Is Data-Entry Work a Scam?

Today while I was reading my emails, I was taken to another of those sites that offer data-entry work. If you don't already know about them, these are websites that guarantee you big money for little work, inputting a few lines of data onto some forms. They always sound very convincing;
the only thing is that you need to pay them in order to join their scheme.

I am always on the look-out for lucrative money-making opportunities, as anyone can witness in my blog, but this is one offer I would never go for: it just does not seem right to have to pay anyone for working. When you get work, you should get paid, not the opposite! I think this is one of the biggest scams on the internet. Maybe I am wrong, maybe you can make $200 or more a day just filling forms. If I had money to throw out the window, I would be very tempted to get in on one of those schemes and find out what exactly are they all about.

Did you notice that there is always a high price for joining data-entry programmes (usually $97) but that this fee is reduced to almost half just when you are about to sign up? If you haven't, try again in 6 months and you will see that the time-limited special price offer is strangely still valid. I don't know about you but I think this makes it even more look like a scam.

What if, instead of asking for a payment on signing up, the companies just deducted that amount from your first paycheck? They may argue that the joining fee allows them to recover the cost of training new applicants: if training new people really is that costly to them, this would seem fairer (even though a legitimate company should provide training free of charge), but then again, if you could join for free, I guess they would not make any money, since they appear to make a lot of dough from new entrants.

Another thing data-entry companies may claim as one of the reasons for the joining fee is that acceptance is limited, so they use the money thing to control the flow of entries: I don't know, if they so much want to limit the number of applicants, why don't they spend a little less in advertising? I guess this way they could even afford to pay for the training themselves!