I can tell you from a personal experience that there are many Home Based Business Scams on the Internet. My wife and I almost lost $8,000.00 trying to start one of these so called home base businesses. We were looking for a LEGITMATE home based business to make some extra income to add to our full time salaries. We looked at several home based business opportunities on the internet.One such business caught my wife’s eye, so we filled out the infomation that they requested and clicked the submit button.
In less than 10 seconds our phone rang and the gentleman on the other end introduced himself and explained to us that he represented the home based business company that we were interested in. He was a very pleasant and friendly person. He told us a little about the business but would not reveal the name of the company. Next, he directed us to a 9 minute audio which explained in more detail about the home based business and how you could make all this money doing affiliate marketing in a short period of time and just working only a few hours a week. They even had an elderly woman on the audio who was making sale after sale even before her website was set up. This audio was very convincing.
About an hour later, the same gentlemen called us back. He asked us what we thought of the audio presentation, and reiterated the parts about making a great deal of money in a short period ot time without hardly doing any work. He then asked us if we were interested. Naturally, we thought this was a great opportunity, so my wife and I signed up for the businsess.
The following day, another gentleman from the company we just signed up with called. He also was very friendly. He explained more about the company and again told us how with very little time and effort we could be making BIG money. We were told that we would have a website all set up for us, the only thing we would pay for would be advertising. He then told us about the advertising packages. The more money that we would spend, the more Guaranteed Hits to our website which would mean more profits for us. There was also a site were we could track our hits and sales each day. Basically we could just sit back and watch the money roll in. My wife and I were new at this and it sounded so great we went with the higher package which cost $5,000.00, (STUPID MOVE), and it was so very easy to put it on your Credit Card. He also stated that he would be our advisor, if we had any problems and to contact him if we were not making any money after several weeks.
About a week later, we received another call from the company, this time it was another nice gentleman, who told us since we spent so much money with the company and we were such good customers, that they were giving us a one time deal, that if we spent another $3.000.00 we would receive another 100,000 guaranteed hits to our website. We had to make a decision, because the next day would be too late. Guess What. (ANOTHER BIG STUPID MOVE !!!!!)
Everyday I would come home from work and first thing go into the site to check our hits and sales. Everyday there would be around 50 to 60 hits, but no sales. After this went on for several weeks, we called the company and asked to speak with our advisor. We were told that he was no longer assigned to us, but that we had another advisor assigned to us. This was another pleasant and friendly female who told us it will take some time to see profits, because it takes about 2 months until our website gets placed on all the search engines. This scenario went on for over 2 months. We were told that we needed to be patient.
After 2 months, I started to research the company on the web and what people were saying about the company. Site after site were telling me that this company was a SCAM. That similar stories were being told by others who joined this company. That people would invest thousands of dollars and make nothing.
The next thing I did was to contact the Better Business Bureau in Phoenix, Arizona where the company was located. I filed a complaint against the company. The BBB followed through on the complaint and my wife and I were refunded all our money by the company. ( WE WERE VERY VERY LUCKY) thanks to the BBB.
I hope this article helps those seeking a LEGITMATE HOME BASED BUSINESS. Remember don’t make the same mistakes my wife and I did.
1. Research the company. Make sure that they belong to respected business organizations such as the Better Business Bureau.
2.Stay away from companies that tell you that you can make great amounts of money in no time with little or no work.
3.Always stay within your budget. Don’t throw away your hard earned money.
If you own a local business with a website, you really want people to be able to find you through the search engines. Let’s take a look at a few local SEO strategies that will get your site ranking better.