You need to know how to spot one, what to look for and what to avoid!

Follow these simple tips, listen to that little voice within, do a little research and you'll be fine.

There are many great programs out there that ARE legitimate. Here are some things to avoid....

First of all, don't believe anything that promises to make you rich overnight. I'm not saying it can't happen, but odds are it won't.

Also, some phrases to watch out for:

"You don't have to DO anything, just join and we'll build it for you."

"I went from welfare to millionaire in a few months!"

"Get paid for doing nothing. Just sign up."

"One time only offer."

"#1 Ground Floor Opportunity"

Along these same lines, watch out for following:

Any offer that comes from a free email service such as hotmail, yahoo, etc. I'm not knocking free email services, but if offer is that great and deal is legitimate, person wouldn't hide behind a virtually anonymous email source.

Any website or email that has no live contact person listed. If you have to jump through hoops to find person responsible for offer, be suspicious. What are they hiding? Never sign up for anything without having some correspondence with a live person, either via email or, preferably, over phone.

Anything that simply requests money, with no exchange of goods or services. And, I mean valid goods or services. Not a report on how to stuff envelopes for money or a listing of businesses that will pay you to work from home.

How To Check Out A Company

We are all afraid that some business we get into might turn out to be a scam. But sometimes personal needs of individuals outweigh thought process needed to recognize that something could be fraudulent. Many people are looking for ways to make extra money and Internet can provide many ways to accomplish that need. But it can also provide an easy vehicle for individuals to lose their hard earned dollars.

We recently did some research on a program that we were interested in and found that entire operation was quite questionable. While we couldn't prove that it was outright fraudulent at this point, we saw enough risks to say no, we are going to put up any money. We also advised 90+ people who joined based on our referral and most have told us that they are passing it up too.

Sometimes all it takes is to do a little checking on your own behalf. Sure it takes time but if you invest a little of that time up front you may save a lot of future headaches. Sometimes when you do a couple of checks you may find that a lot of work has already been done for you and is posted on sites that are available for your review.

The following are some sites and suggestions you might consider in checking that program out that you are considering. These are by no means all that are out there. You can go to one of major search engines and search on scams and find many more resources.

Victims Against Scams http://pub31.ezboard.com/fvictimsagainstscamsfrm60

International Council of Online Professionals http://www.i-cop.org/pledge/1029.htm

In an effort to keep fraudsters from slipping through cracks, US government has created The Sentinel. It's an online database of all sorts of information regarding Internet scams and fraud. http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/

The Better Business Bureau Online http://www.bbbonline.org/

Internet ScamBusters http://www.scambusters.org/

The National Fraud Information Center http://www.fraud.com/