Online paid surveys: Beware of scams!

The concept of surveys are not a new one. As constantly try to improve their products or service, big companies frequently want to collect statistical data to determine the preference of the consumers. Or before launching a new products they want to have the quantitative information (Economic, personal habits and general tendencies) of their targeted consumers to identify the perfect market tragedy for a particular product or service. This is how market research has been so popular and the web has made it more easy and efficient.


What are online paid surveys?
Wikipedia says “A paid or incentived survey is a type of statistical survey where the participant is rewarded through an incentive program, generally entry into a sweepstakes program or a small cash reward, for completing one or more surveys”

The dark side:
Did you know that? 99% of surveys are conducted by marketing research firms, focus groups and so on but not by the company. The question arise here, is there any fraud among the marketing research companies? Nice question! And what would I say, most of them are scam. Before I go further deeper on this issue please note that, don’t even think to earn a living or a handsome monthly income from online paid surveys. If anyone earning a living from online paid surveys, it must be the site owner (Scam or legit) or a blogger/webmaster who places attractive campaign and dupe you into the scam sites and earn commission

Identifying the scams

“Surveys where the respondent must pay or purchase products to join a panel are generally scams, as are sites that disappear before paying the participants. Legitimate surveys do not need credit card information from respondents.”- Wikipedia.
Some scam sites charge access fee to online paid survey panel or list. Worse thing is that some of these sites exist with different domain name with the same list. Some other offer free list, but are affiliated with spam sites and earn commission by redirecting users.

A survey site might be spam if it has the alluring tendency of

Offering “unbelievable” income:
If a survey site offers you that you can earn $1000 or something more or less, in a week or a month, with a little investment or free. It is a scam. The reality is you can earn your holiday funds or an entry in a sweepstakes program or a small cash reward by taking one or more surveys.

Offers to take as much surveys you want, anytime!
If you see this marketing snip in an online paid survey site, be sure that it’s nothing but a scam. The fact is, you will have to get the invitation to complete a survey. And to get invitation you must fit certain demographics related to the survey.

Don’t be fooled by Proof of income, or screen shot of earnings!

Scam sites do use fake testimonials, forum, message board to attract “Home money” seekers. Sometimes, you will need to use your common sense to determine whether the sites are scam or not. Not only the fake online survey sites but also some other spam sites use this tricks to misguide the users. In this issue Google has some guidelines that they recommend to their internet assessors to detect spam sites.
Google says “ with a fake message board you will see “message” but you will not see responses to the messages….the sites may appear to offer comments, reviews, registration and login section, but when you attempt to use them, they either don’t work at all or you land back to the same page”
Some paid survey sites may show you a copy of a check or a voucher or something like that to make you believe that people are really earning through their program.
It really doesn’t make any sense, if someone makes money just once that doesn’t mean that everybody will make money. And as you know the graphics technology is so much improved now, it’s easy to make a replica of a check that would looks like real in screen. Same thing goes for the screen shot of earnings. I don’t believe that every screen shot is fake. Some are real, if I can see there is a good reason to believe that the screen shot represents the actual earning, I don’t doubt on them. A blogger can do it, just to share his/her success. If anybody try to influence you to join or to purchase specific program by showing a piece of screen shot with an unbelievable earnings, better you keep yourself away. What I am saying is because, it never takes more than one minute to change the digit of a html page. Let me show you an example:

Example of a fake screen shot

Please note: The screen shots enclosed here represent neither mine nor any person's earnings. These are used here as a matter of example only. Please click on the images to view large size.

What scam survey sites do with your personal information?
Online paid survey sites promise not to share or publish your personal information.
Paid survey and other concern sites are bound to do that, because it’s defined by certain law. But a scam paid Survey Company may not follow this particular law, as they are illegal up to bottom. They sell your personal information to the telemarketers.


Don’t jump to it immediately:
When “work from home” offer comes to you and draw your positive attention, spend a little time on it. After going through it, ask yourself a few questions:

1. Does the site offer unbelievable earnings, without any prior experience?
2. Does it have (good) privacy policy, about, terms of service, disclaimers?
3. Does it provide a physical contract address?
4. Does the site contain unnecessary numbers of (sometimes irrelevant) marketing snippets, lots of success stories?

5. After performing "whois" lookups does it reveal that the site has been registered by proxy or different questionable sites were launched by the same owners?

Answers of these questions will help you to filter out the scam sites. However, some scam sites may exist within these good ones. Because day by day,scammers are getting smarter.


Recommend resources:
Internet crime prevention tips(An FBI –NW3C partnership)
Tips for avoiding Work at home Scams
Paid survey(Wiki)



Are you already a victim? Don’t let them go away:

If you have already been duped by some scam sites, or fake “work from home” opportunity, don’t let them go away. Make sure that others will not be “broken” like you. File your complaint at:

Internet crime complaint center
BBB online complaint system
Ripoff Report


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