Yes and no.
There are legitimate home based business opportunities but for some reason, people get this notion that the internet is different from any other type of business and is really really easy and automatic and proven...
If you want money, you need to work for it.
There are two main "home work" sources of income that I am aware of that actually work and are legitimate. You can fill out surveys and complete free-trial offers and make $600 a month (or around that) on a site like Dollar Hauler or start an MLM business.
1. Surveys / Offers
You can make a good amount of money doing this in conjuncture with referring people to the site and earning commissions from their earnings. Doing 3 surveys or trial offers a day (assuming they pay $5/ea on average) for a month and referring one more person who does the same will earn you just under $600 a month ($465 from your earnings and 25% of $465 is $116.25 from your referrals).
The place to get 25% referral commission is Dollar Hauler and they also have some of the highest payments for surveys and offers.
2. MLM Business
There are a lot of scams with MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) businesses and even more hype. An MLM Business is NOT easy to start and even on the legitimate ones, it will most likely take some upfront fees to begin. I know a lot about ACN so I'll use that as my example.
ACN is a Telecommunications company that has a video-phone VOIP service that donald trump endorses yada yada. They sell you on promises of easy income, early retirement, extra free time because you're making so much money, etc. That is all very possible with ACN but consider that most people have a very hard time getting people to sign up under them as referrals and you NEED referrals in order to advance. As your referrals get referrals, and those peoples referrals get referrals, you are "promoted".
Now, most people look at this like a pyramid scheme but to be honest there is some truth in what they say; the number of people under you is what determines your title. Assume everyone who works at McDonalds starts out as a patty flipper / cashier. Then they all theoretically desire to become a manager (more money, better job, etc). Not everyone can become a manager, but people realize this going into it. Eventually, those managers who work hard can become regional managers, and so on.
The thing that is dangerous with ACN is they ask for $500 to become an independent rep and promise you that you will have oodles of this thing called residual income (or a passive income that comes to you by doing nothing) each time your customers pay their telecommunications bills that they bought through you. You earn pennies for a single contract. Only people with literally 100-200 people below them will start receiving a few hundred dollars a month.
The redeeming part about ACN is that you get upfront cash bonuses when you or anyone below you signs up new referrals that go into the 5 figures for any realistic position you will have in the company.
Just get rid of the idea you can make money really easily by doing nothing - it is not possible for the vast majority of the population.
Other than that, just assess opportunities as they present themselves to you as objectively as possible and ignore the hype.
