New England Crafters, aka Magical Gift Company Feedback

I am trying to get approved on my first project with NEC. I have no crafting experience and had to practice a lot but think I will be approved. It is time consuming but well worth it to me. It all gets easier with time and practice. No you will not get rich. I wish people who say work at home jobs are slave labor and not enough money would show me just one work at home job where you can make a lot of money. And spend little time. It is not there. The work at home jobs I have checked out are time consuming and pay little. You can make four, five hundred a month with this company if you work at it. You are going to put in some hours. You need to enjoy crafting and be able to do repetitive work.
Yes a lot fail but a lot succeed and are happy with this company.

I would like to do work at home but was always told that companies that ask for money up front are usually a scam - do you have a business license #? and your full address and perhaps if you have a better business contract and their number - you must have an office from which items are shipped from and to and also for accounting purposes. In today's world one can never be too careful and the amount of outlay for a kit and then return postage is sounds like a lot to outlay especially if you take a long time to approve the merchandise assembled - money is short and the reason I want a work from home is that it would be the best way for me to go - please respond - thank you

You do realize that WorkAtHomeTruth has nothing to do with New England Crafters, right, Joan? One of the visitors to WorkAtHomeTruth thought the information might be helpful for other people so I posted it here on the blog.

You might want to take a look at the free telecommuting tool here.

I live in Goshen and the Magical Gify Co. is located one town away from me in Torrington, they are a legit business and the women that work there are very nice. They help you to pick out the project that would best suit what you want to do and are honest about what your going to make. They dont say your going to make $5000 a month but honestly with what legitamite work at home company can you do that? Most are scams but this one is definetly not. Just honest to god hard work.

This company is not a scam, yes the work is tedious but for some of us working at home is the only option. Realistically you wont get rich but you can def. make some extra money. They are located in Torrington CT next door to the Warner theater if you are familiar with the area I dont think they are actual members of the bbb but here is the address to the better business bureau page on the company.
http://ct.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=29&bbb=0111&firm=10001810

Joan Melluse

If your question was directed toward me I do not understand the questions. I do understand the question given about paying money up front to a company and it may be a scam. You have to do your research and even then it can be difficult to determine a good work at home company.

If you would like to visit a forum that has alot of info posted on different threads about various work at home companies it would be WAHM.com message board.

Hi, I'm new at this, but just received my packet from New England Crafters and have some concerns. I was asked to make a craft, sent one in and am now waiting for a reply to see if I have been approved to do this work. The cost is not bad if I can make 5 or 600.00 a month. The craft is so minor and not something I would ever buy and can't see anyone else buying either, so wonder if this is a scam. Of course I am new at this particular craft, but it still took me about 2 1/2 hours to make it. It was interesting to read the other comments and am glad to know they actually have a business.

I've been making the Kitty Magnet for a while now and I can do a full kit in about 30-35 hours so I wouldn't call it slave labor. I'm making more that I did at my last job. Maybe it depends on the project. It did, however, take five tries to get it right, but after that I only had one time where a few items were returned for repair.

I wanted to follow up on what happened with my sheep project for New England Crafters. It turned out really bad news. I am out around one hundred and fifty dollars and spent six months of mailing a sheep back and forth.
I found this company really running me around. Would never recommend it.
I also think the best you could hope for is maybe three hundred a month and that may be a stretch. You would start out making fifty dollars a month for one project and that could take months to even get approved. That also would be working several hours a day.
I think they are delivering quite the con on their website. I also think the women who do work for this comapny most probably would like to see lots of kits sold to keep the company going.
I give this company a big thumbs down.

i want to start working for them but is it legit or a scam.

Patti,

You'll have to make your decision based on what other people have posted here.

Also, Cindy's suggestion to visit http://www.wahm.com is probably a good one for you. You'll want to look at their messageboards as there will be a lot of people who are willing to help you out there.

Paul and readers,
I wanted to let you know New England Crafters has recently gotten a forum of their own up and running. The link is posted on their web site. You have to have purchased a kit to post on their forum. There is not as much activity on the WAHM.com message board as there was regarding New England Crafters. But their are still a few people posting about this particular company. They are not sharing tips on making the crafts anymore. But if you putchase a kit and use the Companies forum you will be talking with others who are doing their crafts and sharing tips. There is information posted on the WAHM.com website about the new forum for New England Crafters.
Also the WAHM.com thread for New England Crafters contains many pages from the past that readers can gain information from.
There are other threads for other work at home crafting companies active and people posting on the WAHM.com message board.

There are still posts that cold help someone if they would read back through all the pages of the threads for New England Crafters on the WAHM.com web site. But there are only a few ladies posting now and you can not share any tips on how to make the project. Alos has been discouraging you to say anyhing negative about the company.

I needed to clarify it is not WAHM.com discouraging tips on making the crafts for New England Crafters it is the Administrator of the new NEC forum asking that certain tips about making projects not be given out on message boards. And I do believe they encouraged the people posting on WAHM.com to post on their new forum and not a public message board. And as far as posting negative comments about the company on message boards that had us all really confused for a while and affraid to post. But then it seemed we really did not know what was up with that because they had a problem getting the forum up and running and posts were made and then disappeared. But that was our opinion for a while. Kind of confusing.

Sorry for the spelling erros in my previous posts. I seem to catch them after I post. I am spoiled by using spell check.

Thanks for the update, Cindy!

That's a good sign if they're providing a forum now. And it makes perfect sense that they'd want to get people to post tips in their own forum as that's where they'd be helping the most people.

Just a heads up that if you're on a Mac using firefox, the forum links may not be clickable for you.

On the PC - at least using Internet Explorer the forum link was fine.

Patti

You ask is New England Crafters a scam or not?

My daughter and I had a long conversation last night about WAH Companies and the internet.

She has just recently graduated form college and is working for a year and than attending Law School. Very bright young
lady.

She said, Mom I do not understand why you have wasted money working for these WAH Companies on the internet. They are all scams. Even if you can make a little money look how much time you have put into the craft you tried. They will never pay you the amount they promised you could make. Look at the promises they made on their web site and did not deliver what they promised. They can not pay a large payroll. They sell their crafts for five dollars a piece. They are crafts that are not even in demand. They are charging almost fifty dollars for a kit. These kits contain cheap materials. They are making money off of selling kits.
Than I say well there are women on the message board saying they are getting paid. My daughter says you do not know who anyone really is posting on a message board. People can say anything. She states everyone justifys why and what they are doing. She says please do not be stupid. Please do not waste anymore of your time and money.

I thought all the WAH Craft Companies were scams. I was brand new to message boards and started posting on WAHM.com a year and a half ago. It was fun. I made friends. I think that is what influenced my paying out money and trying a WAH Craft Company.
You can make some money. But I am afraid it is not at all like what their web site or the women posting on a forum make it out to be. There are several factors involved that you would never think of before paying out that money.
If you should make crafts for New England Crafters the amount you are paid will be around a dollar an hour. And you are given a time limit to make them. Most take a while to make. So you will be spending hours a day making these crafts to earn a little bit of money. Most the gals doing the work for New England Crafters say they love crafting. So it is like being paid for doing a hobby. Just beware their web site information makes it seem much easier and better than it really is.
This of course is my opinion.

Paul.
I too understand why they would want their crafters to use their new forum.

I also understand why posting tips on making the crafts should be kept on their forum.

I have a very bad opinion of these WAH Crafting companies so I shared my opinions and experiences.

I know people will keep buying kits and these companies will stay in business. I doubt the internet will stop scams. I know law enforcement would have to say if these companies are illegal. But do they con and embellish what they promise. Yes they do.

Cindy,

I think that's a reasonable opinion.

Ideally, if you are going to do crafting you are much better off making and selling crafts on your own which is probably something that should have been brought up earlier.

Cindy,

The biggest problem with stopping scams on the internet is that the agencies that work on shutting them down are seriously underfunded and understaffed.

The other issue that I've found that as much as people like to complain, it's actually often hard to get them to file complaints with the FTC, IC3, the AGs, BBB, etc.

There have been a few exceptions to that, but unfortunately in general it's true.

And while I understand that it can take a decent amount of time to file the complaints often the complaints are an important factor for the FTC in deciding on whether or not a company is being deceptive.

The FTC policy statement on deception is here:
advertising deception and while there are many new guidelines that have come out since then that is still a great starting point for understanding how the FTC thinks about deception.

Of particular note is this paragraph:

"Of course, the Commission must find that a representation, omission, or practice occurred in cases of express claims, the representation itself establishes the meaning. In cases of implied claims, the Commission will often be able to determine meaning through an examination of the representation itself, including an evaluation of such factors as the entire document, the juxtaposition of various phrases in the document, the nature of the claim, and the nature of the transactions. In other situations, the Commission will require extrinsic evidence that reasonable consumers reach the implied claims. In all instances, the Commission will carefully consider any extrinsic evidence that is introduced."

Which is why it's frustrating when so many people complain, but few people file complaints.

Paul

Thank yuou very much for sharing this info on scams and the internet.

I tried to research. I talked with the FBI. They told me these WAH Craft Companies were small fish. They had big fish to go after. That there were so many scams they had to go after the ones taking people for the most money.
They did give me some info on how to file reports if I felt I had been scammed. I also know finding out whether something is illegal or legal would be left up to professionals. I could never figure that out. I have not attended Law School.

It is interesting only a few file claims. Also I found few post their true opinions on Message Boards.

I truly appreciate the information you gave in your recent post.

I am someone who will file a complaint. I will research and study the info given.
Again Thank you