Don't get Scammed with On-Line Jobs

Hello friends,
I began the summer working for a "company" known as Greasewheel. I had posted my resume on Cragislist as my work with joossearch had significantly slowed. I was contacted by a man named Steve Fisher from Greasewheel. It sounded like an interesting venture; an online small business advertising community. The pay seemed a little sketchy and some details were missing, but since it was basically a start up company, I decided to give them benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to new/poor management.
I paid the $75.00 training fee for live web training and attended the trainings. (NEVER pay for a job, they are supposed to pay you!) The trainings were actually valuable in many ways. Steve conducted the trainings himself via conference call and web slides. While the training schedule kept changing, it did seem legit since this guy was putting in so much of his own time into training us (there was a small group of us in my training class).
There was a CRM program I was working from, my own e-mail address, and things were seeming fine. The pay was very low for the amount of work I was putting in, but I was assured this was temporary, as the accounts came in, I would make more money.
The job description changed almost daily, the expectations were always unclear, and the communication was foggy at best. But I hung in there and did my best. I was "promoted" 2 times in the short month and a half I was with them. I figured this was a good thing to be promoted early on in the company and gladly took on the extra responsibility and work.
I received pay for my first month, and while it averaged about $2.00 / hour for the work I had put in, I was still looking at it glass half full and with an eager spirit. I couldn't wait for Greasewheel to take off!
Since being promoted the second time I was now helping to recruit, interview and train new people. However things got worse as time went on. Everything was very vague, and management had become rather testy. I was now working 10-12 hours some days, and while my accounts had increased, meaning my pay had increased, with those hours it still averaged just over $2.00 / hour, but now I was not even seeing my family. I decided to give my letter of resignation. I received correspondence from Steve stating that he respected my decision and I would be paid for the time I had put in.
Shortly thereafter I began to receive e-mails and calls from people I had formerly trained or helped to hire to Greasewheel stating the website was down, and no one could reach Steve Fisher or any other upper management. The company was just gone; no website, phones disconnected, e-mails bouncing back. One Greasewheel employee contacted most of us and asked us to join her in filing a complaint with the appropriate attorney general, which I gladly did. A few weeks later we all received a letter in the mail with no return address saying the company was no longer and we would be paid no later than August 31. At this time I have no hope of seeing the money owed to me for the numerous hours I gave to Greasewheel, it seems from the research done by the employee mentioned above, that indeed Steve Fisher and his friend had run a scam and we were all taken advantage of.
In addition to the loss of my time, the money I will surly never see I am now be harassed by one "ex - employee" who has continually e-mailed me, requested phone conversations with me, and even tried to connect me to the Greasewheel scam. His harassment was to the point I had to block his e-mails entirely.
I can only caution you to be aware that people are out there who will scam others and steal from them their time and money. Be very careful who you accept work from. This "company" had me unknowingly misleading others, believing I was doing my job and helping to grow the company. It makes me sick that I was scammed in such a way, but I along with all the other Greasewheel "employees" have learned a lesson the hard way. Please learn from our misfortune and lack of judgement.
Some things I will personally be cautious of in the future are:
1. Any job that asks you to pay for training. If they are hiring you, it is an investment they are making into their company for a valued employee who will in turn help their business to succeed, you should not be asked to pay to get a job.
2. Any job that pays via PayPal. I am not saying there aren't legitimate jobs out there that may pay in this fashion, but I would be cautious.
3. Any job that will not answer ALL your questions about the job, the company, or the expectations. Greasewheel was very vague, and I had a knot in my stomach when they had me interviewing people and said that if the interviewee asked questions, cut them loose, they weren't a fit for Greasewheel. That made no sense to me, of course people have questions about the job they are applying for, or at least they should.
4. Which brings me to my next point, follow your gut feeling! I am a generally optimistic person, giving others the benefit of the doubt. However, my gut all along told me something just wasn't right, I had that knot in my tummy, but I ignored that feeling and made excuses believing this was going to pay off.
5. Be cautious of any job that changes your job description too frequently or seems overly disorganized. They may be covering or hiding something.
I hope that this is helpful to someone out there and can prevent you from becoming a victim or a scam such as this.
Thankfully, I can report I now have a real job, with a real company, doing exactly (well almost :-) ) what I was wanting to do. And regardless of the evil ploy of Steve Fisher and his cohorts, I did learn some skills while with their fake company that will benefit me in my new job and future Internet endeavors. So I guess at the end of the day not all is lost and my glass is still half full.
RunWild!