Are online surveys a scam? The short answer is that if you spend a lot of time on the computer and want to start making money on paid survey websites, it is possible to make some extra money. You shouldn’t expect to make a living doing this, however. How do I know? I’m a full time student and I did a six month experiment to see if online surveys were worth the effort. I signed up with seven different companies, and I made about $500 in six months.
The Time Factor
When did I have time? Whenever I watched my favorite shows (Grey’s Anatomy on Thursdays and Desperate Housewives on Sundays), I would do the surveys during commercials! I figured I wouldn’t be studying during those times anyway, and it’s always nice to have pocket change. If you want to devote your life to online paid surveys, you probably won’t be able to support yourself.
Read Reviews
Before I signed up for every website that claims to pay, I read some reviews online. I knew to proceed with caution, because there are hundreds of websites that only exist to send spam to your inbox. I didn’t want to waste my time with online paid surveys that don’t pay. One good resource is online forums. The Twisted Branches and Start Sampling forums have threads specifically comparing experiences with paid survey companies.
Points for Prizes
Many survey websites claim to pay, but some operate on a points for prizes system. In my experience, the market value of the prizes isn’t comparable to the time you could spend taking surveys with a company that pays money directly. For example, with one company I received an mp3 arm band for jogging after three months of taking paid surveys about once a week, and when I got it in the mail, it was clear that I could have bought the same thing at the dollar store. Some paid survey sites have better quality prizes, but I haven’t found them to be worth it in the long run.
Payment Type
I found that it’s important to know how you will get paid. Many paid survey websites will pay you through PayPal, which for me was ideal. You can set up a PayPal account online for free, and it is the safest option. Other paid surveys mailed me a check, but the downfall with this system is that you generally need a minimum payout, which averages about $20 before they will mail you the check. Also, the checks generally take a month or two to come in, so if you’re looking for fast cash, this option is not the best. If the survey company only pays in gift certificates, the best option for me was Amazon gift certificates, which are directly transferable to online purchases at the website.
Roboform
I downloaded Roboform for free online. I had to use the Internet Explorer browser instead of Mozilla Firefox, but this tool can save hours of mindless typing. Instead of filling in your name, ethnicity, household income, etc every time you take a survey, Roboform can prefill the forms for you. Granted, the program won’t recognize that you buy free range chicken or that you have a three year old grandson, but it can be very helpful for the first section of those paid surveys.
Email is your secret weapon
I set up a separate email account for these paid surveys. It’s free to use gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc. and you don’t want to use your personal account even for the highest rated paid survey sites. For each company that I signed up with, I kept a separate folder so I would have a record of the surveys I took and the payments I requested.
After this six month experiment, I was pretty happy with the $500 pocket change, but I decided it was too much effort in the end. If you do the math, each survey paid about $0.50 per 20 minute survey, which comes to $1.50 per hour. I could get a job, work an hour a week at minimum wage, and still make more money than working an hour a day for a full week doing surveys.
