Step one:
One of the first things that you should do is check the company out with the Better Business Bureau. The Better Business Bureau will have any kind of information that is available on the company you are looking into, including "unresolved" and "unanswered complaints. And the good news is that even if they are not a member of the Better Business Bureau there can still be complaints filed against them, which will mean you have a report to access. You can also ask the Better Business Bureau to generate a report on a certain company if you are unable to find other information.

Step two:
You can also check out www.BBBonline.com to see a list of the most common scams and schemes about working from home. The list is continuously updated and includes old information as well. You can also check out companies that are considered online companies to see if they are valid.

Step three:
Another thing that you can do to avoid scams and schemes is to research the company online. There are many websites that offer comments and thoughts about businesses, not to mention websites that offer information about work at home scams and schemes. One good website to check out is www.snopes.com. What you want to look for is patterns of negative comments about the company; this can also be blogs or any other thing that has been posted online. If you do find numerous bad things about the company you should investigate the company further.

Step four:
Another thing that you want to look out for is paying for information rather than paying to invest in a product. Companies that want you to pay for a list of names of companies that will hire you or for training materials are probably not a good option. But the companies that are asking you to invest money in a home based business, such as direct sales, are more often than not valid because what you are paying for is similar to a franchise.

Step five:
But something else that you want to look out for is that you are not paying a company without knowing what the product is. Many times scams will ask you to send in so much money before they tell you what the product is or to find out what we are selling simply invest so many dollars. These lines and lines that are similar usually are a good way to tell if the MLM opportunity is real or a fake.

Step six:
Something else that you want to look at is the product itself. Basically you are going to want to make sure that you can actually sell the product at the price that they are asking. If the product is overpriced then chances are you are not going to be selling any of them so you are just going to be wasting money.

Step seven:
You are also going to want to read the fine print to make sure that there are no outrageous fees or you have to sell so many products before you can qualify to get paid. Many times MLMs that offer these types of pay scales are scams because you should only have to invest in your inventory and then start selling in order to get paid.