Online money-making scams are deceptive offers that scammers lay out for vulnerable individuals on the internet, who can lose a lot of money when they fall into the trap. These scams prey on the desire of people looking to get rich or make a quick buck as fast as they can. While the awareness of money-making scams has grown in today’s digitized world, one must learn about the common types of scams to stay protected.

Top online money-making scams
Here are some of the common scams wherein fraudsters promise people cash without any validating documents and without going through the right channels for investments or sales.

“We buy ugly houses” scam
There are several online ads, emails, and messages that tell people, “We buy ugly houses.” Essentially, these messages promise homeowners large amounts of cash in exchange for their old, worn down, and “ugly” homes. The scammers who run such schemes use several predatory tactics, including the deliberate undervaluation of homes, outright lying to people to dupe them of their property, or forcibly gaining legal access to unsuspecting users’ homes.

Generally, property scammers target vulnerable people to be their victims. Such targets commonly include those who are in desperate need of cash, those who may be facing cognitive issues, or those who are dealing with the death of a loved one. Scammers try to take advantage of vulnerable situations to convince people to sell their valuable property for lower prices.

Work-at-home scam
Work-from-home scams involve putting out fake information to draw in unsuspecting applicants looking for jobs. Fraudsters create fake job listings for the purpose of getting confidential information from such applicants, who may also be asked to pay money for fake interviews and document verification. As per a 2022 study, job-related scams accounted for about $367 million in losses throughout the year.

Work-from-home scams tend to fall into three main categories:

Financial WFH scams
As stated above, this involves scammers asking applicants for associated fees, fake checks, or money for specific equipment purchases.

Manipulative WFH scams
This is arguably the most dangerous of WFH scams. Scammers use people to perform acts of terrorism and other illegal or unscrupulous tasks without the applicant’s knowledge of the full extent of the task.

Identity theft scams
In this subtype, scammers convince vulnerable applicants to reveal their personally identifiable information (PII). Scammers then go on to sell this information to the highest bidders.

All in all, if people find advertisements online, or receive emails or text messages, that talk about offering work-from-home jobs that require no educational qualifications or job experience whatsoever, then they must avoid it. Additionally, people should do some in-depth research online about any company that promises to offer them such jobs. After all, legitimate companies can and do provide applicants with official information regarding their establishment, market value, and other pertinent details, especially when asked.
A particular way to avoid being scammed via dubious work-from-home schemes is to avoid clicking on any link from sketchy emails or text messages.

Pyramid scheme scam
Pyramid schemes are investment plans that involve people getting jobs or benefits and then recruiting others to get the same benefits as well. Except, fraudulent pyramid schemes require paying participants to recruit more and more paying applicants for “benefits,” which is essentially the money given by the newer entrants. Ultimately, all the people who are recruited into the program are made to pay much more than they receive. Some pyramid schemes go on for years before all the recruits realize that they have been duped and the pyramid collapses. Pyramid schemes of any nature are illegal in several countries, including the US.

Investment scam
Dubious investment scams are among the more common schemes out there to trap vulnerable people. With the ease of sharing information online, such scams run rampant. Most of them claim that there is “no risk” attached to putting money in a certain investment avenue. However, all these promises typically have no proof, or forged proof, to back up their claims. All investments are inherently risky, some more than others. Moreover, the fraudsters who set up and run such schemes also promise their prospective “investors” that the latter can make big profits incredibly fast by investing quickly without missing much time.

To stay clear of such scams, people should take care of a few things. Firstly, one must avoid making any investment decision on the spot or in a hurry. All factors related to the investment should be analyzed and discussed at length with the parties involved before one makes a measured and calculated decision. Secondly, such scams rarely involve any paperwork (typically to avoid any paper trail later). When a person comes across such a paperless investment proposition, it is prudent to walk away from it.

Finally, people must never make investment decisions after seeing too-good-to-be-true, previously unseen ads or witnessing glowing testimonials from strangers on the internet.

Some of the other money-making scams include the fake check scam, bogus car advertisement scam, and fraudulent “free shopping” schemes.

How to avoid online money-making scams
There are various precautions one can take to ensure they don’t fall for online money-making scams. Firstly, people should never believe most of the schemes or messages that promise to pay them loads of money in exchange for no effort or initial investment. People should not give out any sensitive information over calls or emails, they should never provide remote access to their computer, and they must never click on links offering quick money, the opportunity to work for home for a huge salary, or similar such offers.