New job seekers and veterans are buying them every day. What are they? “Wolf tickets”, better known as lies, false promises, scams. The strategies of saling them is becoming more clever everyday, infact they are much more clever than when I first started seeking work from home. I remember it like it was yesterday. Reading the ad, and sending my payment to start working from home. The first couple of weeks were filled with anxiousness, eagerness and anticipation. As the 3rd week came a sinking feeling begin to creep into my stomach, but I was still trying to hold on to hope as I checked the mail box everyday. Finally as the fourth week came and went, a feeling of disappointment overwhelmed me, followed by stress and anger as I begin to think about how some one had tricked me and took my money.

That was 1993, like many of you; I bought these lies many times since then, always hoping that this one would be the one. I’m sure the majority of home based job seekers have experienced all these feelings, and if you haven’t hopefully you never will. I was 19 yrs old when I bought my first wolf ticket, to process HUD refunds at home, they made it sound so simple and easy all I needed to do was send $40.00 for materials, but this money would be making a round trip, because I was suppose get it back plus the extra money I made when I started working. The tactic that the scammer used here is called Profiting from Power—Scammers will often use some kind of powerful company or agency like the government or Better Business Bureau in their ad, to deceive you into thinking they are a credible company.

2 more Wolf Ticket Tactics

• 2nd Tactic - Screening for Serious Candidates Only Tactic: This tactic is usually found at the end of the ad, it is made to appeal to your intelligence. It comes in the form of a registration, membership, or application fee. The following are 2 examples of how the sales pitch may be worded—

a. We must charge this one time fee to insure you're serious in joining our program. Please understand we can not give access to just anyone just to satisfy their own curiosity. Our company will not charge you anymore fees. Once there are enough data entry workers, we may discontinue this offer at anytime.

b. We can ONLY allow so many members to do this work. Positions are very Limited IN ORDER TO GET STARTED IMMEDIATELY AND RECEIVE YOUR program, we require a one-time only registration fee of only $37 the one-time registration fee covers the cost of materials. Although we would like to send you our program without the small fee, we must protect ourselves. No business can afford to send out costly materials to everyone who asks for it. This small fee assures us that you are serious about wanting to earn money from home.

• 3rd Tactic - Milk You Till You’re Dry Tactic: Before the internet, you would order your work from home kit. After, waiting for the mail person and sprinting to the mail box everyday, it finally arrives. You tare open the huge white envelope and there it is about ten sheets of paper stapled together, with a homemade cover. Thinking this can’t be it—you turn the envelope upside down and shake it. Accepting that this is it, You read it from cover to cover thinking you must have missed the section that tells you how to start, You read the last page again, your eyes zoom in on an invitation to send $25.00 for your start up kit and then the next time there’s an even better reason to send more money and it goes on and on.

Now, that the technology of the internet is here, scams now consist of paying an application fee; then after the application fee you need to pay a fee for the training material that will be sent via email as soon as you enter your credit card number into the order form. No, this is not up-selling, up-selling consist of the customer getting the product or service they paid for, then being offered another product or service to complement or give the original purchase added value. Please do not confuse this tactic with a legal business practice. It’s the same milk you till you’re dry tactic, but they are able to get your money quicker, and you can’t turn the computer upside down and shake it.

Today, Scammers are able to conceal there identities even more and reach an even wider source of people to prey on. Scammers have always had the same target market-- they prey on; College Students, Senior Citizens, Moms and the disabled. Their biggest target market is stay at home moms, but in recent years this group has become schooled on scams, and have developed a network among each other to make sure one doesn’t slide by. With moms being equipped to fight scams, scammers are now trying to slither into the wallets of a new target.

There are 3 steps to resisting wolf tickets.

• Avoid

• Identify

• Report

Just remember--(AIR) because that’s what scammers are full of. Follow along with me in Wolf Tickets Part 2 as I break each word down for you and reveal the new target of Wolf Tickets.