Scams Promise Job Seekers Big Bucks

By Eileen AJ Connelly -- AP Personal Finance Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The ads are everywhere: in your mailbox, online or tacked to telephone poles in your neighborhood.

They all make similar promises. Earn big money! Work at home!

With unemployment at a 26-year high and even people with seemingly secure jobs feeling uneasy, it can be tempting to respond to offers to turn your computer into a cash machine or help you earn big money for doing simple tasks. There are some legitimate work-at-home opportunities, but there are also countless scams that could cost you money — and even get you into legal hot water.

Sandie Durham, a legal assistant with a law firm in Nashville, Tenn., was hoping to find an alternative source of income in case she lost her job.

"I've been in that law firm for 11 years, but with the economy, people would rather eat than pay their attorneys," she said. "I was just trying to find something legitimate."

Last month, she clicked on an ad for what appeared to be data entry work for online search engine Google.

"I saw that word, 'Google,' and I thought this cannot be a scam, that is a very well known name," she said.

Durham plugged in her credit card information, agreeing to pay $1.97 for online details, and another $2.95 for a CD with more information about the work. She canceled her credit card after four charges, plus foreign transaction fees, totaling $163.17 appeared on her statement.

Michael King found an ad touting a way to earn through Google on a news Web site. He thought the site would have vetted its advertisers.

"I was under the impression that if a legitimate Web site would allow the company to post something on there, it's got to have a certain degree of legitimacy," said King, of Winston-Salem, N.C. "That's not true."

"We see this over and over and over again," said Alison Southwick, spokeswoman for the U.S. Better Business Bureau, which handled complaints from Durham and King. The BBB has gotten complaints about variations invoking names like Google, eBay, Craigslist, Facebook, YouTube and most recently the buzz-laden Twitter, but all rely on people not reading the fine print and unwittingly agreeing to pay monthly fees on their credit cards.

"Google isn't affiliated with these sorts of sites," said Jan Nancarrow, a spokesman for the Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet company.

In April, the Texas attorney general took action against the operators of several sites, including GoogleMoneyTree.com and InternetIncomeInitiative.com, charging them with running fraudulent sites. The operators agreed last month to suspend their activities while a civil case moves forward. But Southwick said one of the problems with these scams is that the operators often simply set up new sites after they are outed with multiple complaints to the BBB, government agencies or on consumer boards.