"Go to school and get good grades. If you get good grades, you will be able to get a good job. You will be set for life. You'll be a part of this working society".

Not everyone wants to take this kind of path in life. Many want to work for themselves. That is why you see so many good, solid, and honest work at home opportunities available both online and offline. Real estate, network marketing, stocks, and franchises. Lots of great opportunities to make more money at home without having a job, right?

But you also need to know that there are many good work at home programs online. While there are plenty of good and honest programs online that really teach you how to earn more from home on your computer, there are also plenty of scams out there too. Programs that promise you to get rich quick for a small fee, but right after you send them your money, they are gone.

The only thing that you will have on your hands is a big disappointment. The fact is that there will always be average people who will go online and search for a money making opportunity. And as long as these people are willing to open up their wallet and spent their money on these "promising" programs, there will always be people who would be happy to help those innocent people and take their money.

I want to give you some pointers as to knowing which programs are real and which ones are flat out scams.

1. Faking the testimonials

Customer testimonials is a very powerful tool to motivate website visitors to buy what ever the webmaster is selling to them. That's why you see so many of them on the landing pages of work-at-home opportunities. How would anyone know that a testimonial is a fake or not? Well, let me show you how:

A) A lot of good work at home programs online have either an audio or video testimonial on it. If you come across a website that has both or even one of these tools, you can feel good about it and keep on reading the page.

B) Many times, you will also find a sales page with links in a person's testimonial. This should also encourage you and tell you that the site's testimonials are for real.

2. Internet Chat forums

Online forums are a great way to find out if a program is any good or not. You can actually do this by going to a major search engine and type in a program's name. When results do come up, try to find a forum with people talking about the program that you did a search for. What you will see there are both good and bad feedback. If you find that over 80% of the feedback is positive, this will give you a good push to try out the program yourself.

3. Certification seals

It is true that there really are legitimate rating companies out there protecting the consumer on the Internet. Some are real and some are not. I am going to show you which ones are real.

So here is a list of the legitimate logos you can watch for as you seek a legitimate home business.

I-Cop, TRUSTe Privacy Program, BBB Online, HonestEOnline, Internet Business Bureau, or Hacker Safe.

Seeing any of these on a sales page, is a good thing for those who are looking for a legitimate and honest at home program. You will also want to have the option to click on it and see the certification page. If you are unable to click on the seal, then you will know that the website owner is faking that he or she is a member of this certification seal. It is not real and you should leave the site immediately.

While many programs online are good and solid, not everyone who joins a particular program will take action to succeed. Many want a fly by overnight get rich quick for doing absolutely nothing. They think that they can just put their feet up, do nothing, and still make money fast. When these same people don't make money for no effort on their part, they bash the program.

Copyright (c) 2008 Work-At-Home-Income-Directory.com