Data Entry Scams Vs Real Online Jobs

Recently I visited an online forum where the users were talking about data entry scams. One member was telling another that ALL work-at-home “data entry jobs” are scams. I have had experience with with these types of jobs, and I knew full well that there are plenty of legitimate ones to be had on the Internet, so why the negative stigma?

So I fired up Google and started searching, and (lo and behold!) almost every listing for “data entry jobs” contains highly misleading information. I wouldn’t exactly call them scams, because what they are selling actually can make money, they just aren’t jobs.

Actually, they are marketing systems for online businesses (particularly affiliate marketing.) They teach users to create a website (I suppose you could call this entering data) with advertisements on it, then create advertisements for their website to bring users in to buy the products. This type of system is a legitimate online business, which makes me wonder why the advertisers try to mislead people by mislabeling them as jobs.

I have reviewed several legitimate online job sites that post real listings for jobs of this type. In fact, last year I made extra money by taking one of them. My job was to look at scans of old newspapers and create database listings for each obituary (it was for a genealogy website.) I was paid $.50 per entry, which amounted to about $15.00 - $20.00 per hour worked. I could work when and where I wanted, as long as I completed a minimum amount each week.

This was a real data entry job and there are more like it to be had. I think it is too strong of word to call the marketing systems “Data Entry Scams,” but you should just make sure you know what you are getting into before diving into anything.