuffing scam. Stuffing envelopes at home sounds like a great way to make extra money so many people are lured by such offers. "Mail Processors Needed! Earn $5.00 for every envelope you stuff. No upfront expenses." That’s the typical come on for envelope stuffing scams which charge between $20.00 to $40.00, or even more, for "guaranteed" information. After paying for the information you may be very disappointed to learn that you’ve paid $40.00 or more to be told to make copies of the same flier you saw and post copies in supermarkets. You’ll make your money if other people respond to your flier. Other envelope stuffing scams may be misleading ways to induce people to finance expensive direct mail advertising campaigns, or get people to mail illegal materials, such as pornography. You should be very careful if you are promised envelope stuffing work that requires payment from you. Legitimate envelope stuffing pays much less than $5.00 per envelope and costs nothing to start.

Again, there are legitimate work at home directories available but there are also some that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Consumers have reported paying $20-$70 for a directory promising them a local work at home job, only to receive a computer printout with the same information contained in their local yellow pages. On the internet, "jobs" might mean nothing more than list of links to other websites that you could find yourself for free and spend hours and hours browsing thousands of job listings trying to find work at home jobs yourself. If you’re going to pay for information, make sure you have a detailed description of exactly what information you’ll be receiving for your investment. Do not order it if it is vague. And be sure there is a good money back guarantee in case what you ordered is not what you wanted. It is important to scrutinize the guarantee for the directory very carefully.

Again, there are legitimate jobs or business opportunities for people to do assembly or similar craft work at home, but there are also some scams out there and the buyer needs to be careful. Assembly scams have received a lot of press. Assembly scams charge people for a start up kit that contains supplies and instructions, promising to buy back the finished product after you’ve made it. The end product might be jewelry, or a doll, or a sewn quilt or something else. If the company is not honest, they may continue to reject your completed work claiming that it doesn’t meet quality standards. Unfortunately, there is no way to know if a company is honest or not so it is highly recommended that you check them out before doing business with them. If you’ve decided to work with an assembly company, be sure you follow all directions to the letter, use the exact supplies they require, and that the finished product matches the sample you were provided, exactly. You should also heavily document every exchange you have with the company and photograph your work so that you have the information you need to get your money back later if you want to, or at least file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Remember that no company will pay people to do incorrect, sloppy or incomplete work. This is true whether you work on an assembly line or at home in front of the television. If you work at home doing this type of work, be sure the quality of your work is absolutely impeccable.

There are highly reputable and respectable multi-level companies and products sold through multi-level or network marketing business models add up to millions of dollars or more each year. The FTC and the U.S. Postal Service have deemed certain types of pyramid schemes or multi-level programs illegal, however, because they inevitably fail when the bottom of the pyramid stops filling up and the only people to make money will be those at the top. Some of these schemes include those chain letters you receive in the mail. Some multi-level programs resemble pyramid schemes if the participant’s money will be made from recruiting instead of selling product. It is also important to know that being successful in a legitimate multi-level business opportunity requires a lot of hard work like any other business opportunity and the failure rate may be the same or possibly even more than other types of businesses. Check out any company that you’re considering dealing with carefully and make sure that your income plan is based on selling product, not on recruiting people.

Most people have received them at one time or another. The chain letter promises you great wealth if you’ll just send a few dollars to the four names on the list and then send out two hundred or so more copies of the same letter to other people, substituting your name for one of the four. Some new versions of this include recipe chain letters or information report chain letters. According to the U.S. Postal Service these schemes are illegal so don’t participate in them. If that’s not reason enough not to try it, consider that they just don’t work. A typical response to most mailings isn’t nearly what the chain letters promises. Recalculate their math using a much smaller percentage, such as 1% or .5%, and see if the wealth piles up as quickly as they say it does.

When checking out a company to find out if they’re on the level, understand that the consumer organization you may want to call may look up companies based only on the company’s telephone number and/or business name. That might mean that outsmarting consumer reporting agencies is as easy for a scamster to do as changing the name on his advertising and/or by changing his telephone number. If you’re dealing with that type of scamster, the consumer reporting organization may report to you that there are no complaints against the company, giving you a false sense of security. Asking a company how long they’ve been in business and finding out if they’re simply listed in their local telephone directory under their business name is a great first step to figuring out if they really exist. Plus, you can verify the address. Also, find out if the company accepts credit cards as payment. Often, that helps indicate that at least the company has a banking relationship.

Anytime you buy a product or service by mail and you haven’t had a chance to see it first hand before paying for it, the money back guarantee becomes absolutely crucial. It is very important that you have a guarantee you can use if you’re unhappy with the product once you’ve received it. Watch out for short guarantees that might start when the product is shipped, not when you receive it. Or for tricky language in guarantees that would demand that certain conditions be met before you can return the product. One example might be, "If you’re not happy with our program after you’ve tried it, just return it for a full refund!" To use that guarantee you’d have to actually "try" the program which might cost you far more than the original package did or involve you in something you don’t wish to be involved in.

If you’re really serious about working at home and you don’t want to get scammed, there is a company that, for a small fee, will turn you on to legitimate and scam-free home-based jobs. The company, Moneyfromhome.com, publishes scam-free job and business information at its website and the information is also available in directory form available by mail. Once you have their job information you can browse through it just like you would with your local help-wanted listings, but every job can be done from the privacy of your own home.

The company is more than happy to tell you exactly what you’ll get if you order their information and has a very consumer-friendly money back guarantee on its books. (Online fees are not refundable.) All of their listings require real work for real pay and there are also home-based businesses that you can start from home. The company publishes everything you need to know to do home-based customer service or quilting, and everything in between. You won’t find a pie in the sky from this company but you also won’t find any pyramid schemes, envelope stuffing scams or other work at home scams in their information either. You will find a great list of companies who hire people to do real, legitimate home-based work.

You won’t get rich quick, but you might be able to make the holidays a lot more jolly and give Peter a break from loaning money to Paul. And isn’t that what you really wanted before reading all those ‘get rich quick’ headlines to begin with?

Happy Holidays.