How to Find Legitimate Work from Home Jobs for Free

Many people look for legitimate ways to make money working from their homes, only to be scammed by unscrupulous people. Others make a major cash investment in a legitimate work from home job, only to discover that they never made a single sale. You don't have to lose money on these bad money making schemes. There are plenty of real work at home jobs that don't require a single penny of your hard earned cash. All of the following work from home jobs are absolutely free.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

1. Find a work from home job as an online writer. Look at Associated Content, which pays an upfront fee to writers for certain non-fiction works and pays a performance bonus for traffic to all articles. Check out Helium, which pays revenue share for traffic you generate to the site. The Helium Marketplace is a venue where you can compete with other writers for high-paid writing work. Demand Studios pays professional writers to write high-quality articles for eHow. Constant Content helps online writers to sell their writing by connecting them with publisher clients.

2. Find a job blogging from home. Working as a blogger is a little different than working as an online writer. Instead of writing polished articles, you write quick and casual blogs. Some sites will pay you to upfront to blog, and others will share part of their ad revenue with you based on performance. Legitimate sites where you can get work as a blogger include ProBlogger, the Authority Blogger forum and the Web Log forum in About.com. These jobs should always be free; never respond to an ad that requests a payment.

3. Get a job as a mystery shopper. When you work from home as a mystery shopper, you pose as a customer at certain business locations that have been assigned to you. Then you fill out an evaluation about how well the staff at that location served you. Legitimate mystery shopping jobs are always free; you should never have to pay a fee to sign up. You can find real work as a mystery shopper at websites such as the National Shopping Service, BestMark Mystery and Secret Shopper.

4. Work for a call center that hires telephone operators to work from their homes. All you need to get started working as a call-center agent is a telephone line, a computer, high-speed Internet access and excellent customer service skills. Like other freelance work from home jobs, this one is absolutely free to start and allows you the flexibility to set your own schedule. Legitimate call centers include LiveOps, Alpine Access and West at Home.

5. Look for a work from home job on Craigslist. Craigslist is a classified advertising website that allows you to post listings for free. You could post a job wanted ad in the "Services" or "Jobs" sections, saying what type of work you'd like to do from home. Or you could sell merchandise directly on the site. Unlike other legitimate work at home opportunities, Craigslist has a few dangers. Ask for more information or do some research on the company if you're uncertain whether a job is legitimate. Always meet potential clients and customers in broad daylight in a well populated, public place.

Tips & Warnings

• While all of these work at home jobs are free, you may still need to make an investment in your business. Get any training, equipment or materials you need, look to legal and tax professionals for advice and get any required licenses before you start working.

• You can also try selling items for others on consignment on eBay. When a client gives you items to sell on eBay, you have no upfront expenses and no risk in the sale.