What do yo know about internet "Home business" offers?

[Joe Fields]

Have you tried any of them? The ones on T.V. infomercials. Can you give me any advice on them?

I know there are a lot of scams out there, but I'm toying with the idea of starting up a web based business to supplement my income. I would like to become financially independent, and have freedom of time, and I know there is money to be made, but I want to avoid any traps that some of you may be aware of.

Has anything worked for you?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

1. Somebody here has thoughts on this...

I can't help you, but I can give this a kick. :-)

[sendero]

2. My personal opinion...

.. is that they are all scams. If you make a nickel, they will make a dime.

Making money on the web is not easy, I've tried.

Here's the thing. If they had some super-dooper idea/product/methodology - why would they spend money and run commercials and piecemeal it out? They could get VC funding, do it all themselves and keep all the money.

Most of these "deals" are going to require you to make a monetary investment. Just breaking even will be doing pretty good.

I'm almost disturbed at all of these schemes that are popping up. You can't listen to satellite radio or watch TV without hearing/seeing a gazillion commercials for this stuff. It's making them money, but I doubt it's making anyone else any.

(These are opinions based on NEVER HAVING TRIED A SINGLE ONE OF THESE PROGRAM, you mileage may vary)

[LoZoccolo]

3. Think about it this way...

...if they were so profitable, wouldn't the company trying to get you into it would set it up themselves rather than getting other people to?

I remember Don Lapre's infomercials in the nineties advertising some kind of home-based business, and from what I could tell at least one part of it was a rip-off. There was one thing he tried to get people into that was like this: he set up a bunch of 1-900 numbers, and all you had to do was market them and you'd get money if people called them. I'm assuming he got a cut of it too. Well, 1-900 numbers probably aren't expensive to set up, but the risk you assume when trying to run them is that the cost to advertise it to get people to call might be more than the money you make from the calls. So basically he was getting other people to assume the risky part of setting up these 1-900 numbers.

More on him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lapre

There's lots of consumer watch information on the web about more specific ventures too.