Work from home is a popular job
platform, offering revenue opportunities to people looking to work from the
comfort of their homes. From the point of view of the hirers, it is
advantageous to utilizegenuine talent available in people who cannot take up
full time employment due to health or family issues. Another advantage is the
huge savings in terms of overheads of a dedicated office including rent,
maintenance, electricity etc. As regards pay scale too, remote workers are not
very expensive. Companies also provide easy and flexible options where skillful people who are employed
elsewhere can make additional income in their leisure time or holidays. The
whole galaxy of work from home orbits around technology which has made remote
working and instant data transfer across countries possible. Where technology is involved, flaw in technology comes in uninvited in the form of digital fraud; and to combat fraud, fraud investigation raises to occasion.
- Data entry job frauds
These are jobs meant for people
with high typing speed. Projects involve typing of pages extracted from books,
novels, literature and so on, mostly used for e-publishing and content. Form
filling jobs where raw data needs to be filled into online forms are also
available. Fraud is committed in the following ways
- Usurping funds collected as deposit or registration charges and not providing projects
- Providing fewer number of projects
- Non-cooperation and inaccessibility during execution stage
- Denial of payment citing faulty standards of accuracy
Fraud investigation begins with
tracing out of fraudsters based on the address, bank account, e-mail id and
other details available. Complaints must be lodged with the cybercrime
protection wing and agencies handling internet fraud. By exercising presence of
mind and a little research into credibility of the employer, these frauds can
be avoided.
- Internet jobs
There are a host of jobs making
us of the home internet like ad clicking, ad posting, writing reviews, survey
taking, sending bulk sms and captcha coding. In case of fraudulent companies,
demand is made for purchase of a CD or an instruction manual containing vital
information to execute the project. The advertisement from the fake companies
are enticingly articulated like “Pay now and enjoy life time access to internet
jobs” or “This is a life-changing investment” or “key to earn fortunes”. Fake
reviews of satisfaction and payment confirmation including a snapshot of a bank statement showing regular payout from the companies are
posted on the web. Fraud investigation snoops around these pieces of
information in gathering evidence to trace out the fraudsters.
- Precautions
Being analytical and sensible
when undertaking work from home projects will help avert fraud to a great
extent, and in the unfortunate event of victimization to fraud, cooperating to
fraud investigation.
- Satisfy yourself as to the existence of the company by going through their website before deciding to pay a deposit.
- Many work from home opportunities are available without paying upfront fees
- Ensure payment cycle is short, so that not much energy, time and effort is at stake
- When the employer doesn’t honor payment date, citing technical reasons it is time to be cautious and not to proceed further.
- When subjected to fraud, co-operate with fraud investigation services by providing evidence and all accurate details.
