Envelope Stuffing: Legit Work At Home Business or Scam?

If you have ever looked for a home business, or even just opened up your city’s free weekly paper, you’ve probably seen an ad claiming you can make thousands of dollar stuffing envelopes.

All you have to do is pay a small fee and you will get paid for each envelope stuffed—you’ll be able to make tons of money, all from the comfort of your own home.

Are you picturing yourself going through piles of envelopes will watching Buffy reruns and eating potato chips? Your only concern is how to avoid paper cuts?

While that would be great real life is quite different. In reality, most envelope stuffing work from home jobs don’t involve either envelopes or stuffing. According to the FTC, most of these ads aren’t offering you a job at all. You send them money and they send you a letter telling you to place the same envelope-stuffing ad in newspapers or magazines, or to send the ad to friends and relatives. You get paid when they send you money looking for information about envelope-stuffing jobs. So the only stuffing that is happening is when you sucker someone else into stuffing $10 into an envelope and sending it to you. And the only thing being stuffed is a copy of the same letter they sent you.

Are there legitimate work from home envelope stuffing jobs?

Let’s look at a few facts.

Why would anyone in his or her right mind pay you loads of money to stuff an envelope?
That’s right, they wouldn’t. No sane person would pay you $10 to stuff an envelope. I called my neighborhood Kinko’s who quoted me a price of $260 to stuff 1000 envelopes. That’s no where near $10 an envelope.

Beware the “starter kit” scam
Um, do you really need a kit telling you how to stuff an envelope?

Free envelopes and stamps
Envelopes and stamps are expensive. The only way you’re going to get them for free is by people sending you self-addressed stamped envelopes—which seems so ancient and outdated now. Don’t these people know that you can reach way more people online?

Extra fees
So-called work from home business opportunities like these love to attach fees whenever and however they can: processing fees, disclosure fees, starter kit fees. You get the picture. Whenever someone asks you to pay a fee like one of these ask yourself what they need the money for. What, exactly, are they processing? A disclosure fee is the most ridiculous. They are asking you to pay them before they tell you anything, like stuffing envelopes is some highly classified secret that must be guarded with one’s life, until of course someone else shoves $20 in their face…

Work From Home Testimonials & Super Special Reports
These come in the form of special reports that tell you all about legitimate home businesses that are really, really real. These exist only to sell you the original product. The whole purpose of these “special reports” is to convince you to send more of your hard-earned money to these shysters. Testimonials mean nothing. You’ve all seen the quotes, “I’ve made thousands stuffing envelopes from the comfort of my own home!” –Susie Homemaker. Well, Susie Homemaker probably doesn’t exist. And if she does she’s probably the original scammer’s mother or girlfriend. Just because something is in writing doesn’t make it real.

Ok, so you still think there might be legitimate opportunities for you to stuff envelopes and make easy money working from home?

Here are a few warning signs you should be aware of:

  • No contact info. No email. No phone. No address.
  • If they do have a phone number no one ever answers it.
  • If they have an address it’s a P.O. Box.
  • They ask for money before they’ll tell you anything.
  • They promise you the world, or at least tons of cash.

Have you been scammed?
Report the foul deed to the Federal Trade Commission. Call 1-877-FTC-HELP
(1-877-382-4357) or log on to www.ftc.gov

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