You've very likely seen pitches like this that you receive via
spaham (misspelled intentionally):
"Earn $140 per week! Earn $560 a week! Earn $6,270 a year!
All by just sitting home, sipping coffee, and filling out
surveys."
Is this too good to be true?
Yes. Although it does make sense that a few companies are
willing to pay for market research by using online surveys, we
believe this is not a good way to spend your time.
Here's how the scam works: Scammers use spaham and promise you
quick money for little effort. They claim that you only need
to spend a few minutes and you'll earn excellent money. Of
course, you have to pay the "low" price of $34.95 to learn how
to do this.
So their goal is to get thousands of people paying $34.95 (or
whatever amount is charged) for the info.
This would be fine if they didn't spaham -- and actually
delivered what they promised. However, the vast majority of
these online survey products are worthless.
Now, you may be thinking, "Well, I'll go online and find a site
that screens out the scammers and ranks paid survey sites, and
that way I'll find the legitimate online survey companies."
This makes sense on the surface, but unfortunately, many of
these "ranking" sites may actually be middlemen who are paid
commissions by the survey companies for referrals. Often,
whoever pays the most to the ranking site gets the highest
rating, and the online survey companies they rank well are not
necessarily reliable.
Are there legitimate online survey companies? Yes, there must
be, but unfortunately, it's almost impossible to find them.
It's like picking a needle out of a 77,300,000 haystack (type
"online surveys" into a Google search for similar results).
In fact, legitimate online surveys often are quite long, which
means they take awhile to fill out. That's one of the reasons
the hype isn't true.
(As an aside, if you do online surveys, you shouldn't scam the
online survey companies either. Don't have your kids fill out
the surveys or just make up answers. After all, legitimate
companies want legitimate answers from legitimate respondents.)
Given that the hype is wrong, how much can you realistically
expect to earn doing online surveys?
A friend of ours decided to find out. She is one of the
fastest typists we know, and she's extremely efficient and
skilled at administrative work.
Since she wanted some extra income she could earn at home in
her spare time, she spent a week or so to see how much she'd
earn filling out online surveys.
The results? She earned about $0.37 an hour!
Would that be what you'd earn? We don't know. But we believe
there are lots of better ways to earn money.
We've found that people WANT the hype about online surveys to
be true. However, in order to make money on the Internet, it
takes (gasp!) work. The promises about online surveys are at
best not realistic.
Note: Yes, you definitely can earn money on the Internet. Many
people do this very successfully. But not by doing online
surveys, stuffing envelopes, or medical transcription.
Now, we'll probably get a lot of email telling us that we're
wrong. We've followed this area for quite awhile, and we
believe that our advice about online surveys is correct for the
vast majority of our subscribers. (Please don't send us these
emails, btw.)
Nonetheless, if you're determined to go ahead with online
surveys anyway, here's some advice:
First, ignore all spaham solicitations. They are all scams.
Second, use Google or your favorite search engine to see if you
can find info on the company, including complaints. (Not
finding complaints means nothing, btw. People are often too
embarrassed to complain when they realize they've been
scammed. Or the company may have changed their name or website
ten minutes ago.)
One last point: It should be obvious that in this issue we're
not talking about free online surveys and polls that you find
on many websites. For example, we're not referring to
answering the QuickVote poll on the CNN website.
Bottom line: Save your money and your time -- avoid online
surveys.
That's it for today. Wishing you a safe, healthy and
productive week.
spaham (misspelled intentionally):
"Earn $140 per week! Earn $560 a week! Earn $6,270 a year!
All by just sitting home, sipping coffee, and filling out
surveys."
Is this too good to be true?
Yes. Although it does make sense that a few companies are
willing to pay for market research by using online surveys, we
believe this is not a good way to spend your time.
Here's how the scam works: Scammers use spaham and promise you
quick money for little effort. They claim that you only need
to spend a few minutes and you'll earn excellent money. Of
course, you have to pay the "low" price of $34.95 to learn how
to do this.
So their goal is to get thousands of people paying $34.95 (or
whatever amount is charged) for the info.
This would be fine if they didn't spaham -- and actually
delivered what they promised. However, the vast majority of
these online survey products are worthless.
Now, you may be thinking, "Well, I'll go online and find a site
that screens out the scammers and ranks paid survey sites, and
that way I'll find the legitimate online survey companies."
This makes sense on the surface, but unfortunately, many of
these "ranking" sites may actually be middlemen who are paid
commissions by the survey companies for referrals. Often,
whoever pays the most to the ranking site gets the highest
rating, and the online survey companies they rank well are not
necessarily reliable.
Are there legitimate online survey companies? Yes, there must
be, but unfortunately, it's almost impossible to find them.
It's like picking a needle out of a 77,300,000 haystack (type
"online surveys" into a Google search for similar results).
In fact, legitimate online surveys often are quite long, which
means they take awhile to fill out. That's one of the reasons
the hype isn't true.
(As an aside, if you do online surveys, you shouldn't scam the
online survey companies either. Don't have your kids fill out
the surveys or just make up answers. After all, legitimate
companies want legitimate answers from legitimate respondents.)
Given that the hype is wrong, how much can you realistically
expect to earn doing online surveys?
A friend of ours decided to find out. She is one of the
fastest typists we know, and she's extremely efficient and
skilled at administrative work.
Since she wanted some extra income she could earn at home in
her spare time, she spent a week or so to see how much she'd
earn filling out online surveys.
The results? She earned about $0.37 an hour!
Would that be what you'd earn? We don't know. But we believe
there are lots of better ways to earn money.
We've found that people WANT the hype about online surveys to
be true. However, in order to make money on the Internet, it
takes (gasp!) work. The promises about online surveys are at
best not realistic.
Note: Yes, you definitely can earn money on the Internet. Many
people do this very successfully. But not by doing online
surveys, stuffing envelopes, or medical transcription.
Now, we'll probably get a lot of email telling us that we're
wrong. We've followed this area for quite awhile, and we
believe that our advice about online surveys is correct for the
vast majority of our subscribers. (Please don't send us these
emails, btw.)
Nonetheless, if you're determined to go ahead with online
surveys anyway, here's some advice:
First, ignore all spaham solicitations. They are all scams.
Second, use Google or your favorite search engine to see if you
can find info on the company, including complaints. (Not
finding complaints means nothing, btw. People are often too
embarrassed to complain when they realize they've been
scammed. Or the company may have changed their name or website
ten minutes ago.)
One last point: It should be obvious that in this issue we're
not talking about free online surveys and polls that you find
on many websites. For example, we're not referring to
answering the QuickVote poll on the CNN website.
Bottom line: Save your money and your time -- avoid online
surveys.
That's it for today. Wishing you a safe, healthy and
productive week.
