As many of you know, I have been on a mission to find work from home to support my family and medical bills. I have been at my wit’s end with it and I have searched for what feels like years. In reality, I have only been hard at it for about 3 months. But still, 3 months is 3 months. Because I now have some knowledge of the many different opportunities out there, I felt a need to write about it in hopes to help someone else out.
Now I’m not getting rich over here. Not in the least. But, I am making an okay hourly rate doing a job that isn’t very challenging. And the best part –I do it in my pajama’s while watching TV. After a little time of vigorously looking for reputable work-from-home opportunities, I felt defeated. I had applied for so many, and I would get accepted to some only to find out the pay wasn’t worth the time. I have come across so many scams that I can’t list them all. Some of these scams seem so legit until all of the sudden it’s so apparent that they’re not, that you feel like a royal idiot.
Finally, last month I was reading comments on a post that showed up in my newsfeed on Facebook. The original post was, indeed, another scam. I learned very quickly to read the comments on listings such as this before gullibly trusting the pitch. I found a couple of posts that talked about one website they had found to be the best, scam free, work from home portal. That site is www.ratracerebellion.com. You can thank me later. Go ahead and sign up for e-mail notifications with them. They’ll send you daily e-mails on the newest, best listings. Some of these fill up fast so you will want to stay on top of them. I made it a job to find a job. I was finally getting somewhere when I started to apply for these jobs. I was taking tests left and right and I was finally hired by a company called Appen. Now, this company isn’t the greatest in the world, but it does pay. The testing for the jobs they offer is long and a little confusing.
I worked for them for about two weeks until I found another, better paying job. Here is another little nugget that offers hundreds of work-from-home opportunities. This is the one I am currently using to pay the bills: www.upwork.com
When you sign up with Upwork there will be some tests you can take to help kick-start your profile. Don’t worry, if you don’t make a good score on a test you don’t have to include it in your profile. You will also want to fill out your work history and write a small bio about yourself. Upload a picture. You don’t HAVE to have a picture, but when you are working for people you will never meet in person, they want to be able to put a face to your name.
I have been scammed once on Upwork. I got an invitation from a company who wanted to hire me and they wanted to talk to me on Google Hangouts about the job. The pay started to sound too good to be true and my guard went up. Then the so-called employer told me that they wold be sending me a computer and a check to have the software installed on the computer. They said I was to take the check to the bank and deposit it and send them a picture of my deposit slip once I had. DING! DING! DING! DING! This round was over for me! The next day I received a check by FedEx for $4,500.00. The guy who I had spoken with about this job the day before was now calling me repeatedly. I told him that I would deposit the check once I received the laptop from them. That only made sense to me. I also told him that I would not, under any circumstances, send a copy of my deposit slip to him or anyone else. That check is still collecting dust somewhere. So the takeaway from this for me was to make sure that whoever you are dealing with on Upwork has verified payment and has actually already paid some other people within the Upwork community.
To get work through Upwork you have to send the employers proposals. Some jobs are for a flat rate fee and some are for hourly work. You will see how much they have budgeted for the jobs. Keep in mind that Upwork makes a percentage of what you make and it will be deducted out of your pay once the work is completed. This may scare a lot of people off, but I look at it this way… I would rather give my banking information to one company with a more reputable name than to hundreds of different companies any day. The fee’s that they take are as follows:
- 20% for the first $500 you bill a client across all contracts with them
- 10% for total billings with a client between $500.01 and $10,000
- 5% for total billings with a client that exceed $10,000
This sounds like an awful lot, I know. But if you factor this into your proposals you defeat the problem before it ever becomes a problem. Also, you can renegotiate pay while working for a client. There is a plethora of help to be found from the Upwork community as well.
If you are beginning your journey to find work-from-home jobs, I hope my approach will help you find your way. A lot of really great jobs require you to have worked from home before. This seems to be the best way to get that experience added to your resume’ that I have found.
I have also been using a lot of different reputable sites to do survey’s and coupon type apps. Again, here you will find a lot of sites are scams. I won’t delve too much into this in this article because that may get lengthy, but I will leave the ones I use to make the most here. Please use these links I have listed because with the majority of these companies, you make money from referrals. Also, the people you refer get a nice starting bonus.
PointClub
iPoll
Yaarlo
I will update this list because there are more. Happy money maker hunting!
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