Has anyone ever signed on to complete paid surveys. I get inundated by proposals to do paid surveys. I cannot stop the emails so I am considering taking the bate if there is no cost to me.
We used to do shopping surveys for Nielson in the UK. They sent us a barcode scanner to record all our shopping and it called home on Sunday nights (FOC) to upload the details. They paid us by giving us a catalogue of stuff to pick from every so often, all good quality stuff. My OH said she wanted to do it to skew their stats because she felt that our shopping pattern was far from usual, only very healthy food, but should be counted! We were looking after a grandson for a few years between his ages 2 and 5 and he got really into it, making sure we scanned everything we bought. We gave up when he went off to school and returned the scanner, but still have a number of the things we got from them. Payment in goods worked better than money, for us and I guess for them. I don't know if they still do this or if they or anyone else does it in France.
I actually only do VALUED OPINIONS survey. The payment is rather good (in my mind) varying from 50p to £2.00, the average certainly being around the £1 mark.
Because I am a researcher with training in qualitative and quantitative methods, at times I have taken on survey work to earn money to pay for my real work, usually things like the UK government Labour Force Survey. I have also designed a few surveys over the years. I have looked at a few of these surveys, not completed them, to get a good idea what they are really about. I too have thought about them initially as a source of a few bob. Firstly, most of them are so badly designed I can't see what use they are to anybody. Secondly, they are so interested in getting you to sign up for something that pays peanuts that they should arouse suspicion. That second point seems to be just about it. As Marie said, people have email accounts for such things, but they get filled with messages knowing that if you bombard at least the occasional mail will pay off. For the few Euros for completing a survey the hassle that follows is the best reason for not bothering. Since to be paid in many cases you have to pay a membership fee you are already committed and have to give them some real, verifiable data about yourself. I have proxies I can use but I would not recommend bothering. I have them because I sometimes receive or send sensitive or confidential data professionally, so they are not the norm. Even then what they want to know needs to be verifiable so some sites reject quickly because they cannot get the degree of confirmed information they require. In the other direction, try to find where they are actually located in the world, the chances are slim that even the contact address you have, if there is one, is where you are actually linked to.
It is hardly worth the bother and for such trifling payments in the end the cost of patience outweighs them. Then of course, Marie's point again, a lot of them are scams that just exist to take site fees for nothing in return but set you up to receive spam ad infinitum.
Hi David,
Some sites are geo-locked like SwagBucks. You can't log in from France. Perhaps you can with a VPN.
From my experience, they are not worth the effort nor the electricity to complete them.
Many people say you should sign up for as many as possible and get an email address especially for these paid survey sites, because you get a lot of emails from them.
From my experience www.paidviewpoint.com has offered the best compromise.
They don't pay a lot but they only send you surveys that you have already qualified for. So although you may not get paid much, you get a little for each survey you take. Some survey site make you fill out a pre-qualifying survey with no pay.
I found that I didn't qualify for many. Maybe I am not very interesting!
There are a lot of people who recommend survey sites because they are affiliated with them. So they get a small payment when some who clicks through their link, signs up. The link above is one of them. So if someone signs up through that link, I might earn a few cents. I don't know what it is as I have never done it before. It is another way you can earn a little here and there.
NEVER PAY TO JOIN A SITE. If they ask you to pay, it is a scam so please do not do this!
I hope this helps David. But if you are unsure, I wouldn't bother. It is not worth it in the long run. You are better off spending your time listening to some good music and reading a good book ;)