There are lots of legitimate work from home jobs, but packing envelopes is definitely not one of them. If you come across a company offering to pay you to stuff envelopes, please ignore them and never send them any money.
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Are all work from home envelope stuffing jobs a scam?
Yes. They are. 100%.
To be absolutely clear, we’re not just saying that some envelope stuffing jobs are a scam. Or that you need to be careful. We’re saying that all work from home envelope stuffing jobs are a scam. Every last one of them.
Packing envelopes from home is simply not a legitimate way for anyone to make money from home. Ever.
How can you tell it’s a scam?
How do you know that offers to work from home packing envelopes are a scam rather than a legitimate job? Aside from trusting us, and the links in our further reading section, the best way is to think for yourself about the economics of the situation.
Printing and mailing companies have machines that can process thousands upon thousands of letters in a single day. The machines print the letter, get the envelope, insert the letter, seals the envelope, and stack the letters neatly, ready for posting. You can see this process in action in this YouTube clip.
Because this process is carried out quickly and efficiently by a machine, the cost per letter is very low.
So, why would a company pay a human to pack envelopes for them?
The answer is: they wouldn’t.
It simply doesn’t make sense for any company to print their letters, buy lots of envelopes, pay to post those letters and envelopes to someone’s home, then pay that person to pack them!
Instead, they will pay a company with a machine – most likely the same printer that prints the letters – to pack the envelopes. This will be both quicker and cheaper than employing a person to do the job.
What happens if you sign up to work from home packing envelopes?
Firstly, we’d stress that you should never do this. Work from home jobs packing envelopes are always a scam, so never sign up to them. We strongly advise against even communicating with the people involved. If you’re approached, simply ignore them and move on.
If you’ve already signed up, or if you’re curious about what would happen if you did, you’ll probably find that the scam works in one of two ways.
You may be asked to pay an upfront fee in order to receive the equipment you need to do the job. You’ll pay, but never receive anything. Or worse, you’ll pay and then receive yet another request for money.
Even if the company gets you to do some actual envelope stuffing work, they will then reject your work, saying it isn’t up to standard. They will use this as an excuse to keep any cash you have paid.
Alternatively, the so-called company may ask you to promote the envelope packing “opportunity” to friends and family, who will need to pay to get involved. Instead of being paid to pack envelopes, you’ll be paid (or probably not) for promoting the scam. You’ve become part of the scam yourself. This is what’s known as a pyramid scheme.
Why does the work from home envelope packing scam work?
The scam preys on people who are looking for an easy job to do from home. As almost everyone is capable of sitting at home stuffing envelopes, the scammers have a large number of potential victims to target.
If the scam promoted a complex task – say, computer programming – from home, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as successful. People would rule themselves out before applying for the job, as they would know they didn’t have the required skills.
The other reason why the scam is popular with fraudsters is that – if you don’t think about it too deeply – it kind of makes sense that someone might pay you to work from home packing envelopes. After all, packing envelopes is a boring, monotonous, low-skilled, manual task that lots of people wouldn’t want to do. But it does need doing. Companies send mass mailings, so letters do need packing.
Potential victims of this scam therefore think that because they are willing to put up with the boring manual job, they are providing a valuable service, for which they will be reasonably well paid.
Of course, all of this breaks down when you realise that the automated packing machines exist.
Any offer to work from home packing envelopes is always a scam. Never apply. Never communicate with the scammers. And never send them any money.
References and further reading
At Homeworker HQ, we like to share our sources and promote other websites that you may find useful. Here are a few recommendations on this topic for you to check out: