Working at Home on the Internet

Work at Home Mom Could be Fined $10 Million for eBay Business

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 Well, Former Work at Home Mom. You see, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has driven her out of business. (Now she works as a Dental Hygienist and it’s possible she could lose her license to practice because of this fiasco.)

Although there are no laws on the books in Pennsylvania (or any other state as far as I know) governing online auctions, the Department of State has decided it needed to set a precedent. It chose Mary Jo Pletz.

Picking on the Little Guy?

The Peltz’s daughter, 6 months old at the time, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2004. Mary Jo knew she couldn’t work full time outside their home and take care of the baby, but she still needed an income. That’s when she decided to start D&J Virtual Consignment selling things on eBay.

It seems she got very good at it and would sell things for friends, neighbors and eventually built the business into something to help small onetime sellers who had no online presence for a fee.

She even declared the income from the business on her taxes.

In Comes the DOS

A couple of days after Christmas in 2006 a guy from the Department of State paid a visit to Mary Jo and told her the business was being investigated for violating state law. It seems she didn’t have an Auctioneers License and each violation was a $1000 fine.

With 10,000 sales through eBay it’s easy to figure out, even without a calculator: $10,000,000.

She shut down.

What’s the Point?

I don’t really know. Figure 10k in sales at a 30% fee couldn’t equal very much money over 2 years, at least not enough to attract the ire of the Government. Especially when she paid taxes on the income. I doubt it was even enough to pay for the baby’s medication, doctors visits and tests (she seems to have stabilized  now).

I guess there are really two point to be made here…

1. A perfect reason to become a Work at Home Mom
2. When the Government gets involved, you’re screwed.

What do you think?

Mary Jo, if you happen to read this, I’d love to do an in-depth interview with you to make sure we all get the story straight from you, with no middle guy.

As of this writing the Department of State has Not dropped the complaint.

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

January 30th, 2008 at 05:10pm | Posted by Joe | Attitude, Rants, Work at Home | 9 reader remarks | Print This Post

Top 10 Search Terms for Working at Home

 This is a list of the top 10 search terms that people have used recently to find Working at Home on the Internet through the major Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN etc). They are listed from the most hits per related terms to the fewest and include my thoughts relating to the “why” they landed here.

1. WordPress Post Preview - This is a term that seems to show at the top of the list every time WordPress does another upgrade. It seems people like their Post Preview without having to go to another page.
2. Working at Home (everything) - This is no big surprise although people have some very unique ways of searching for work at home opportunities (eg. should my back face the window in home office and can a lien be put on my home if I’m incorporate).
3. Scams & Legit - This is another that comes as no big surprise. Searches increase every time some of these scam artists do a big e-mail push on people who have expressed a desire to Work at Home by taking surveys or some other “make tons of money online” scams.
4. Meta Data - This is a little bit unexpected. Although I have written some posts on Keyword usage in posts, titles and tags, I am far from an expert. This is something I feel more serious minded future internet entrepreneurs are looking to get as much information as possible about to succeed online.
5. Print Business Cards - Let’s face it. When small business people are just starting out, they are trying to save a little bit of money. If they can do something themselves with their own equipment instead of paying someone else to do it, they’ll take that option.
6. Blog vs Website - This is something I get asked by potential customers all of the time. There seems to be quite a few people seeking the best option for their business and looking to get ways to attract new customers by using the appropriate platform.
7. WordPress Plugins - This seems to coincide with #1. Every time WordPress upgrades and breaks something or takes it away altogether, WP users need new plugins to solve a problem they didn’t have before.
8. Navigation Tweaks - Things like Next/Previous posts, Alphabetizing and Post count in Categories or Site Search are not always included in templates and bloggers want to offer the best way to present as much information to their visitors as possible.
9. Page Views - It is no surprise that any business that has an internet presence wants as many eyes reading as much of the information presented as possible. Things like Inseries, comments and polls were included in this as part of the search results because they were some of the major keywords used in these searches.
10. WampServer - I’m not too sure why this term showed up so much, maybe there aren’t too many posts about the program. I did a minor review of my experience using it (I am quite happy with it). These are probably from searches looking for useful offline tools for web designers and problem solvers.

Just for the halibut I thought I would include #11 Skype (only wrote about it once) and #12 Verizon Wireless Router (over 2 years ago) to show that it just depends on what people need information about and how much information is out there.

These search terms don’t necessarily translate into the most popular posts that appear on WAHI, but they do give me an idea of what people are looking for and how they are finding what I write related to their needs. So, the plan at this point is to focus on finding answers to some of the questions people seem to be asking through their searches.

Some queries, like Blog vs Website or Scam & Legit and Work at Home, will be addressed here with updated details as they become available. The more technical and program related solutions would probably be better handled on My Computer Back in Service (not to worry, I’ll link to the answers).

What about you, can you hear the questions people are asking you through their searches? Got any examples?

January 29th, 2008 at 06:27am | Posted by Joe | Keywords, Stastics | reader remarks | Print This Post

This Weeks Helpful Reads… Week 91

 This is an ongoing series of interesting and helpful reads that I have come across on the Internet. I try to include the most helpful articles and links each week to provide the widest range of information for the home business entrepreneur.

Connecting the Dots by Douglas Karr… Doug explains why it’s important to make the connections between Sales, Production and Customer Service in order to be successful in business.

Creating Multiple Streams of Income Online by Vandelay… Not only does Steve give 5 reasons to diversify income streams of income, but also some resources and ways to accomplish a multiple stream strategy.

Should You Try Affiliate Marketing? by Chris Garrett… After reading Steve’s article, you may want to take a look at what Chrig has to say about going the affiliate marketing route.

I hope you find some of these articles informational and helpful. I think they will be enjoyable reading nonetheless.

January 27th, 2008 at 06:06am | Posted by Joe | Weekly Helpful Reads | 4 reader remarks | Print This Post