As with going out to work, there is any number of work from home companies. It really does depend upon what you want to do. I think that it’d be useful also to say that as well as working for yourself, or being freelance, you can also work from or at home for an employer.

There are some genuine work from home companies out there, and also some scams. Please be wary of such work from home scams. Normally, a job won’t come with a fee, so never send money up front to people or companies who claim they can give you work at home. If you are interested in an advertised work from home job do some research into the company and contact them with your questions. A legitimate company will be very glad to speak with you and give you as much information as you require.

Beware the Scammer

One of the more common ones involves adverts about addressing and stuffing envelopes which ask for a registration fee. If you pay the fee, all you get in return is advice to place adverts like the one you saw, but no actual work. Another type will ask you for money for home assembly kits, promising your money back and additional payment for the kits that you complete. The advertiser will pocket any money you send and then claim the kit you assembled didn’t meet the necessary standards. If you feel that you have been the victim of such a scam, you will need to inform your local Trading Standards Department – be insistent with them too. Sometimes you can get passed from pillar to post, insist that someone takes responsibility for your complaint, after all it’s their duty and they do have this responsibility to you.

Three Legitimate Companies

I’d like to discuss three of the more well known work from home companies in the UK. All involve catalogues, but all have different business models. No doubt you will have heard of them, but I’ll give you the names anyway. There’s Kleeneze, Avon and Betterware. All are direct sales companies, that is, there is no middle man between you as a distributor of products and your customers. I believe that Avon and Betterware both operate with territory systems – that is they tell you where to put your catalogues, where as Kleeneze does not – it is up to you.

With Betterware you receive your catalogues from the company at no cost, but you are told how many you need to put out. Avon does charge you for your books as does Kleeneze, but the difference is that with Kleeneze you can put your books anywhere – you build your own territory. I have heard of a lady who was advised by someone from Avon that she could just drop her books out wherever she wanted to. This resulted in nothing more than an irate call from the lady whose Avon territory she’d stepped on. Ouch!

Kleeneze charges an upfront fee to join. Now as I have discussed above, a legitimate company which Kleeneze (like Avon and Betterware) is, will be glad to answer any queries that you have. Furthermore, it is likely, especially with Kleeneze, that you will be joining up with a sponsor, again they will have no problems in discussing the business with you. In many respects there’s something which seems almost shady about some of the methods used by Kleeneze Distributors to encourage enquiries. You may have found a mysterious card on your card, or seen a flyer or even poster – not to mention newspaper ads. This is because upfront mention of the name Kleeneze does put people off. However, if you were to look at the Kleeneze opportunity in any depth you would realise that there is a direct relationship between work done and reward received.

Conclusion

With all three opportunities, as in life really, you don’t get anything for nothing. You have to put in some work, there’s just no way that you’ll make a single penny if you do nowt. I guess what concerns people is whether or not they’re doing the right thing, as doing lots, but of the wrong things gets you the same place as doing nothing. So this leads us back to another question, namely how do we know if we’re doing the right thing. Well dear reader, research is key, as is listening to your own gut instinct, if something feels wrong then it probably is, so leave it alone. Try and make sure that your research is as independent as possible. There are plenty of forums out there and all sorts of people will post on them. People post for various reasons – positive, negative and neutral, so be wary and read as much as you can to get the best possible range of opinions.  Ultimately though, it’s down to you.  Good Luck.