Best of all, there's a major typo in their ad: "Demand Studios is singularly focused on creating informative, highly quality articles for its network of industry leading websites and their numerous visitors. To meet this increasing demand, we are looking for experienced writers to join our team of freelancers and create engaging and helpful articles around the topics of their choice."

Note: Both quotations were copied and pasted directly from the listing on MediaBistro. I did not add anything to make them look bad.

Highly quality? Really?

And it doesn't say to earn $25 and hour you'd need to crank out about two articles per hour!

Karen, totally agree. I don't work for paper recognition unless George, Benjamin and his friends are printed on the front. And it's so true – if they're startups, there's no exposure beyond feeling naked in a desert.

Wendy, you mean the JOY of working at HOME where you have to clean, cook, and field everyone's requests for laundry pickup, groceries, and repair person arrivals isn't your idea of FUN FUN FUN?? LOL

But I'll tell you, your point is spot on. Home is where you work – it's NOT a perk of the job.

Paula, exactly. I've had a few people send me photos and ask "If you were to write a caption for that, what would it be?" Seriously? You don't think I can see through that "stealth" detective style of yours?

Teresa, I think we've all been tempted at one time or another. I signed up for a Guru.com membership once (it only took once to realize the jobs were just more plentiful at the paid level, not better). It's knowing how to consider these NON jobs that helps us stay on the right path.

It’s sad to see some of these job ads using the Work from home aspect as a benefit to the job. Even some of the content mill companies boldly market their job opportunity using that as some great benefit. They get by with it, because people buy into it. Yikes!

A friend who works in an office (unrelated field) was complaining that a temp worker was making more per hour than she was. I asked if she was figuring in her perks. She wasn't. When I listed just a few of the freebies she's accustomed to, she quickly understood that his $100/hour (or whatever he was being paid) was probably far less than she was earning with her salary and benefits.

My least-favorite scam: potential clients calling and picking your brain under the guise of seeing if you'd be the right fit for their project. They're usually really obvious in their efforts to get professional consulting services for free.

WORK FROM HOME!!!! (or Work at home or Stay at home, etc.) As far as I’m concerned, this is a common scam that targets people who are really anxious about finding some type of work to do from their home.

It’s great to save money because bills are high, daycare costs are too much, etc. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to contribute to the family income while performing your job or business from your home office. But, I’ve said this before zillions of times, and I will say it again- Working from home is only where you perform your job at. It is NOT something to negotiate for lower pay.

I don’t care how important it is for someone to be able to work from their home. It is not, never was, or ever will be-a benefit of the job. It should never be treated as anything but the location of where the job is performed from. Period.

Can you tell how much this topic fires me up? Grrr….

I saw your name over at Devon's. I'm trying to break back into the freelance writing world after years of not participating.

I must say I have been tempted by the internet writing scams. I mean who wouldn't want to make money – writing at home. But it sounds too good and that always puts up flags for me.

I do a lot of technical writing at my job. I was also a proofreader at a local newspaper years ago, so the online writing scams talk to me. But who wants to edit for pennies or write an article for 5 bucks?

Your information is great. Sorry I don't have any tips or advice to add.

Teresa

If they can't tell from the attached clips if you're right for the job, they either don't know what they want (and will probably be a nightmare to work with anyway) or they're a scam.