So I really wanted to know — can a person actually make any money filling out surveys? It didn’t take me long to find. No sooner did I fill out one “take surveys for money” ad than I got inundated with survey opportunities.
I must admit I’m pretty skeptical about this type of thing but I figured for the sake of investigative journalism I’d give it a go.
The first company I signed with was InBoxDollars.com ([email protected]) it was free and InBoxdollars.com even gave me a $5.00 dollar sign-on bonus which I thought was kind of nice. But then the reality kicked in. Just like I was promised I received page ads to view. Just for looking I received money (a total of 1 cent) the “big” money to be made comes if you try a product or service. And each service or product is worth a specific amount anywhere from $1.00 to $15.00. Sounds simple enough. Problem is in order to test a product you generally need to purchase a trial which means sacrificing your credit card which means I’m not doing it. In about a week’s time I’d made $19.00 — there were some no-cost services. Like opening account and making a bid on eBay (got $6.00 for that) or requesting information for online education (worth $4.00). You can’t request money and transfer it into your PayPal account until you’ve reached $30.00 or more. So I guess I’ll keep trying. Like anything – time is money and I don’t have the time to kill and hour searching for product reviews that pay.
Moving right along
Next up is www.clearvoicesurveys.com. Again a free site and this time I actually did some surveys. This particular company seems a little more legit than most. They came right out and said they can’t promise more than one or two surveys a week and that the secret to making money was to sign up with several survey firms simultaneously. That logic makes sense. But again – you can’t cash out until you make a certain amount. I imagine there are some individuals out there who can devote an entire day to taking surveys and doing product reviews but I’m not one of them. After a week I’d made $4.00
I received a survey from a company that I didn’t even remember signing on with (retailreportcard.com) but which offered me $10.00 to do a survey on blue jeans. O-k! The first few pages were general information. Then I reached a question asking me if my job had anything to do with marketing or advertising. Like a fool I answered “yes” because sometimes my job does. At that point the survey terminated because it decided I was ineligible. Too bad – I could have used that $10.00 bucks.
So what’s my take on this survey gig as a way to make money? For me the jury is still out. I guess if you do your research and find some reputable companies that don’t charge anything and you’re not in a rush you’ll make some money. I’m sure at some point — at the rate of 1 cent per product review like InBoxDollars.com — I’ll crack $30.00 and cash in my money.
As far as “trying out services” for money I would not recommend it. Most of these firms may offer you $12.00 or whatever but what good is that if you need to charge your credit card $30.00 for a “trial offer.
