One of the more common make money fast schemes starts with an ad, either in a newspaper or in an online classifieds, which advertises a job for at-home order processing.  You’re assured that some firm, either a consulting firm, law office, or business firm, needs help processing the large number of orders they’ve been receiving.  You can do all of the work from home and all you need is a computer with a word processor and a connection to the internet.  Not only that, you get paid by the order and you can make hundreds of dollars a week!  It sounds great, so you send in your resume or give them a call.  You’re assured that the job is still open, that you’re a great candidate, and that you don’t need any prior experience.  Sounds great!  The only hitch is that you need to send in a “processing fee” or “training fee” of $10-$100 in order to start the job.

This is where you should start feeling like things are a bit fishy.  How many job interviews have you gone to where the employer says “we love you for the position, but you need to pay me $10 first?”  This should be just as suspicious.  For your money you’ll receive a word document or an email telling you how to repost the same job openings and propagate the scam.

If you really want to make money fast, the best way to do it is to pick up small, for-cash jobs.  Check around internet classifieds (craigslist.com is particularly good for this) for people who have one-time, odd job sorts of gigs.  If you’re willing to move boxes or clean out garages you can make money fast, in cash, and usually paid under the table, and if you have cash in hand you know you’re not getting scammed by someone hundreds of miles away.