There are tons of ways to make money working from home, so how do you know which is best? Just about every site you look on, it seems, claims you can make thousands of dollars a day without lifting a finger.

At least, that’s what they would have you believe. There’s a reason so many sites promote this-because it works. You see, people want to believe that there’s just some opportunity out there that nobody else knows about, that will make them a killing while they sleep.

Just about nobody really believes that it’s possible to make money working from home, let alone a fortune, without doing much work. However, they always have that voice in the back of their heads telling them maybe nobody else has discovered this particularly opportunity yet.

Think about it-if were as easy to make money working from home as some of these sites claim, everybody would be a millionaire. That’s obviously not the case. How can you tell when an opportunity is legit, and when it’s not?

Actually, it’s not as difficult as one might think. If you find a website that seems to be promising the world, that does not necessarily mean it’s a scam, because there are ways to make a lot of money online. However, if they claim you can do so without doing any work at all, that’ a sure sign it’s not a legit opportunity.

Another easy way to tell is to just read reviews online of the make money working from home program. There is no doubt people who’ve done it and can tell you honestly whether the system works or not. If nobody has done the program, then avoid it at all costs.

This is another simple and time effective way to tell whether the program you are looking at backs up its’ claims. Finally, I think the best method is to just read the sales letter and see if it mentioned at all what you will be doing to make the money.

Often times on these get rich quick websites, they will talk about how much money you will make, and what kind of lifestyle you can live. They will have pictures of people driving fancy cars, enormous mansions, screenshots of huge checks they’ve made-but nothing about the actually opportunity.

This is a dead giveaway that the opportunity is not legit. If you come across one of these, run like the wind, because it’s almost guaranteed to be a scam.

Scams targeting people who simply want a real job working from home are up a disturbing amount, as much as 250 percent in some areas of the country. This increase, officials believe, is tied directly to the downturn in the economy. As people get more desperate to earn extra money, they may open themselves up to putting money into something they wouldn’t have considered a year ago. They so want to believe they can get rich doing something, they’re willing to put what little money they do have into the pocket of a scam artist.

These scams hurt not only innocent people, but those businessmen and women who offer legitimate jobs and business opportunities. Scams are more prevalent, yes, but there are still plenty of real jobs around. People tend to paint online businesses with a broad brush, leading one to believe that every online opportunity is a scam. That’s not only false, but could lead job-seekers to ignore a very real job. Typically, there are two ways someone can earn money working from home: they can work for themselves or they can work for someone else.

Before you put one dime toward any business make certain you don’t only rely on some slick, professional-looking website. Scam artists know how to build a nice-looking website as much as legitimate business people. There should be a real person attached to that business, with a phone number and real address.

If you do invest in an online business, read all the small print, so you have realistic expectations about how much money you’ll make. Beware of businesses that require you to pay for information to learn the “secrets” of how to make money. If it’s a real business, training courses should be offered for free or at a nominal rate.

If you find an opportunity to work for someone else on a contractual basis, you should never have to send them money for training materials, software or to pay for shipping costs. No legitimate business requires the person they are hiring to buy anything. If they do, that’s a big red flag.

The Better Business Bureau puts out a list of work-at-home jobs that job-seekers should be wary of. The same businesses seem to make the list year after year. They include: data entry, medical billing, envelope stuffing, e-mail answering, and mystery shopping, among others. The bottom line is if a job seems to be paying a high amount of money for menial labor, chances are it’s a scam.