I started looking into this several years ago. I can't tell you the number of scams I got into without realizing it at the time. Not everything you come across is going to be a scam, but there are other factors that may be built in which will keep you from reaching financial success.

1. Surveys, lotto, surf for pay, typing at home, or other FREE stuff to make money, here is what happens: you end up spending countless hours wasting valuable time and making pennies on the dollar, if anything at all. Now if you only want to make anywhere from $10.00 to a couple of hundred a month or if being entered into a prize pool is enough, go for it. More than likely you will make nothing even though everyone who advertises these things will swear you will make LOTS OF MONEY. Lots of money is a relative term; for some it is $100 extra a month, for others it may be in the thousands.

2. Before signing up, do some due diligence... there are all sorts of sites that report on scams. One is MLMwatchdog.com another is Ripoffreport.com. Investigate the company, investigate the owners. Go to Google and do a search. example using XYZ as the company name: XYZ [scam]. Read through articles you find. Scammers are getting smarter and actually put the word 'scam' in their article and may actually be advertisement for the 'opp'. Others may lead you to information you REALLY need to know. Whois.net is a great place to identify the people behind the web site, then google them. Play like a detective if you are not sure. Yes, it's work, but isn't your money and peace of mind worth a little?

Look at the website. Is there contact information located somewhere besides an email fill in form, a phone number? Is there a location of the business? DO you have to pay for information about the company? Can you tell from the main page what the opp is or do you have to submit a form for someone to contact you first? If you can't find this information on the site, then how can you contact them when there is a problem later? Email? People delete unwanted email all the time.

If you register for the newsletters from mlmwatchdog.com you will get reports on problems within companies, sometimes long before the people promoting those companies ever find out about it.

3. Reconsider signing up for anything unless you can actually talk to the person wanting you to join their "opp". Working from home is NOT a 'just you' proposition... We can't do it alone... not and make the money a month like a lot of these ads claim. It just won't happen. I promise you that from experience. Ask what kind of training you will receive, if you don't get a comfortable feeling answer, then I doubt you are going to feel comfortable after you sign on either. If you sign on and don't get good guidance and regular mentoring, you are going to end up being on your own.

4. Read the compensation plan and the Policies and Procedures before joining. If you can't get access to those two documents without signing up, DON'T do it. Many policies and procedures have statements in them such as "we have the right to terminate you for any cause". I know several people who were in what they thought were great companies and when they started making the big money, the company cancelled them, taking their people and commissions. IT HAPPENS every day.

NOTE: Most Policies and Procedures are written to protect the company NOT you. The longer the document is, the more I would worry. Also be aware that some companies do not allow their reps to advertise on the internet. If that was in your plan and you don't find out until after you join, then what?

5. Beware of compensation plans that change. I have only heard of a couple of companies that changed the comp plan to benefit the marketers, in most cases the changes benefit the company. Also

6. Find out what other people are passionate about... whether it be health/wellness, travel, insurance, legal things, beauty.... you will have an easier time promoting something that others are passionate about than something that just you are passionate about.

7. Be prepared to learn the skills you need whether it is while you are starting or before you get started. Maybe you're not a doctor, but if you are, I hope you got skills before you started practicing. However, the beauty of network marketing is that you can learn skills as you go along, AS long as there is good training and mentoring.

I was in one opp, a Pre-Launch, and kept asking my upline, (when I could reach him) when was there going to be some training information posted because there was a link on the site for training but nothing there. Six months later, still no training info and I was not able to reach him anymore either. NOT a good sign. I don't know whether he had jumped ship to go to another pre launch or just got tired of hearing from me.

Find a mentor. I will be glad to help you, regardless of what business you want to start. AND if you have already gotten started but things just don't seem to be working out, give me a shout.

8. "Pre-launch" opportunities. Being the new kid on the block is not always the best thing. Many of these companies fail in the first two years.

9. Joining a company who is listed on the stock exchanges does not give you any extra advantages over one that isn't. Those companies have shareholders who are taking a portion of your commissions. Shareholders expect returns on their investments and will not hesitate to vote your compensation out in lieu of more returns for them.

Also, some companies have been around so long that the market is already saturated with reps. If you are thinking about getting into a company who has been around, let's say 15+ years, do something I didn't do before you join. Ask people you know or meet "Hey, I heard about this company, have you ever heard of them?" After I joined, then I asked and most responses were either, ‘yes, but I wouldn't buy from them" or "yes, I know so-n-so who sells that stuff." Very rarely did I run across someone who had not heard of the company. Point being, you may have a great product or service, but may not be able to get customers like they claim.

10. If you have to give up your first one or two sign-ons to the person above you, watch out. These are called Aussie one-ups and two-ups. Many of them are not legal or are just borderline. Also consider this, the statistics say that the ‘average' person will only be able to recruit 2.6 people in their business without a duplicate able system for success. Now if you don't have that duplicateable system and have to give up one or two of your sign ups before you make any commissions. Hmmmmmmm......

I got into one of these. The guy recruiting me even gave me my first person, who I in turn paid $25 for my first person to join and passed him up to my upline. My upline made his $25 off a dead lead and I never found anyone else. I am glad I didn't, because the site got shut down a week later. I was lucky, I had only invested $25.00. The opp did not have a product, which leads me to my next point.

11. If the company doesn't not have a product or service, or you pay only through pay-pal or some other type of cash exchange service, or mailing CASH (of all things). BEWARE! As soon as the FTC finds out about them and you, somebody is going to jail, and it might just be you, the innocent victim.

Any program where you collect the payment and then send the company a portion of through pay-pal or services like that, BEWARE! More than likely the company is hiding their profits through paypal and if your customer is not satisfied, files a dispute, don't think whoever you sent part of your earnings to is going to give their share back... and this is illegal BIG TIME.

12. If it costs more than $500 to start, BEWARE. There are laws in most countries that limit the amount one should have to pay to start their home based business.

13. Recently I have seen some sites offering an MLM opportunity while helping the underprivileged at the same time. Let me ask you something, how humanitarian is to make money off others by playing on someone's sympathies and compassion for others? Who is really making all that money? More than likely it's the guy at the top who had the brilliant idea. Some of these opps are also strictly a ‘gifting' program which is also illegal in some countries.

14. Buying Leads: Many opps will tell you that you have to buy leads. Some of them even work with specific companies who sell these things. Almost every opp I was in either promised to give leads or wanted me to buy them.

Here are how most leads work. People make money by gathering other's email addresses and then selling them. Someone signs up for information about ‘something', maybe even not a biz opp. Their information gets captured and put on a list. That list gets sold over and over and over and over again. By the time you buy that list of leads, those people have been called soooo many times, they are sick of it. Double -opt in leads are no better. And don't think you are getting fresh leads just because they say so.

I know too many people who maxed out credit cards buying leads like they were told to do. I have even heard of reps who sold their old leads to their downline. Now I ask, who was making the money and from where? Probably not from the biz opp, but off the back of their own people. And before I leave leads, 99 ‘nos', is not always 1 away from that ‘yes'. This is insane. It's only 99 ‘nos'. I would rather bang my head against a brick wall.

15. Understand that creating "multiple streams of income" does NOT really mean joining multiple biz opps. Not many people can maintain more than one marriage... much less more than one 'biz opp'. If you can't get some income generated from joining just one company, don't think you need to just join some more. We call this multiple streams of ‘out-go'. Multiple streams of income really means, make your money, then invest that money in other areas, real estate, stocks, IRA's, Money Markets, etc.... it's like not putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak.

16. We can't put ourselves into a point of such desperation to find that 'real' deal that we let all common sense go out the window or feed ourselves endless numbers of TUMS to get rid of the bad feeling we have in our gut. If it doesn't sound right, if it sounds too good to be true, please just move on. Trust me, there will be another opportunity right around the corner, regardless of the fear of loss tactics they might be trying to use on you....

I am sure there are other things I should mention, but can't think of them right now. Creating additional income from home is possible, but truly, it doesn't happen over night. Learning this stuff did not happen over night either....and I don't profess to know everything, never will. That is why I too, have mentors.

Good luck and do not be discouraged. Anyone can create additional income or replace their current income and have a life others only dream of.... but again, it takes time, training, a decent comp plan and work.....