PEOPLE looking to earn extra cash in the run up to Christmas have been warned to beware of bogus homeworking schemes.

Trading standards and Citizens' Advice have joined together to highlight the risks of schemes which see people ripped off just as they need extra cash to pay for their festive fun.

Ghazala Sulaman-Butt of the Women's Resource Centre, Blackburn, said some workers found themselves working for nothing after being fleeced by unscrupulous employers who demand they pay cash for the work. She warned potential employers that the centre has a black-list of almost 100 troublesome companies. She said: "We know who are the regular offenders. We can't tell people go with an employer or not, but we can say if they are on the list of companies we would not recommend."

The homeworking schemes can include a wide variety of different "jobs", ranging from envelope stuffing, typing, assembling products, craft work and making Christmas crackers. Some pay as little as 60 pence an hour; others have so-called quality controls which allow employers to say the products don't come up to scratch and refuse to pay for them -- while still taking them off the worker.

Mrs Sulaman-Butt said people of all backgrounds were caught up by the bogus employers, although often the most vulnerable were hit hardest. She added: "You do get desperate people trying to earn quick money and you get professional people who are taken in by the adverts." Chris Allen, head of Blackburn with Darwen's trading standards department, said his department had an "active policy of detecting homework schemes", many of them advertised in shop windows, noticeboards and even on lampposts. He said: "If people have a particular concern, come to us and we will check if it's a genuine scheme or bogus."

Both trading standards and the Women's Resource Centre give the following advice :

Avoid companies which ask for an up-front payment before work is done.

Beware of homeworking schemes which require you to buy or hire equipment from the company.

Take care with schemes which require you to sell the product after you have completed it.

You can contact the Women's Resource Centre on 01254 260736, or the trading standards consumer advice line on 01254 585904.