The chance to earn a few dollars a week without leaving home appeals
to many women whose household duties occupy the greater part of their
daylight hours. Unfortunately the work-at-home scheme catches not only
the woman whose object is merely to earn a little pin money and who in
many cases can afford to lose a dollar or two without suffering any
hardship as a consequence, but it gathers in as well the working girl
eager to add to her scanty earnings by engaging in some remunerative
work at home.
The work-at-home scheme is operated in a variety of ways, but the
underlying principle is the same in all cases. Sometimes the work to
be done consists in embroidering doilies or in making lace, and in
other cases it consists in filling in with gilt paint price tickets
printed in outline. In all cases the work is described as easy, the
advertisements assuring the reader that experience is unnecessary.
In all cases, too, the victim is obliged to buy, from the promoters
of the scheme, "materials" or a lace-making machine or some other
object before she is given any work. The following description of
a scheme against which a fraud order was issued last May will make
clear the methods pursued by all fakers of the work-at-home class. The
advertisement in this case reads as follows:
Home Work, $9 to $15; No Canvassing.
$5 to $6 weekly working evenings; experience unnecessary.
Inclose stamps for instructions, sample, etc. Address B.
Wilson & Co., 603 Walnut street, Philadelphia, Pa.