Online Data Entry Jobs?
How do you find legitimate data entry work? How do you tell the real jobs from the scams?
We receive more queries on this topic than almost any other, and unfortunately that’s why there are so many scams in the data entry field — the demand for work far exceeds the advertised supply. Desperation, too, often plays a painful role.
Many people just want to find part-time work or occasional projects they can do at home for a reasonable wage. No Ph.D. or MBA or expensive IT certifications required, just some basic work to help pay the bills. Darkening the landscape, however, is credit card debt. Easy introductory rates soon give way to heavy monthly minimums, and families everywhere are struggling with the burden — especially during the holiday season. This creates desperation, and desperation is the scammer’s favorite word.
The Offshore Outsourcing Factor
In the corporate world, data entry is considered a “back office” or “business process” function. The outsourcing of business processes — or BPO, as it’s known — became an established trend long ago (that’s the good news), but a great deal of it goes to India, the Philippines, and other developing nations rather than to home-based workers in the United States, where labor costs are higher (the bad news).
And while it’s true that some call center work is returning to North America and being given to home-based agents (the “homeshoring” movement, which we covered in our last article), we haven’t yet seen a comparable trend in data entry tasks.
Where to Find Work?
Not all businesses, however, have sent their back office work to India, and a significant amount remains. Smaller businesses in particular make up a large potential pool of back office or administrative work, with lawyers, Realtors ™, dentists and similar service providers in the mix. (You’ll have to be proactive, though, to win their business, with at minimum a basic website and an effective marketing plan.) Their contact information can be found through Google searches, trade associations such as the National Association of Realtors or the chambers of commerce.
We receive more queries on this topic than almost any other, and unfortunately that’s why there are so many scams in the data entry field — the demand for work far exceeds the advertised supply. Desperation, too, often plays a painful role.
Many people just want to find part-time work or occasional projects they can do at home for a reasonable wage. No Ph.D. or MBA or expensive IT certifications required, just some basic work to help pay the bills. Darkening the landscape, however, is credit card debt. Easy introductory rates soon give way to heavy monthly minimums, and families everywhere are struggling with the burden — especially during the holiday season. This creates desperation, and desperation is the scammer’s favorite word.
The Offshore Outsourcing Factor
In the corporate world, data entry is considered a “back office” or “business process” function. The outsourcing of business processes — or BPO, as it’s known — became an established trend long ago (that’s the good news), but a great deal of it goes to India, the Philippines, and other developing nations rather than to home-based workers in the United States, where labor costs are higher (the bad news).
And while it’s true that some call center work is returning to North America and being given to home-based agents (the “homeshoring” movement, which we covered in our last article), we haven’t yet seen a comparable trend in data entry tasks.
Where to Find Work?
Not all businesses, however, have sent their back office work to India, and a significant amount remains. Smaller businesses in particular make up a large potential pool of back office or administrative work, with lawyers, Realtors ™, dentists and similar service providers in the mix. (You’ll have to be proactive, though, to win their business, with at minimum a basic website and an effective marketing plan.) Their contact information can be found through Google searches, trade associations such as the National Association of Realtors or the chambers of commerce.