Scam Watcher’sReport on Survey Site Scams
The Truth about Paid Surveys
We’ve all got them. You do, I do, everyone has them. And we all want to share them with everyone else. Do you know what “they” are?
Opinions. Yep, opinions, I know you have a few of your own right now don’t you.
Well, up until recently opinions were just something we got to harbor and share with people when it was appropriate (and even sometimes when it wasn’t, we’ve all done it). Now, times have changed and there is a new trend taking the internet by storm, being paid for your opinion.
It’s true. According to hundreds, even thousands of websites out there you can make a tidy income (up to $250 an hour according to some) just for filling out surveys and giving your opinion.
First, let’s talk about how this all works and how on earth you’re supposed to be able to get paid for your opinion.
There are thousands of companies out there that make products, anything from Angora sweaters to Zippered sandwich bags (otherwise known as Ziplock). Now, what is the singular goal of every company? To make more money of course. How do companies make more money? They sell more products. Either more of the same products or more of the new products they develop. Like any good business person knows, the best way to sell more is to first find out what your customers want and then offer it to them. Think about it, makes sense doesn’t it?
The absolute best way to find out what your customers (or potential customers) want to buy is to simply ask them.
Imagine this… A man comes to your door and asks you which laundry detergent you use now. You tell him. Then he asks you if there is anything you want your detergent to do that it doesn’t do right now.
“Why yes, I really would like to use one detergent for everything rather than having to use one for normal washes and then use bleach for whites, and Woolite for delicates.”
The man thanks you for your time and leaves. Two days later he reappears and shows you a new detergent that does everything you described to him, one detergent for every type of wash. Would you buy it from him? You bet you would, and so would everyone else. He asked what you wanted and then delivered exactly that.
That’s the purpose of surveys, to make products better so more consumers buy them. The marketing departments of the largest companies in the World employ other companies to administer surveys and deliver the survey results so the big companies can make better products and in the end make more money.
Back to the matter at hand. The surveying companies get paid a certain amount for each survey they return to whomever employed them. And they use a variety of incentives to get people to spend 20 minutes of their time filling out the surveys: cash, free products, gift certificates, frequent flier miles, and a whole bunch of others.
So, on the net right now there are a multitude of sites that promise to set you up with all the surveys you can shake a stick at and say you’ll be able to spend an hour a day filling out product surveys and make hundreds of dollars a week. These sites say that they have huge lists of companies who will be vying for your opinion and paying you top dollar. All for the bargain basement price of $35 (or so) and you’ll get access to the “special” list and be on your way to making all the money you can imagine.
There are a few critical flaws in this system. The first of which being that you have to pay to get the list of companies. Remember, there are thousands of companies who want you to take their survey so they can make more money in the long run. There isn’t a single company who charges people to take their survey, that would be totally defeatist. But, the websites out their who offer paid surveys are acting as middle men. They take the time and compile the list for you and then charge you to get access to that list.
Now, there isn’t anything wrong with this. The paid survey company/website took the time and put the list together. They also give instructions showing how to sign up for the surveys. They deserve to be paid for their effort.
But, here’s where it all starts to fall apart. The websites who are selling the paid survey system all promise that you’ll be able to make money filling out surveys, participating in focus research groups, and whatever else. They don’t tell you how it really works though.
About 6 months ago my younger sister was in dire straits financially. She needed to make some extra money. Like most people these days she turned to the internet to find a cure to her ails and stumbled across a paid survey site. She called me and asked whether she should spend the $35 and if it would work. At the time I’d never looked at the survey sites so I said,
“Here, I’ll give you the $35 and you can take the surveys, keep the money and tell me how it goes so I can tell everyone else about it.”
A week later I stopped by her apartment for lunch and asked her how the surveys were coming along.
“Well Christian, you wasted $35 and I haven’t made a dime.”
She took me over to her computer and opened up her email, clicked Send/Receive and I watched as hundreds and hundreds of emails came flooding in. We started to sift through them and found a few surveys mixed in with offers for everything from Aerobic exercise tapes to discount Viagra. Needless to say all the surveys she joined ended up getting her email address on so many mailing lists that she had to dump the box altogether. And out of the few surveys that came through not a single one was going to pay her for her opinion. They were all the “fill out our survey and we’ll send you a free sample of out new tuna fish” type. She ended up frustrated and I wasted $35.
So, after that experience I no longer tell anyone to use “paid” surveys to make extra money. Here’s why; most of the surveys you’ll signup for will not pay you any money but they will waste your time. When you do sign up for all those surveys your name and email address will be sold or traded to a slew of other companies who are going to slam your inbox with tons of unrelated offers soliciting you to spend money you obviously didn’t have in the first place. And, the websites who sell “paid” surveys services are using false advertising to entice unsuspecting people to part with $35 (or so) and deliver little in return.
Do I think survey sites are a scam? Well, the big companies who are trying to improve their products aren’t doing anything wrong, just business as usual. It’s the websites selling the information that are misleading you with their false promises and over-hyped claims. Don’t pay anyone to take surveys, you are wasting your money.
Keep those opinions to yourself or share them when it’s
appropriate, but don’t believe the promise that everyone and their uncle will pay you for them.
All the best,
Christian Roberts
Editor-in-Chief
ScamWatcher.org
P.S. If you found this review helpful, please feel free to refer any of your friends to this page. In the meantime, I’ll keep watching out for other scams for you.
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This article really hit close to home with me. When I retired in May, I began looking for a way to supplement my pension that was being garnisheed by Revenue Canada. (Yes, they actually waited for me to retire than claimed that I owed them x dollars over the past 13 years.)
I googled Internet Marketing and found several lucrative prospects. One in particular, in the paid ads, literally screamed “I’ve been scammed 39 times.”
Well I thought if a person is so passionate about denouncing the “scammers” that he would pay Google to advertise, I would click on his ad.
I read his webpage and couldn’t find anything about which programs were scams. But, he did have three recommendations at the bottom. I looked them over and thought to myself that if there was one thing I could do, it was voice my opinion.
Well, the rest is history. Like Christians sister, I received no surveys. But, I did get a lot of email!
Edward
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