work at home scams

When times are hard, fraud often gets worse. Americans are under great financial pressure, and there is no shortage of criminals waiting to take advantage of it. 24/7 Wall St. examined the 10 states that had the most per-capita fraud complaints.

Even as many Americans struggle to make ends meet, scammers are plotting all sorts of sneaky ways to rob them of their money -- and in millions of cases, they succeed. When it comes to these cons, the best offense is a smart defense, so here's an intro course in how to spot the latest scams.

Millions of Americans fall victim to financial scams every year, and since the downturn began, many of those cons have been tailored to lure those suffering the most in our shaky economy: work-at-home schemes, fake mortgage modification services, fraudulent job opportunities and a host of unpleasant others.

As the unemployment rate climbed yet again during this seemingly endless recession, desperate job seekers need to be extra careful not to get sucker punched by bogus help wanted ads. Many of these phony help wanted listings, the Better Business Bureau warns, are designed to extract upfront fees or...

Consumers who fall for work-from-home schemes may lose money, their identity and end up in trouble with the law, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) warns. Work-from home scams are nothing new, and thanks to the anemic job market, seem to be proliferating like never before. But victims of...