According a report on MarketWatch, rising unemployment typically leads to a rise in the number of active scam artists. Today, as countless unemployed Americans experience financial insecurity, they become more and more vulnerable to false promises of large profits.

What to Watch For

Here are some helpful tips to avoid the preying eyes of scam artists:

• Up-front fees: If an initial fee is required to get a job, like a fee for an application or an exam, it is likely a scam. Sometimes, scammers will ask for an applicant’s credit card or bank account numbers. Job seekers should ignore such requests. According to the director of the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection bureau, David Vladeck, “[n]o one should pay to get a job.” Proving that many people fall prey to such ploys, Vladeck says that some companies have made millions of dollars from bogus up-front fees.
• “Business Opportunities”: A popular trick by scam artists is to offer investment opportunities for jobless people who are looking to expand their savings. According to reports, signs of a phony business investment include promises of unreasonably high profits, as well as claims that the investor knows a secret about securing lofty returns. So, if an “investor” promises you a 20 percent profit based on some insider secrets, kindly tell them to buzz off.
• Other scams: Common scams include promises of working at home, phony rebate schemes, and bogus offers to perform processing of medical records that don’t actually exist. One key to avoid a scam: if an advertisement offers a “guaranteed job,” it is probably too good to be true.

If you steer clear of these financial pitfalls, you ought to be safe from many widely used scams.

But be warned, there is another scam that is equally nefarious. This involves efforts by scammers making false offers to help you eliminate your debt.

While such offers can be enticing, especially if you are facing catastrophic financial events such as the loss of your house or car, be wary of paying fees to a service that promises to eliminate your debt. A common tactic by fraudulent debt reduction services is to charge large, up-front fees over the phone.

Starting on October 27, this ploy will be illegal, so if you receive such an offer, know that it is probably a scam.

In order to avoid the hassle and potential scams involved with debt reduction services, a safer option to explore is personal bankruptcy. While it may not be the best fit for everyone, personal bankruptcy can help you reorganize your debts so you can pay at a more reasonable pace.

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy

If you’re considering filing for bankruptcy in order to ease your financial burdens, you may already know that Chapter 13 bankruptcy offers filers a three- to five-year period in which creditors cannot take any kind of collection action—including foreclosure. So how do you know whether or not filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy is a realistic solution to your money trouble?

Take a look at these guidelines, which might help you decide.

• If you’re not earning enough to cover your mortgage payments: Chapter 13 bankruptcy is likely not the best option for you. This is because the bankruptcy court does not have the authority to modify the terms of a mortgage agreement, so you’d be responsible for your mortgage payments regardless.
• You’re upside down on your mortgage but can afford your payments: Unfortunately, even if you owe more than your house is worth, bankruptcy probably can’t do much for you if your mortgage payments are still affordable.
• You would be able to afford your mortgage, but other debts get in the way: Bankruptcy may be a workable solution if your efforts to repay your mortgage are hindered mainly by other debts (including credit card and medical bills). The bankruptcy court does have the authority to discharge such debts, which would free up your income to pay your mortgage.
• You’re underwater because of a second mortgage: If you’ve taken out a home equity line of credit or second mortgage and your house is worth significantly less than the value of that loan, there’s a chance that the bankruptcy court would excuse that debt. This might work because such secondary loans are often considered unsecured.
• You’ve adopted healthy financial habits but cannot catch up on your mortgage: A bankruptcy filing could allow you to restructure your debts and give you a chance to catch up on payments you’ve fallen behind on. If you’ve committed to paying down your debts, bankruptcy may provide you the assistance you need.

Clearly, the relationship between mortgage foreclosure and filing for personal bankruptcy is complex and depends on the specific details of each situation.

If you’re considering bankruptcy or looking for an alternative to having the bank foreclose on your home, consider contacting a bankruptcy lawyer in your area to discuss the likelihood that bankruptcy would help your circumstances.

Additional Resources

Facing the Risk of Foreclosure

Foreclosure Prevention Resources

Reputations spread at lightning speed today, moving from social networking sites to blogs to Google searches faster than a snail mail resume can make it to employers’ mailboxes.

With so much information floating around, job searches need to take a proactive role in managing what information is out there about you. In other words, you need to manage your brand.

Here are some self-branding and image management tips:

Define your trademark

The first thing to do is find out what your image is online. Google your name and see what turns up. How do the search results reflect on you as a potential employee? Silly photos that pop up on Flickr, for example, might not be the image that you want a potential employer to see when she searches for your name (which is a distinct reality in this day and age).

Once you’ve established how you appear, determine how you want to appear. Write a statement, CNNMoney recommends, answering the question “How do I want employers to view me?” Project the image that you want to have, and the job that you want.

Once you have defined your goal, it’s time to do the work online to spread that image.

Get the word out about yourself

Update resources like your LinkedIn profile, to make sure that it reflects the image goals that you’ve articulated. Stick to the branding messages that you’ve established for yourself.

Consider building a web site that advances this image, and that reflects your professional experience and experience. Think about starting a blog, to more firmly establish your professional web presence. (Make sure to update any blog that you start, as an abandoned blog can leave a poor impression itself.)

With more content, you’ll get more web hits that reflect your professional side.

Live your brand

If your lifestyle offline meets the demands of your brand, that will come through online as well. Take your personal brand seriously, and take on roles and responsibilities that will live up to it. Volunteer in your field, and engage with the issues that will make you more appealing professionally.

“It’s not about making your brand famous,” says William Arruda of Reach Personal Branding. “It’s about making it selectively famous among the people who need to know about you.”

If you’re currently out of work and spending time and money in your efforts at getting back on the employment bandwagon, it’s important to know what you can and cannot write off come tax time (and what sort of documentation you should be filing away).

Here’s a look at the pointers from the IRS:

• Current occupation: In order for job search-related expenses to be considered deductible, they must be for a job in which you’ve already been employed. So if you’re taking classes to learn a new skill that you hope will get you into a different line of work from your last one, you can’t write tuition off. If you’re going to career fairs intended for people in your line of work, related expenses would likely be deductible.
• Employment agency fees: If you’re paying fees to an employment or outplacement agency, those costs are tax-deductible as long as the agency is helping you find a job in your former field of employment. If, in a later year, your employer reimburses you for such fees, you must include that amount in your gross income (up to the amount of your tax benefit) in that tax year.
• Résumé preparation fees: If you’re preparing and mailing résumés to potential employers, the money you spend http://www.totalbankruptcy.com/life-after-bankruptcy/stay-debt-free/control-your-spending.aspx is tax deductible as long as you’re applying to jobs in your former field of employment.
• Travel costs: Should you travel in order to look for work, the expense of your trip to and from that destination is considered deductible as long as you’re seeking a job of the type you already had. A job-seeking (and thus tax-deductible) trip can be distinguished from a personal trip by the amount of time spent doing job-related activities versus the time spent on personal activities.
• Elapsed time: Job search expenses are not considered deductible if there is a “substantial” break between your last period of employment and your current job search.
• First time: Those looking for employment for the first time cannot deduct job search expenses.

So what does this mean if you’re currently looking for work? Make sure to hang on to receipts from any expenses (like copying costs) you have from your job search. Save documentation of travel (e.g. gas money, food, convention costs, etc.) and keep all these documents together so that when tax time comes around, you can access it easily.

Here’s a look at some of the nitty-gritty of the latest unemployment stats:

• Initial unemployment claims were down to 429,000 from 458,000, a decrease of 29,000.
• The four-week moving average also fell last week, from 467,000 to 455,250, dropping by 11,750.
• The advance numbers for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment for the week ending July 3, also recently released, show that the rate actually rose from 3.5 percent to 3.7 percent.
• In that same week, the number of insured unemployed Americans (seasonally adjusted) rose 247,000, from 4.434 million to 4.681 million.

These numbers provide the sort of ambivalent picture that has been typical of such data since unemployment spiked in late 2008. And figures like these have many Americans worried, because Congress retreated for a holiday without voting to extend the unemployment benefits that are expiring for millions of Americans.

Potential for Extended Benefits?

The Department of Labor reports that extended benefits were available to out-of-work Americans at the end of June in the following states: Alaska, Connecticut, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, as well as Puerto Rico.

But without intervention from federal lawmakers, such extensions could prove inadequate to sustain those who haven’t been able to find jobs. According to The New York Times, the Obama administration is pushing for Congress to extend unemployment benefits, but remains baffled at the extent of unemployment.

Possible explanations for the persistently high rate of joblessness include:

• Housing market woes: Some analysts apparently theorize that an inability to sell homes is leaving some job seekers unable to relocate for jobs.
• Extended benefit apathy: Others reportedly suggest that the availability of extended unemployment benefits has lessened the urgency of job-seeking for some of the unemployed.
• Doing more with less: And, perhaps most troubling of all, some analysts seem to believe that businesses have simply gotten used to functioning with smaller payrolls.

The problem looms large and likely will require time to provide further illumination.

In response to these questions, the Pew Research Center recently released the results of a study showing the dramatic effects of the financial plunge, though it revealed little about the timing of economic recovery.

In the most staggering finding of the study, during the last 30 months, 55 percent of all adults in the labor force have experienced unemployment, a reduction in pay or hours, or have been involuntarily relegated to part-time work. Thus, the recession has had a profoundly negative impact on a majority of working adults.

Economic Casualties of the Recession

The study released some truly alarming realities of the Great Recession. Some of the more eye-opening effects of the financial crisis are listed below.

• One-third of working adults have faced unemployment: According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 percent of eligible workers are currently either out of work or underemployed. However, this figure doesn’t tell the whole story, as the Pew Research study found that 1 in 3 adult workers (32 percent) have been unemployed for some period of time during the recession.
• Frugality by necessity: At least 62 percent of those surveyed claimed they have reduced their personal spending since December 2007, when the recession officially began. Even more telling, only 6 percent have increased their spending since that time.
• Retirement delayed for many: People in late middle age, between 50 and 64, were the most likely to say their finances are in worse shape than they were before the recession. Moreover, among working adults age 62 and older, about 33 percent say the recession has forced them to delay retirement. For working adults in their 50s, at least 60 percent fear they may also have to delay retirement.
• Losses hit close to home: As a result of the recession, 48 percent of Americans have seen the value of their house decline. Such losses in home value have resulted in increased mortgage foreclosures, one of the most enduring features of the recession.

Cause for Hope?

While the study revealed the wake of financial struggles in the recession’s path, it also expressed some optimism for the future.

In fact, more than 62 percent of Americans believe that their finances will improve during the next year. Also, 41 percent of those surveyed offered an even sunnier forecast, claiming that the economy is beginning to come out of the recession.

If you have found your finances severely threatened by the recession, consider contacting a personal bankruptcy attorney.

Kiplinger.com published some helpful tips for unemployed workers to help you take advantage of the networks that could already be right under your nose as you search for the next job.

Build and protect yourself as a brand

When you are representing yourself in social networks, make sure to put your best foot forward and present yourself as a successful brand. This means making sure that your profile is filled out completely, and that in your profile you highlight your skills and strong points. You might even consider starting a blog and filling it with content that displays your knowledge of a particular field.

Also make sure to monitor what other people might be saying about you online. Google yourself regularly, to learn whether there is information on the web somewhere that shows you in a bad light, like pictures from a late-night party or profanity connected with you or your name.

Stay in touch

The more connections that you make with people, the more chance you’ll find an opportunity when you reach out to your network. So actively search out friends and relatives to add to your social network. You never know what might come out of a rekindled friendship with a childhood friend or a distant relative.

Interact meaningfully with key people

Rather than friending random people to build your network, make sure that you focus on strengthening your relationships with people that can help you when you’re in need of a favor. Respond to these people’s posts, and engage in their conversations. And perhaps most importantly, help others when they need it.

Collect endorsements

Sites like LinkedIn have an endorsement feature, where your colleagues can sing your praises. These recommendations can go a long way. Don’t send out a mass email asking for these. Rather, send personalized notes to people who have particular insight into your unique skills and traits.

Research potential employers

Social networks and online sources are a great way to research companies that you might want to work for. Company web sites and Google searches can yield lots of helpful information. Also, a company’s social networking sites can help you learn what companies are looking for, and how they want to represent themselves to their customers.