Ethics in Business

One thing people don't often take into account when trying to recruit buyers of at home business opportunities or buyers to their products is the ethical and moral consequences of their actions. Take for example these "Medicine show" ads you see plastered all over the net these days. Boasts like "make $34,000 in your first 3 month's" or "$1,500 in just 3 weeks" there are thousands of them, and 99% of them are crap plain and simple.

As I've said before there are "scammers" out there that are nothing more than common criminals or con-artists trying to embezzle your money out of you and then disappearing. These people lack ethical and moral reasoning and fiber.

You know even if these scammers ask you for only a dollar they are still making thousands of dollars doing it, because your not the only one who fell into the trap. Think about it for a moment, a thief decides he's going to sell a scheme on the Internet for $1.00, are people going to feel threatened by that amount? No, probably not so one person will shell out the buck, then another and another. There are 301 million people in the USA as of 2007. If this con-artist takes in a measly buck from only 1% of the population that's 301,000 people that give this person a buck. That's allot of money! Each person on the whole says "I lost a buck, big deal" but there's 301,000 of you and now this person has $301,000.00 nice haul for an ad with BS tactics and promises that will make you rich in 3 months huh? These people have no ethics or moral values.

As a home business owner myself I am appalled by the growing number of unethical scams out there. I've also come to notice a new trend which I would like to draw to you the readers attention. It was the norm of email to be the main source of distribution of this material from the scam artists but, that is no longer the case. That's right, email is still an important tool for them but, there is a new tactic most people are unaware of and its the job hunting boards. I won't exclude any of them from this list because when I discovered this I found it on most of the sites I went to. In particular most of the scams can be found by searching telemarketer or customer service representative positions on the engines. However, some are showing up in engineering and computer IT position searches as well. When you click on this position offered ad it takes you to a sales type page where your asked to enter your complete demographic information including CELL NUMBER for text messages. Then your given no indication as to the positions actual function, only that you will be contacted.

What starts to show up are random text messages from scammers trying to sell you get rich quick schemes or even worse companies claiming to be functional businesses looking for someone in the USA to act as a liaison between they're overseas main office and customers in the USA. These companies request that you go open a new bank account and then forward them the account information so you can take cash from clients in the USA and deposit it and the overseas company can then withdraw this cash from your account paying you a service fee for each transaction. This supposedly allows the company to gain access to funds they would otherwise have to wait for using conventional money transfers or wires.

If you stop and analyze this system there should be all kinds of bells, alarms and whistles going off in your head right now. Lets look at this more closely, First the account, what's required in the USA to open most accounts? A minimum deposit right? Some are $10 to $100 right? Point is most banks want you to make a deposit into the account so they will open it for you. Next, what's required by law from a bank in order to open your new account? Complete personal information right? job, demographics, license or id, and most important your SS#. That's allot of information that is you, can you imagine what a thief could do with that information? But, that's not the worst of it, you've made let's say your $10.00 minimum to open the account and now you send your entire access account information to this company overseas or here in the US and they now have complete access to your account. What would you do if you were unethical and this company? You would withdraw the $10 right? If 301,000 people fell into this trap at an average of $10.00 what's the damage? That's $301,000,000! a dollar for every person alive in the USA. Holy Smokes!

You can see why it's important for you as a prospective home business owner to watch out for ethical business practices. I am at a loss as to why career search engines are not attempting to filter these scams as of yet but wanted you to be aware of them. Do NOT give anyone your cell, SS# or home phone unless you are SURE it's a authentic business and job offer. And then only after or during the personal interview session has been arranged and attended.

Until next time

-AB