What is the Work at Home Institute?
By: Mick, February 6th, 2007
If you’ve ever found yourself sucked into late-night programming on the Biography Channel or The Discovery Channel or any one of the smaller cable networks, it’s likely that you’ve seen a commercial or five for the Work at Home Institute. The commercials offer a heavy dose of “Are you tired of working long hours just to make ends meet?” and “Would you like to have the freedom to work when you want and get paid what you are worth?” teasers. They follow up quickly with some “I made $7,000 last month and I’m shooting for $20,000 next month” testimonials. My immediate impression is that you have to be pretty naive to even consider exploring something like this, but my curiosity got the best of me and I checked out the advertised web site at 15work.com. I wasn’t surprised to find that the only functioning portion of this site is a detailed contact form and a series of questions about your level of interest and readiness to launch your own home-based business venture.
After doing a few searches for the Work at Home Institute (or WAHI), I came across a forum thread for WAHI over at Scam.com. Most of the posts are negative, as you might expect, but a few actually explain what’s happening and it’s interesting enough to note here.
As it turns out, the Work at Home Institute is simply a lead generator for several companies that sell MLM programs or “work-from-home” business opportunities. Apparently, one of the larger clients for WAHI is Herbalife, but they also sell leads to Pre-paid Legal and a few other major MLMs and home-based business “distributors”. The leads they are generating on their web sites (they have many sites of the 15work.com variety) are golden because they are coming from people who have recently seen a commercial and are eager to “learn more about an exciting home-based business opportunity”. That’s about as hot as those types of leads can get.
Is it a scam? I’m not sure I’m ready to call it that. It’s deceptive and suggests (but is careful not to “promise”) incredible returns with minimal investment, so it’s misleading, at best. By the time you’re asked to actually pay to join a program (and they all require you to “buy in”), I’m sure they’ve covered all their bases from a legal perspective.
Bottom line here is that the Work at Home Institute is not really a stand-alone program to “work from home”. Instead, the Institute is a sales machine for the same MLM programs that most of us already know. So do your homework and proceed with caution.
I found the quote on the WAHI site to be a bit ominous as well:
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
– Winston S Churchill
It’s important to note that every enthusiastic failure in the WAHI process will come out of your pocket.
Tags: home based business, MLM, MLM scams, work from home
Entries
April 17th, 2007 at 11:45 am
A list of genuine companies offering various home based jobs available at pcworkathome.net
All jobs are 100% FREE
June 9th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
I have a great home-based business opportunity, that I have been trying to figure out the best way to sell. Any thoughts?
September 18th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Mick,
You are right on target! I’ve tried several mlm programs. The consistent sales pitch is that a minimal investment to get started is all anyone needs for a monthly part-time income in 5 figures. What none of them say, until after you’ve bought in, is that you would need to spend about $100 or more per week in online advertising expenses to get those results.The next sales pitch you are hit with is the advertising and auto-responder system you’ll need to promote your website. Every facet of setting up, maintaining, and promoting your business is broken into separate services that you pay a monthly fee for.
Most people who respond to these opportunities, just do not have sufficient income to pay living expenses AND pay for all these fees too. At this point, the promoters encourage the low income businessmen to “leverage” their debts to pay for those services. This is where so many feel that they have been ripped off. The anticipated return on their “leveraged debt” investments usually take any where from 3 to 6 months
to occur. In the mean time, payment due notices are coming in, and the fledgling businessmen have only their original insufficient income to pay their leveraged debts.
September 18th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Hi Aleta,
I’m sure the situation you describe is a pretty common occurrence among the people who sign on for these “work from home” programs. People in difficult financial situations are vulnerable and ready to try almost anything to right the ship. These programs draw them in and then help them part with whatever remaining cash they have left. It’s a vicious cycle and often a downward spiral with financial disaster waiting at the bottom.
October 20th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
How do I contact WAHI? I would like to purchase advertising with WAHI.
October 22nd, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I think your best bet is workathomeinstitute.com…
January 14th, 2008 at 12:08 am
[…] Of course, a little research confirms the conclusion you’ve already jumped to: that the aforementioned Institute isn’t an ivy-covered building but instead an outfit just like the one I mentioned last week. They take the form you fill out and sell the information to marketers and other such people. […]
September 8th, 2008 at 1:34 am
In times like these, who wouldn’t want to earn money under his or her very own turf? Let’s accept the fact that working at a typical office setting do surfaces up a number of complexities. Who would want to regularly encounter the nightmare of daily traffic jams or the rush hours? And who have never dreamt of quitting office politics, even acquiring the dream of firing their own bosses who don’t deserve their position after all, but will just remain a frustration after the realization that the mere idea will only just remain like that – an idea waiting to be dumped by the reality wrapped in the corporate world. What would probably grant every employee the escape and perhaps the freedom they need in their professional endeavors, with hassles thrown out the window, is by checking out various legitimate work at home jobs.