Agents placed adverts in windows and newspapers, and put flyers on car windscreens, inviting people to send a stamped addressed envelope for further details of a home working scheme. The ads claimed earnings of £130 per 100 envelopes.
But respondents had to pay a £15 registration fee before they were given full details of the scheme, which involved agents obtaining responses from potential new agents through advertising before they earned any money.
David Breach John Vickers, OFT Chairman, said:
"This kind of advertising deceptively encourages people to pay to sign up to what looks like a work from home scheme, only to discover they have to solicit other people to the scheme in order to make any money."
The man behind the scheme, David Breach, trading as Delta Data Services, has given the OFT undertakings that he will no longer publish or permit the publishing or dissemination of such misleading adverts.
