Number one: Never pay for the chance to work
If you are looking for a work at home job, you are not going to want to pay to get work. You want to treat work at home jobs just like you would an office job and you don't have to pay for an office job. This same no paying for work even applies to home based businesses; you can get independent contracting work from companies without having to pay them for it. If you are opening up a home business that requires you to have inventory on hand, it makes sense to pay for the inventory, similar to opening a small business with inventory.

Number two: Research the business before you pay anything
You want to do some research on the company that you are going to be doing business with, especially if you have never heard of them. You want to make sure that you get a physical address and a phone number. You also want to call the phone number to ensure that it is a real number. You can also do an internet search to find out about good and bad things about the company. Most of all you need to be sure to check references.

Number three: Use your credit card
Most people tell you to avoid using your credit card with certain purchases because of identity theft, however, if you are going to be buying some kind of starter kit or other investment into owning a home business you want to make that purchase on your credit card. The reason for this is that if something goes wrong you can dispute those charges with your credit card company, so you are not wasting all of your savings.

Number four: Research the market for the proposed business
You want to look into each business that you are considering finding out if you can make any money doing that kind of work. For example, if you are thinking of doing a medical billing business call around to a few local doctors and hospitals to find out if there is a market for your services. Most work at home businesses are very limited in their markets.

Number five: beware of vagueness and incredible claims
If the company is not giving out their name, costs, or other important information in the ads that they have placed stay away from them. The reason for this is that your scammers are going to leave out this information, so that they are not discovered right off the top. You also want to stay away from claims that you will make tons of money in a short period. For example, start now and you will earn $1,000 a week, doing little work.

Number six: Put yourself in the employer's/client's shoes
When looking at the offers that you are considering you want to think about if you would make that kind of offer if you were the making the offer, you want to look at it from another perspective to see if it would still make sense to you. For example, companies that promise to pay you $1 to $2 stuffing envelopes when they have mailing equipment that can stuff thousands of them an hour. Why would they want to pay you more money to do it?

Number seven: Consider starting your own home-based business
You can spend the same amount of time researching different types of products that you can sell for your own home based business. It is also going to require some type of investment, so you want to be sure that you are willing to put in the time and money to make it a success.

Number eight: Don't come across as desperate
Even though you might desperately need a job, you never want to act desperate when looking for a home based business idea. The reason for this is that it can cause you to fall for obvious scams because you got careless. Not to mention that posting that you need a job because you have no money and that you are willing to do anything for money is going to bring all of the scammers out of the woodwork, and you will be inundated with all sorts of phony offers.

Number nine: Be patient
If you are trying to start a home based business, you are going to have a lot of work ahead of you. Do not let yourself get impatient and fall for the scams that people are pushing at you. If you are giving a limited time offer, it is because scammers know that applying pressure brings in the people who need a job. If you stay patient you won't lose any money to scams.

Number ten: Never reply to spam
You don't want to waste a minute on reading spam that comes into your inbox. Scammers are going to flood your email box with promises that are too good to be true, so the better it sounds the more likely that it is a scam. All you need to do with unsolicited email, which is considered spam, is delete it and move on.