PJCNET

There’s various sites across the Internet that pay you or give incentives to fill out consumer market research surveys. Some companies pay using points which can usually be exchanged for either cash or other gifts when you reach a certain amount. Some survey companies pay directly in cash while others only give you prize draw entries. What-ever incentive is offered, as long as they are up front and honest about what is offered along with a reasonable estimate about how much work is involved, it gives the person the choice of whether to participate to not.

When you are offered a paid survey, you are normally asked a few simple quick questions first to see if you are the right person for the target population for the particular survey. Now here is the scam / con in my opinion. Many companies aren’t just asking you a few simple questions first, but are asking numerous survey questions which can be quite in depth taking sometimes as long as 10-15 minutes which is often as long as the main survey is supposed to take anyway. After spending ages on a good few pages of questions, one is then told that the survey is closed because it’s reached the maximum number of occupants or you don’t match the criteria at this very late stage. The survey companies know when they have reached the maximum number of participants BEFORE you start the pre-survey, but they still waste your time doing a pre-survey for absolutely nothing. A small minority of companies still give you prize draw entries which in my personal experience I’ve never won anything, so I suspect the chances of winning are extremely low. I understand that survey suitability and criteria questions sometimes need to be asked first, but not pages of a survey questions and not when the survey is already closed.

A few years ago I’d be invited to a survey and I’d be accepted for most of them or I’d only have to answer 2 or 3 questions before I get rejected and this would only happen occasionally. When registering for a good survey company they normally ask you to do a number of pre-surveys that decide which surveys you are likely to be accepted on, yet lately this system is in my experience failing. Sometimes I can be invited to participate in a survey that isn’t suitable and it’s obvious it isn’t from my pre-surveys questions I did when signing up, yet I’ll still be invited anyway. Now I’ve noticed I’m getting rejected on most surveys after filling in a lot more pre-survey questions. This is in my opinion a scam as the survey company clearly are making money from these complex pre-survey questions and aren’t passing this onto the participants. They should definitely tell you if the survey is closed without still going through lots of the survey for nothing or they should at least pay you part of the money if you complete a good proportion of the survey.

In my opinion many pay survey companies are making people complete surveys for nothing on purpose and I believe the pre-survey questions are more often than not used and passed on for money while the person isn’t compensated for their time. I’m not saying all “get paid to complete survey” companies are doing this, but sadly from my experience this is happening much more often which is very bad news for honest people trying to make a little extra money working from home.

Disclaimer

Many “paid to complete survey” companies are reputable and aren’t scams. This article is without prejudice to any company or organisation and companies remain unnamed. My full legal disclaimer applies to this document and all other documents on this website.

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