Many ads don’t say you may have to work for many hours without pay. Or that there may be hidden costs. Countless work-at-home schemes require you to spend your own money to place newspaper ads, make photocopies, or buy the envelopes, paper, stamps, and other supplies, instructions or equipment you need to do the job.

People deceived by these ads have lost thousands of dollars in addition to their time and energy.

These business opportunities make it sound easy to start a business that will bring in lots of income without much work or cash outlay. The solicitations trumpet unbelievable earnings claims of $140 a day, $1,000 a day, or more, and claim that the business doesn’t involve selling, meetings, or personal contact with others, or that someone else will do all the work.

According to the U.S. Postal Service Investigation Service, envelope stuffing has become a highly mechanized operation using sophisticated mass mailing techniques and equipment which eliminates any profit potential for an individual doing this type of work at home.

They know of no work-at-home promotion that ever produces income as alleged. In just one twelve month period they put about 3,500 of these work-at-home operations out of business through mail stop orders, consent agreements, or criminal proceedings.

To raise public awareness and assist law enforcement, the Better Business Bureau and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service answered 112 work-at-home advertisements around the country and found that nearly 100 percent of the heavily advertised opportunities are fraudulent. 

The yearlong investigation, called Operation Job Fraud, found that 21 operations were out of business before the study concluded. Another 12 did not respond after applicants sent money, and 10 more stopped responding after an initial inquiry.

Of the 69 remaining, two said the jobs had been filled and the rest sent instructions for setting up another work-at-home company, products to assemble, books and lists of other work-at-home companies to contact or offers for software, books or videos.

While about 20 million entrepreneurs this year will earn their income from enterprises run from basement offices and kitchen tables nationwide millions of others will fall victim to work-at-home scams that are spread through classified ads, direct mailings, and the Internet and e-mail.

They will say things like: "Work at Home, Earn Up to $40,000 a Year!"; "Easy Work for Excellent Pay!"; "Be Your Own Boss, Work Your Own Hours!"

One person who paid $54 for a software package that she thought would allow her to launch a data-entry business found that when she installed the software, the only directions that popped onto her screen told her to place ads in local newspapers to get others to purchase the software. "And if, by chance, any other sucker bought the software, like I did, then I would get paid $7."

Another victim spent more than $2,100 on a home computer and training software after answering an advertisement to work from home as a medical-bills processor. But after getting set up, she called the company for help and found that the telephone number was disconnected.