Keeping Your Personal Information Safe While Applying For Work At Home Jobs
If I find a good job lead, I will post it on several work at home forums with the word “Unresearched” in bold. Of course it simply means the job lead hasn’t been well…researched. A lot of scammers are very good at making a not-so-legitimate job very legitimate sounding which is why doing your own due diligence is so very important. A lot of times people will respond to my post with “Thanks for the great job lead! I applied.” Wait a second! Back up! You said you applied?
At this point, I’m hoping they saw the first and bold word Unresearched at the top of the page before jumping in with both feet and shooting off an email with all their personal information on it.
First, you should only have your first and last name and email address on your resume unless you’re 150% sure it’s a reputable and legitimate company. Too many times people have provided sensitive information that ended up in the wrong hands. It’s much too late to think of it after the fact.
Here are some ways to start your research.
*Check with BBB.org to see if there are any complaints. If they aren’t listed it doesn’t necessarily mean they are good to go.
*Check with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
*Check the company for a physical location. A legitimate company will freely provide street address and telephone number.
*Check to see if they have a website. Sometimes a website will have red or warning flags if it isn’t legit such as grammar and spelling errors, poor English etc.
*Ask around various work at home forums if anyone has/had any experience with them.
*Check the company’s references. Request a list of their employees or ICs or contractors and then contact them and ask how it has worked for them.
These are just a few ways and the most important one to live by? If it sounds too good to be true, then it usually is.
Remember, never give your social security number, credit card, passport information or DL to anyone unless it is requested and you know for sure it’s the real deal and you’ve been hired.
To your success,
Sophia
Work At Home Space
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