Wealthy Affiliate Insider

I know you've seen the ads about working from home with Google - they're around a lot. It seems like you can't browse online for an hour without them popping up in your email, facebook, a forum, blog or an ad on some site that you might just be reading trying to mind your own business.

You might have questions, I'm sure, probably about the legitimacy of this opportunity. Some people might say, "Oh its Google. Has to be real."

Well stop right there. The truth it - Google is not hiring anyone to work from home. Those ads are misleading and its all a big scam. These scammers are just preying on the vulnerability of people affected by tough economic times and people wishing to make some easy money from home.

Just think about it for a minute. If Google were hiring, do you think they would let you know via a third party website? Of course, people can publish what they want but do you think they would allow those third party websites to ask for your credit card information just to ship a cd?

The third party websites also claim in the fine print that they aren't associated with Google. Go figure.

So what does Google have to say about all this?

"Google is not paying people thousands of dollars a week to fill out forms or to post links," said Jason Morrison of Google's search quality team. "Scammers are using the Google name and logo without our permission, and we are taking whatever actions we can technically and with our legal team."

Google has made several statements before on their own blogs and the above statement comes from an interview with ABC News where they ran  a story about the popular scams.


The Scam

I've seem people report about having to cancel their credit cards because they couldn't stop the payments. Its either they called to cancel the subscription or they were surprised by monthly charges to their card when they thought they were only paying a low cost shipping fee.

Not only that. I tried to sign up (to see the credit card submission page) and after entering my email on the first page for a site called Goog Cash4U, I woke up to an inbox full of spam the next day. I knew it was them who sold my email address because the email account was a new one I'd created just a few days before and didn't have much exposure.

Shady Characters

You've probably seen the newspaper article sites or blogs like Diego's Road to Riches where someone talks about their success, shows you a check from Google and tells you to sign up for your Google Kit.

They're all fake. The newspaper site isn't a real site, just a one page advertisement. The blog isn't a real blog either and its all set up with one goal in mind. Right down to the fake checks, the fake comments and the fake person it was all designed to send you to the Google money kit site so that you can enter the world of credit card fraud as a victim.


The Exploit

So what's the truth behind working from home for Google?

Well, its true that Google does pay people. I've recieved checks from Google but its important to note that it isn't a job and Google doesn't hire you.

Rather, you sign an agreement with Google and sign up to participate in a free program called Adsense where they place advertisements on your website.

The Google kit advertisers are just trying to sell this information to people but its available online for free through Google. You need a functional website in order to participate. You can get all the info about Adsense by visiting this page.


These advertisers who are responsible for such scams  are guilty of false advertising and unfair business practices. They should be reported to the FTC which is the governing body that regulates advertising. In fact, the FTC has already successfully sued one of the scam companies called Google Money Tree.

When in doubt, protect yourself by doing a search online to determine what other people are saying about any particular program.  Chances are if it looks to good to be true, then there are other people who will confirm that for you.