A while back I got one of those “work at home medical transcription” opportunities via the mail that’s giving me second thoughts. To wit:
They don’t mention where they got my information, whether through an employment website or headhunting company. (At this point I still thought it was legit since I have my resume in a lot of places and I have a bad memory.)
I got the same pitch before and got up to the “transcribe this document” step. This time, I got the exact same sound file, and upon closer listening, it sounded more like speech-to-text than an actual person. (A little odd. Maybe they’re a small company. And it’s just a test anyway.)
I’m supposed to pay $485 for a “special software”. (Ironically, I didn’t immediately think “scam” but “holy crap that’s expensive”.)
There’s a complaint on www.complaintsboard.com about Transam Associates being a scam, so I’m wondering if these guys are either just the same group with a new name, or a similar scam.
Right now I’m doing my own research on the internet, but meanwhile I’ve agreed to an interview (For Science, and if this does turn out to be a real job, I would like to have a bit of money coming in).
Long story short, here are my questions:
What percentage of these “work at home” things are scams?
What’s a diplomatic way of asking “are you guys legit”?
I’m surprised that the idea that you need “special software” didn’t put you off right away. So if you want to pursue it, ask them to justify the need for special software. Perhaps you could claim poverty and ask them to take the cost of the software from the monthly paychecks (in small amounts of course).
It’s my understanding that they don’t actually get you a job doing transcription. They gouge you for the software, then send a list of local doctors and a form letter you can send those doctors, asking for transcription work. No other help is provided.
I’d tell them: Thanks for the offer, but I’m not willing to spend $485 on a job interview. However, if you’d like to send me the software for free, I’d be more then happy to take the test.
I bet you never hear back from them again.
I spent a year working for a legit transcription company, and the software was free. Ask them if they have any objections to you using your own free software rather than theirs.
Legitimate companies NEVER make you pay for any software you need. Anyone who does make you pay isn’t in the business they claim, but rather in the business of selling that (likely useless) software.
Why would a legit company make you pay? The cost to them is the cost of burning the software onto a CD. Even if it’s licensed to them, and they have to pay for every installed copy, they only have to pay while you are employed by them and producing profit to pay for it. Once you are no longer employed by them, the software is useless to you, so you would delete it.
My ex-Darling Marcie fell for a medical billing thing in spite of everything I could do; she paid for the software and “lessons” and got squat in return. Cost us a ton of money that we really had other uses for.
I would advise dropping all contact with the people you’ve been talking to, especially in view of the links given above.
Their emails don’t list the name of their company (o hai giant red red flag, why did I not notice you earlier :o), they only claim “Employment Opportunity” or “Job Interview” and claim themselves to be in the medical transcription business.
Research update: These guys (http://www.healthcare-employment.net/) look like the same people as Transam Associates. They do have their defenders, but the complaints vastly outweigh the praise.
Figured this would be a scam. I’m also on Odesk and Elance, and their hour-tracking software is free. (They do, however, have paid subscriptions in exchange for higher visibility and more opportunities to bid.)
1.) Any legitimate company will provide you with whatever software you need at no charge to you (for example, on my work computer I have had to request non-standard software that I’m sure has cost the company well over $1,000 for all of it–and that’s not including the standard stuff like the Microsoft Office Suite, but the extras like Adobe Acrobat Professional). Anybody who wants you to pay for software or equipment is a scam that exists to sell you that software or equipment.
2.) Medical transcription in the U.S. is dying, terribly; you do not want to get into it now. I recently got back in touch with a friend of mine who owns her own small medical transcription business (i.e., she had so many orders that she would sub-contract out to other transcriptionists) and her income has plummeted in the past few years.
anson has it right, unfortunately. Almost NO classified ad/Craigslist/late-night-tv/email spam originated work-from-homes are going to be legit. This goes all the way back to ads in the paper to make money stuffing envelopes…you pay for the materials…which turn out to be more instructions on how to make money stuffing envelopes, which you then in turn put an ad in the paper to scam someone new.
I got taken in by the guy on late-night TV who had the informercials about sending away for his booklets that show you how to make money blah blah blah…turns out the “secret” is to run his ads on your local station or in the paper then send out more of these booklets to the people who answer them. It’s all scams. I “only” lost $200 on that one.