Online Surveys: -What's YOUR Opinion?

Online Surveys: My Opinion

I used to do online surveys for advertisers seeking reactions from potential customers regarding new products, improved products, packaging/labeling, existing products etc. and my favorite, -new commercials for television. Those are fun! Some of the best commercials that I got to review were the early Maxwell House coffee TV ads featuring homebuilder aficionado Mike Holmes . Those were brilliant! Better than ‘upcoming previews’ at the movies, this was like a ‘special screening’ of a much anticipated new moive, weeks in advance of the general release! And I got to have a say on whether is good, great or uninteresting. It actually makes you feel important, and you find yourself actually anticipating the 'tv release' of the commercial that you 'rated & approved.'

Some Trustworthy Online Survey Sites

There are hundreds of survey sites out there eager for you to take their survey. Some of the best are listed below. These are just a few of the ones that I have used and feel that I trust:

• http://us.lightspeedpanel.com/index.html LightSpeed
• https://http://www.surveysavvy.com/ss/ss_index.php SurveySavvy
• http://www.surveylion.com/index.php?rf=rf&rid=19 SurveyLion
• http://mindfieldonline.com/?class="nimg" src=gpg2 MindfieldOnline
• https://http://www.surveyspot.com/panelist/PanelistManager SurveySpot
• http://www.freepayingsurveys.com/ FreePayingSurveys

My favorites survey sites being SurveyLion and SurveySpot. I have earned some mad cash with LightSpeed but this is achieved via an earned points system, redeemable for cash. I won’t do business with any survey site that doesn’t handle payments either via PayPal or personal checks via postal. I'm not busting my butt for months on end just to get a $20.00 gift card for Wal-Mart or Chapters Bookstore. Sorry, -that is just me.

Above is just a partial list of the survey sites that I have been or currently am still a member of. Some survey sites I had signed up with proved to be a dismal disappointment. I had signed up with “OpinionOutpost” but it turned out to be a disappointment, for I had only received one or two surveys. They only could partake in perhaps one survey maybe every six months or so. And in both cases, I either failed to meet some minimum requirement or, even though I had taken the survey within minutes or an hour of receiving the e-mail notification, was told that “…this survey has reached its targeted number of participants for your demographic and has been closed. ” Okay... this is a SCAM I think.

...I’ll write about that cheating rip-off action next.

Too Many Requirements for These Online Surveys

And while the following link did provide some useful site data and led me to additional contacts,

http://www.thesurveypro.com/canada.asp

The ‘Register at 20 of the Top 25 Survey Sites ’ I felt is a little bit too shady for my tastes. I seem to recall that 19 of these were legitimate, trustworthy sites that could be found elsewhere by their own merits. But the rest of this ‘list’ to pick and choose from to attain your “pick 20” were some kind of ‘webinar ’ that you would have to sit through and ‘sign up ’ or ‘purchase ’ something at the end to qualify or continue. Those endless ‘how many of THESE intrusive pop-up spammy-ads do you want to sign up for?’ seemed inexhaustible. We used to call those kinds of sign-up forms ‘popcorn.’ -A rather extensive and mind-numbing list of ‘offers’ that you ‘tick’ the checkbox next to it. Then, you submit your sign-up page to move onto the next page. You cannot proceed without ticking at least ONE spammy offer. You will be presented with about a quarter-dozen more of these pages before you reach paydirt at the end. Well, you will learn how to create wildcard filters for your e-mail client at least as you WILL be getting innovative spam-mails I can guarantee that!

Too Much Stick & Almost No Carrot

All those endless Sign-Up for a $1000.00 Shopping Card from Wal-Mart offers only fill your e-mail box with DOZENS of similar offers. –You just have to meet their impossible and esoteric requirements to get the promised shopping card. Generally, you are required to buy several hundred dollars of ‘qualifying merchandise’ that you otherwise would not even want. Next, you get a half-dozen or more of your best friends in your ‘downlevel’ to do the same thing after you have referred them via their personal e-mail addresses and only after THEY TOO have also purchased several hundred dollars of stuff, do YOU get the promised $1000.00 shopping card. It has a definite ‘pyramid’-like structure to it, huh?

You will have no friends left but you can get your $1000.00 card. Maybe

Avoid those offers. They are scams. It took me a few months to get OFF of some persistent mailing spammer lists for the dubious flirtation I undertook before backing out of the offer. They had already at that point nailed my e-mail address.

–That promised “$10.00 in 30-minutes” at “thesurveypro” is probably real but you have to jump through some ugly hoops to get there.  And,  they keep changing the Suggested Survey Sign-up Sites . You sign up for twenty sites on their list and turn in your ‘proof’, -they have CHANGED the list again! I failed to complete this requisite and for the pithy petty requirements stated above. I suspect that many other survey-takers have stopped short also.

I only completed 19 of the required 20 ‘sign-ups’ through them without having to purchase, turn over my Address Book or practically sell door-to-door for them. Friends don’t sign-up friends for these offers , no! I could not do just one more of the remaining requirements (I only had to do ONE more to qualify!) Ten dollars was not worth it. Your results may vary. But I seriously doubt it.

A New Trend in Online Surveys?

I have been declining more and more online surveys since about the First of the New Year. I have grown weary of a recent trend toward not rewarding with immediate payouts, but the ‘reward’ is cumulative. One completes a 15 or 20-minutes survey and instead of a cash reward, you ‘earn points’ that accrue for months until you have enough to redeem for merchandise at ‘select retailers’. While these retailers might include such notable places such as chapters.indigo.ca, or amazon.com. I will state for the record that these places ARE fantastic and that I do shop there. I find it very limiting to have to be confined to their choices.

Read my lips: CASH IS KING! Don’t pay me with ‘store credit’. Pay me in CASH, or step aside .

Doing It On the Cheap

Another trend in online surveys which bugs me terribly, is this “…if you qualify for out survey, a $3.00 honorarium will be paid’. These can be legit but way too often in my extensive experience, you still get shafted. The diminutive reward is part of the rip-off. If they offered, say, $25.00 and did what I am about to explain, -they would get buried with complaints!

You will undertake a 10 to 15-minute survey and when you are almost finished, the very last screen shown to you is a dismissive “…we are sorry. -You do not meet the minimum requirements that our advertiser is seeking” and the survey is effectively ended. They HAVE your data now. You completed the survey. But they changed the rules and you have been opted-out.

Another ‘easy out’ for them is that you take the survey and some 20-minutes into it, the almost last-screen reads something like “…we are sorry, the survey has reached its quota for the select group of which you were competing” and again, they now HAVE your data and the survey has ended. Ended, and without you getting paid. At only $3.00 per denied survey, it would take a Class Action Suit to actually fight again this. Even at that, it would take over a year probably to get enough people all together and petition a lawyer or court of law to even review the complaint. Most people just ‘give up’ over a three-dollar promise-broken. I know that I have.

I will bend over to pick up a soiled penny from the sidewalk but I will not take a $3.00 online survey. -The penny is a sure thing. The $3.00 survey is not.

And the survey says…

Having said all of this, I will continue to say that most Online Surveys are legitimate and worthwhile. Over the course of maybe 6 or 7 months of doing this actively and nearly two years of doing it selectively, I probably have taken maybe one hundred+ surveys or thereabouts. I failed to qualify for probably that many more. Of all those, I probably made several hundred dollars.

My most profitable survey was this one-hour survey that I could take in two parts. The payout on that was $65.00-USD and it was VERY enjoyable. I got to take it to completion, was thanked profusely at the end and received the payment promptly. Those are the shining examples of what Online Surveys should be like.

I am not the best target market audience for probably 70% or more of the available surveys out there, but you may be. Your personal or familial demographic may be some retailers dream and there are online surveys waiting for you. Best of luck to you if decide to try Online Surveys. It can be very rewarding and satisfying.

It can also be frustrating and mind numbingly tiresome .