Data Entry Jobs - Are they for Real?

Okay, let's face it... We have seen a lot of adverts with those earn $250 or $500 a day by just doing data entry. But are these real? Or another sort of scam in order to lure people to buy a software or the job itself.

With the many years I have been into freelancing, I have my own share of scams left and right. One thing I have realized, it is all about risks!

My first job was being a data encoder. Yes, I start small. The job was typing captchas. It was a simple task, all you need to do is just encode a set of letters and numbers and that's it. I am paid around $10 for every 1,000 captchas I encoded correctly. I need to log-in right into the client's software. But the bad thing about it though, I don't have direct contact with the client. Someone else is in between. The person who manages the encoders (who were working at home).

I trusted her, and had my first ever $100 earnings in one week. Beat that! That was 3 years ago, which is kinda big for me. It started like May and ended around August within same year. It stopped because all the encoders were not paid. The middle person said, we will wait till we get paid, etc.. Then, all of a sudden... That person stopped communicating with us.

The hanging question is? Around 100 data encoders at that time, it came to my mind...maybe that middle man ran away with the money and just disappear.

My first taste of being scam, or was I scammed? Indeed there are data entry jobs that are for real and do pay big or small. But one thing I always put to mind, I wouldn't pay for something just to get a job.

All the data entry jobs I have were all found right on net through a local online classifieds, Craigslist and different bidding sites.

Earning $1,000 for a data entry job? Possible? Of course, if you have tons and tons of clients to do data entry who do pay.