Are Paid Surveys a Scam?
The truth is, you CAN actually get paid to take surveys online. But most of what you see advertised online are not really paid surveys. A paid survey is a study conducted by a market research company to gather information about a certain product or advertisement. Large corporations spend billions of dollars on advertising. They want to know if their ads are working and how the public feels about their products. They hire a market research firm to find out this information. The market research firm has several ways to conduct a study. Some of the most popular ways are product testing, mystery shops, phone surveys(telemarketing), and polls and surveys.
Here is an example:
A large cell phone carrier may have a new product they want to market to women between the age of 18 and 25 who are single and live in a major city. They want to know what services are most wanted by these women. How much they are willing to pay for service, and what type of advertising most gets their attention.
The company would hire a market research company to get this information for them. Each market research company has an online panel. The company may want to survey 5,000 women who match the demographics the cell phone carrier is seeking to market their product to. The research company then emails all of its online panelists and invites them to participate in the study. Each member fills out a short qualifying survey to see if the fit the profile they are looking for. If they do they are asked to particpate in an online survey and told they will receive $10 to complete the survey. It's as simple as that.
The problem is that there are thousands of ads all over the internet that say something like "Coke vs. Pepsi. Take this survey and get a 500 gift card". Once you enter your email address you are then told to sign up for several offers like NetFlix, Aol, etc.. After you sign up for these offers, and sometimes you have to get others to do the same, you can then receive the product. THAT IS NOT A PAID SURVEY. But it's exactly those types of surveys that everyone confuses for "paid surveys" and calls scams.
People are also tricked into paying up to $60 just to get a list of companies that offer paid surveys. Most people think that just by paying the money they will be invited to participate in paid surveys and make lots of money. That is not true. After paying the money to join these sites you then have to sign up for each paid survey panel individually.
There is no valid reason to pay for a list of paid surveys. There are a few good sites online that give this list absolutely free. The paid membership sites are just taking advantage of the fact that most people don't know that. You can easily find a directory of paid surveys by going to MSN.com and searching for a "Free Paid Surveys Directory".
In order to make any real money from paid surveys you must be registered to several paid survey panels. Joining the top 20 paid survey panels is the first step to getting paid to take surveys online. These are the most popular paid survey panels that send the most frequent paid surveys. There is no one paid survey panel that is going to make you alot of money. But by being a member of the top 20 you can be almost guaranteed to receive at least one paid survey a day. Taking an hour or so to register with them all is well worth it.
The bottom line is, paid surveys are not going to make the average person rich. To make a full time income you would need to be registered with hundreds of paid survey panels so that you can make sure you are always needed by someone and take several surveys a day. But just by being a member of the top 20 it is not unheard of to make a few hundred dollars in a month. Not too bad for something you do in your spare time and doesn't require any investment or commitment.
Chris Price is the current owner of one of the largest free paid survey directories online, wahmservice.com