Until a few years ago, the majority of work from home opportunities were mainly scams, which made it difficult for a stay-at-home parent, college student or employee that wanted to pick up a side gig and get themselves an extra source of income to go for it. Fortunately, all that has changed. Today, according to a 2015 survey by the U.S. Department of Labor, more than 24% of Americans do either all or some of their work at home.

With an increasing demand comes increased supply/competition so it is no wonder there are so many companies that offer part-time or full-time at-home positions in various categories nowadays.

For those of you that wish for a job with flexible hours, decent income, and the ability to log in whenever you are ready, we have thoroughly researched hundreds of companies for you and give you the best legitimate work-from-home jobs we have found so far.

Besides teaching online, tutoring, typing, freelance writing, and working as a freelance website designer or graphic designer, search engine evaluator or translator, which are all great ways to earn some extra cash from the comfort of your home, there are also lots of other jobs to consider, depending on your skills, area of expertise, and preferences.

  1. Customer Service Rep

These include telephone researcher positions, sales jobs, and positions that you will be called to handle inbound calls; others are technical support, virtual assistant, and mystery shopping (it is highly likely you will be required to have a good quality headset and a landline).

  • Sykes Work at Home – The company will train you to be as effective at customer care as possible so that you can become a valuable asset to their clients. They offer both part-time and full-time options.
  • Alorica @ Home – As an agent there, you might be required to answer customers’ questions, verify customer information, resolve issues, explain sales features, and/or offer additional services or products. The company offers medical and dental benefits.
  • Apple – You will find customer service and tech support jobs. Choose a job you fancy and send them your resume (no profile necessary).
  • Apptical – They are seeking individuals to work as telephone interviewers, along with administrators, project managers, and technologists.
  • Call Center QA – Fill out their Mystery Shopper Registration Form and start working using your landline or mobile phone. Speaking of mystery shopping, InteliChek is another company you could consider working for.
  • Convergys – They provide a list of customer service jobs near your location.
  • Contract World – Your job will be to answer inbound calls from customers. Right now, companies like Pizza Hut and KFC restaurants are looking for order entry agents and are offering interesting sales incentives.
  • cruise.com – If you have travel experience and think you can work as a cruise sales agent or online support agent, they need you, and offer a base salary, paid, web-based training, and an attractive employee benefits package, among others.
  • Expert Planet – Besides a sales consultant, you may even become a team leader, product category adviser or coach, depending on your skills.
  • Pleio Goodstart – They need people to help others with getting their medications properly, as prescribed by their doctor. You only need a dedicated phone line to get started.
  • SalesRoads – They have appointment setting, sales, and lead generation positions that need to be filled now. They offer standardized hourly pay + commission bonuses. If you are considering to work full-time with them you can enroll in a 401(k) retirement savings program and voluntary benefits (i.e. dental plan).
  • Brighten Communications – Pretty much like SalesRoads. They have appointment setting, lead generation, market research, and database generation positions. Their clients are Fortune-1000 firms. The good thing about them is that they are always hungry for virtual workers. They offer a flat hourly rate of $18.50 and you may choose to work either part- or full-time.
  • Sitel – They are hiring people to fill their customer support positions. They provide lots of benefits worth considering.
  • Vipdesk Connect – Work as a customer service representative. They collaborate with large corporations and you will be offered flexible hours to work.
  • Working Solutions Jobs! – Work as an agent there and help the company’s clients provide the best customer experience to their own customers.
  • Liveops – They boast of a workforce that exceeds 20,000 people working from their homes. As an agent, you will be required to take incoming calls on behalf of their corporate customers. They can provide training to bring you to speed in your job as a licensed insurance agent or whatever else you may specialize in, in a timely fashion.
  • TeleReach – If you have, at least, one year of verifiable B2B cold calling experience, then they have a position for you. This part-time opportunity can as well turn into full-time employment if you seriously think of this option, given that the company advocates plenty of benefits and paid vacations to their full-time employees.

  1. Court Researcher

For this job, you will need to carry out an in-depth search about specific background information from lawsuits, tax liens, civil records, and legal records, among others, on behalf of law firms, home lenders, and other companies that deal with background information. Some companies you could work for include First National Acceptance Company, Deed Collector, Omni Data Retrieval, and JBS Court Research Services.

  1. Bookkeeper or Accountant

If you have worked as a book keeper in the past or have some knowledge in this particular area, then you can certainly carry out book keeping remotely. Some of the companies that offer legitimate work from home bookkeeping and accounting jobs are Click Accounts, Bateman & Co (you need to hold a CPA certificate), AD Accounting Department.com, Click N Work (they are in need of analysts and consultants at the moment), Book Minders (you must be able to work during business hours), and BIDaWIZ (you need to authorize them to perform a background check confirming your education and licensures).

  1. Medical Coder, Medical Billing & Medical Transcriptionist

The healthcare industry has several positions that do not demand your physical presence. From jobs that pay by the hour to salaried positions, you can find the perfect work-from-home job, depending on your needs.

You can get started with UnitedHealth Group, Fonemed (they are currently in need of nurse counselors), Mayo Clinic (from time to time, they post jobs for medical coders), iMedX (medical coding and transcription positions), and StenoMed (looking for medical transcriptionists year round).

  1. Online Moderator/Social Media Manager

It is one of those professions not many people hear of often. Yet, being a moderator can get you a good amount of money every month. Your responsibilities involve spending time on social media sites, online forums, and chat room as a means to manage the comments people leave. Your job would be to make sure those that break the rules are kicked out. The same goes for mood-spoilers. Companies like BabyCenter, Yelp, Ask.com, ICUC Social (you must be able to work fluently in English and, at least, two more languages from the list they provide), and Modsquad are excellent places to look for legitimate work-from-home jobs as an online moderator.

Steering Around the Hazards of Finding Work-From-Home Jobs

Although it is quite difficult to distinguish people that are out to get advantage of you and actual legitimate work-from-home programs, some industries are more likely to offer real job opportunities for remote work than others. For example, companies that use home employees to take orders over the phone or employ virtual customer service representatives are usually legitimate.

However, you should be a bit more skeptical with occupations that involve envelope stuffing, at-home assembly work, medical billings, processing claims, and refund-recovery business. Using common sense will save you from lots of trouble (i.e. why would a company pay someone to stuff an envelope when a mailing house could do that for them for much less?).

Be extra careful when you are asked to handle private medical info too. The new healthcare privacy rules are extremely strict and you could end up in big trouble. Very few doctors, if any, will outsource billing services to individuals. They always prefer large, reputed companies that employ trained workers on-site.

Finally, if you are asked to purchase software (warning: in a legit deal, it should be YOU who should be paid, not the other way around) to track lost and late FedEx and UPS packages and help customers obtain refunds, chances are you are about to become involved in a scheme that is not legal, so better stay away. Just to be sure, you can see if the particular company has any criminal or civil complaints by checking Fraud.org.

If you think you have found a legitimate company offering work-from-home employment, check the Better Business Bureau (BBB) database of companies to see how the BBB rates your prospective employer. Then, check the Federal Trade Commission website for information on the employer you are considering (i.e. press releases). If your search doesn’t raise any red flags, you are probably on the safe side.

In general, the prospective employer should be able to answer all your key questions and give you a good idea of what your responsibilities will be, what tasks you will be called to perform, how you will be paid (on commission, hourly or salary), who will be paying you, and when can you expect your first paycheck.

Nevertheless, most of the times, our gut instinct protects us from unwanted, frustrating, and potentially illegal situations we might find ourselves in. So trust it and run the other way if you feel that the employer you are considering has probably not laid all their cards on the table.