Being paid while working from home sounds like the ultimate dream job, isn't it?

Imagine the following scenario:

- You wake up anytime of the date. There is no need to wake up early to prepare for work.

- You work in your pajamas and no longer have to don a business suit or suffer in high heels

- You just head to your work corner and say goodbye to rush hour traffic

- You work within the safe confines of your home and feel safe

With all of these in mind, work-at-home job opportunities are godsend to people who want to spend more time at home with their loved ones.

So, how can you protect yourself from work at home 'offers' that promise you the world and fail to deliver after you have done your part?

Deciding to work from home is a very big risk. For one, Internet deals can disappear in just a snap; hence, there is no job security. Payment modes for some work at home jobs are not always stable compared with a regular 8 to 5 office setting. While you might be lucky to work for companies that DO pay and deliver what they said when you were hired, there are companies that only want all the gains for themselves.

Here are some tips to help you weed out the bad from the good.

1. No legitimate and decent work at home job opportunity will ask you to pay them first before they give you work.

2. If the job will need training, you should be paid for the entire duration of the training. Again, you should not shell out a single cent.

3. You should know what kind of work you want to do before saying yes to every offer that comes in. This way, you specialize and don't have to balance unrelated workloads that are highly unrelated. Focusing on related themes will make it more profitable.

4. A real work at home job will ask about your work history and analyze your qualifications to do what they require. Be wary of opportunities that instantly tell you that you are hired without bothering to look at your resume.

5. Do not fall prey to sites that tell you that you can get rich quick if you work with them. While it is true that you can make thousands and millions off the Internet, there is no magic formula to make you a millionaire overnight. You will need to work your way up and any company that tells you otherwise is only trying to trick you.

Working from home sounds like heaven at first, but when you really get deep down into the economics of the entire business, you will need to spend time 'on the job'.

Just because you work at home doesn't mean you have the liberty to laze around whenever you want. After all, it's still called work because you will have to exert effort to rake in decent earnings.