Here's part 2 of a video series exposing the cash gifting scam:

With the increasingly grim economic forecast and rising unemployment rates, the amount of work at home scams on the net is increasing. The most popular right now are the money mule schemes, which masquerade as job ads for at home "shipping clerks" or "payment processors". The ad offers an attractive weekly salary for accepting payments for an overseas company. You're asked to deposit the payments into your bank account, take your cut, and wire the rest to the company. A variation on this has packages rather than funds being sent to you. Either way it's not only a scam it's very illegal. In the case of payments, you're actually doing what's called money laundering, and it's a felony. The scammers are sending you funds obtained fraudulently, usually through phishing schemes or fake Ebay auctions. In the variation involving actual goods, most often they were bought using stolen credit cards or hacked Paypal accounts. If you get a job offer like this, delete it immediately.

Another form of work at home scam involves legit sounding ads placed on sites like Monster.com. The links in these ads lead to sites that steal your personal info. Beware of any job ad that promises large amounts of money for little work. The old rule still applies. If it sounds too good to be true, it is!

I get emails all the time from people asking me if Cash Gifting is legit. The answer is no. It's not only a scam, it's ILLEGAL. Here is a great video that explains the scam in detail:

Here's a video with tips on taking the home office deduction on your taxes.

Here's a video with some quick tips for home based businesses!

It's that time of year again. Now's the time to make sure you have all the tax documents you need. If you work as an independent contractor, you'll need to get 1099's from the companies you did work for. You may also need to file a Schedule C. If you plan on taking a lot of deductions, it's especially important to have all your paperwork in order. It's also a good idea to have an accountant or tax preparer do your taxes rather than relying on a program like TurboTax because a tax return with a lot of individual deductions can be at a higher risk of an audit.
Check out the IRS's official website and that of your state's revenue department for more info.

Happy New Year everyone! Now that 2009 is upon us, bringing us a new president and the promise of change, what are your goals for your business? Vote and let us know!

Here's a look at a company that offers opportunities to people interested in doing customer service work from home.

Here's a useful video that presents a few legit sites that offer work at home opportunities. I must tell you that while the sites discussed are legit,but that doesn't mean they pay well. Associated Content is really not worth anyone's time unless you think being paid $1.50 for a 200 word article is good money. Yes they promise "Performance Bonuses" based on pageviews, but to get the amount of pageviews that would result in a decent payout, you either need to be highly skilled in SEO or willing to spam everyone and every group you know with the URLs to your work.
So do your homework when checking out the sites in the video yourself!