Envelope Stuffing Scams

It seems like every mail order publication has at least one ad in it promising hundreds of dollars a week, just for stuffing envelopes. Some even promise to pay $4 or $5 per envelope stuffed! So, many people send off their hard earned money for the "registration fees" so they can get started on this easy work. Then they are disappointed when they discover they've been duped.

Here's why the envelope stuffing programs are nothing more than scams. First of all, the idea of paying someone to stuff envelopes is ridiculous. Why pay someone even 50 cents to stuff an envelope when you can get an envelope stuffing machine for a few hundred dollars? There must be more to what you'll have to do then simply putting a paper in an envelope.

In fact, there's more. The most prevalent envelope stuffing con game goes like this. You pay your "registration fee" - usually around $30.00, pure profit for the scam operator.

The operator will then send you a copy of the ad you originally responded to, along with the wording to a classified ad, telling people about how much money they can make stuffing envelopes, and to send a self-addressed stamped envelope for information. When you receive someone's SASE, you send them a copy of the ad.

You have just "stuffed an envelope." If the poor sucker sends in the registration fee to the operator (like YOU did), the operator will send you $1 (or whatever was promised in the ad) for "stuffing the envelope." The operator is left with expenses of around $2 and a profit of $28.

Basically, you are doing all the advertising work for the operator for extremely low pay. You should expect a response rate, if you're lucky, of ¼% to ½%. At ½%, you'd have to get 200 responses to your classified ad to get $1. Good luck.

The other most common scheme goes like this. You send the usual registration fee in, and the operator sends you a package containing all the components of the operators mailings. You must assemble them, fold them, and stuff the envelopes according to the operator's very exacting instructions.

Then, you send the stuffed envelopes back to the operator. You will be paid for each stuffed envelope that "meets their standards." Of course, none of the envelopes you stuffed will meet their standards. They will find some reason not to pay you. Of course, that doesn't prevent them from still sending out the envelopes you stuffed...

So, you can see, that joining an envelope stuffing program is a bad idea. Save the money you'd send in for the registration fee, and put it towards a legitimate mail order business, and you'll be happier and more successful.