Published: January 09, 2009 10:19 am      

Work-at-home scam proports to have local link

Angel Stevens has devilish side, Austin victim claims

A work-at-home scam that purports to have a San Marcos address has received an “F” from the Better Business Bureau, which says it received 73 complaints about the operation during a 36-month period.

The scheme, allegedly to process rebates at home, has also resulted in 374 complaints to the BBB in Los Angeles, the agency’s Austin office says.

Among the victims is Austin resident Douglass Wright, who says he was just looking for a way to work from home. When he came across an ad on the Internet for a work-at-home rebate processing program, he thought it was the perfect opportunity he had been searching for.

The ad featured a video of a woman who said her name was Angel Stevens. Angel claimed that she had struggled for years to make ends meet before finding a fool-proof method for generating income from home. Now she said she wanted to share this method with others, and Douglass was ready to give it a try.

Douglass paid $197 for a 7-week training kit that was supposed to certify him as an Affiliate Rebate Processor. It seemed like a lot of money to pay up front, but Douglass said the company had a 90-day money back guarantee, so he wasn't worried. But when he got the first set of training materials from Angel Stevens Process at Home, Douglass says he immediately knew this program just wasn't for him.

"It had nothing to do with processing rebates,"says Douglass. "Instead you have to try to sell stuff and it's really, really complicated. It's not at all what I was expecting."

According to complaints received by BBB, consumers allege the company does not honor their 90-day money back guarantee. Consumers say they want to return the process at home program because the opportunity is not as it is described on the company's Web site. They say they are led to believe they will be processing rebates for 11,000+ companies such as Home Depot and Hewlett Packard. But, consumers who purchase the process at home kit say they end up participating in an affiliate marketing program, which means they have to post ads on the Internet at their own expense for other people's products, try to sell those products and offer rebates on those products.

Some consumers say they are urged to pay an additional $4,000-12,000 to "properly set up their business" by starting an online store that utilizes drop shipping.

Others say they have been double-billed or have had other unauthorized charges applied to their credit cards or debited from their accounts.

According to the company's Web site, they are located in the city of Nicosia in the small European nation of Cypress and consumers who purchase the process-at-home kit and want to pursue legal action against Angel Stevens Process at Home must agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the courts of Cypress.

There is no substitute for closely examining any offer that promises or guarantees income from work-at-home programs. If it sounds too good to be true, chances are it's a scam. Consider it a warning sign if a worker must buy something in order to start the program.

For a reliability report on a specific work-at-home company, visit http://www.bbb.org/.