You paid for that?

You paid for that?
Paid surveys, by their nature are free. You are providing a service to research entities; that need timely and truthful information for their clients. In return for your opinions and statistical makeup they offer incentives to you for sharing that information..Having said that, let me state there are quite a few companies, universities, and other organizations that desperately want to know what you think. That is, if you fit the profile they are looking for.With this bit of background out of the way lets get going.There are many websites out there with names like !@#$%Monster, !@#$%!Review , #$@Advise (I can't really name them, lawyers and all) and other Survey somethings willing to sell you a list of numerous paid survey sites, or what they call survey sites. Be warned; you never have to pay a fee to acquire a list of free survey sites. Note the have to, you can of course do anything you like. The truth is, you will get nothing for your hard earned cash that you could not get for yourself with some time, effort, and a bit of web surfing. That's how I did it.Word to the wise; there is no such thing as making hundreds $ a week taking surveys either. On any given day you could qualify for a $25 survey about Jello and nothing but sweepstakes the rest of the week. You could make a few hundred a month, it's not unheard of. Note the could.As I mentioned, the paid survey sites themselves are free to join (always). The site operators compensate you via redeemable points, sweepstakes, coupons, gift certificates or cold hard cash (checks or PayPal). It all depends on the company, time involved in the survey, and always if you qualify(fit demographic profiles) for that study, aka survey. I know the ads say make $25 to $75 per survey. I wish. More on this later.These paid for lists often go for$39 to $59. I don't know about you, but I like my money and I don't want to give it away for something of no real value. There is also the well documented (on numerous forums) the problem of the lists being full of dead links, repeaters (some sites go by more than one name), and just plain sites of no use. Ciao, for instance, won't be of much use to you unless you live in the right geographic location. Some won't be of use unless you are a medical professional or some other specialty. These lists often use outdated information and web addresses. The rub is they have given you what you have asked for; a list of sites so,' no harm no foul', as they say.There is another type of site that offers these list to you, but for free. The fact all these sites seem to name the same 20 plus sites on there lists is not lost on those of us who take this stuff seriously. Many of these list are nothing but what I like to call buy and try. For a short survey you can have this computer. P.S. you need to complete one offer from column A and two from column B and one from column C. But after that and about three months, if you stick to it, you can get last years model computer. These are offer sites, many are quite legitimate but they are not survey sites. The free list provider gets a fee for the referral, nothing wrong with that either, I just happen to think they need to be up front about what they are offering.One other thing they could be more clear about. Its all there in their terms; where they tell you about what they do with your information. It is just kind of hard to read the legalize. It comes down to what is called 'address harvesting'. A list of names that might be interested in web offerings is worth a lot to most any marketer, myself included. When you sign up with these sites I guarantee you will have bulk mail out the you no what. This is not spam, you signed up for it; you did, read the fine print. Did you really want it, is a whole nother story.So do your due diligence, do the work, you will find all the sites you can handle. One more reality check, point sites have there own logic. Some take forever to earn enough points for a $5 gift card, others send you just a few surveys and they are sending you a $10 check in the mail or a draft to your PayPal account. You could make $50 in one 90 minute session and not hear from them again for a month. Generally most surveys earn, in value, $1 or $2 a shot. Those much coveted $75 focus groups are out there as well. It also takes time to establish yourself with the company itself, there will be a lot of free surveys before the big ones show up.You can make extra money, you most likely won't get rich. Surveys can be a great deal of fun. Free product to test at home is kind of cool. Movies and their trailers to judge, now that's fun. Its out there.Next time I will start reviewing some of the most popular sites. Always some do and don't.Welcome to 1 paid survey at a time.
Posted by Eileen Fox at 7:33 PM 0 comments