by Jim Navary
The hype is familiar: “Make $9000 a Month Taking FREE Surveys”, “$50 Paid for Each Free Survey You Complete”, Survey Companies Pay $200 per hour” — and on and on and on.
Anyone who’s spent more than 5 minutes online looking for ways to earn extra income will certainly recognize these types of absurd claims. They’re everywhere! However, it’s more than a little far fetched to believe that you can become a millionaire simply by telling some marketing company if you prefer root beer or cola or whether you would rather vacation at the beach or in the mountains.
Yes, as you probably guessed, the vast majority of these so-called “Free” survey offers are nothing but scams. Avoid them - or at least use extreme caution when responding to the ads.
Of course, it’s important to point out that there are legitimate opportunities that do pay consumers to give their opinions of products and services. It’s really a lot of fun to be paid to test a new product, express your opinion of a restaurant you’ve just tried, or being able to provide input on products under development.
However, finding legitimate paid survey opportunities can be very time consuming and difficult to sort out.
Naturally, the scam sites are very easy to find. They are all over the internet making astounding promises of instant wealth, screaming “FREE” in their ads, and spending outrageous sums of money making sure that their ads are viewed as often as possible on the internet.
If these programs are really free, then what’s in it for them? Do you think that they purchase these ads just because they want to help you make money online - out of the goodness of their hearts? I don’t think so.
You can encounter three high risk dangers when responding to “Free” Paid Survey offers:
1. SPAM: Some scam survey sites are set up for the sole purpose of harvesting names, addresses and email addresses that they then sell to spammers and off line “junk” mailers. Since legitimate survey outfits do need your personal information in order to collect demographic information, contact you and pay you, the scam artists know that they can ask for the same information without raising suspicion.
2. CREDIT CARD FRAUD: Many scam sites require you to enroll in introductory offers saying that it is a prerequisite for doing the surveys. People have been known to enroll in hundreds of these offers without ever earning a dime from a single survey. The scammers tell you that you can “cancel” your order before your credit card is charged. However, it’s not uncommon for the cancellation notice to not be processed, resulting in unwanted charges to your account.
3. IDENTITY THEFT: The Internal Revenue Service requires paid survey companies to send you a 1099 tax form if you receive more than $600 in payment per year. Therefore, honest survey companies do need your personal information, including your social security number, in order to pay you to complete their surveys. Therefore, it is critical that you only sign up with legitimate survey companies. Once they are armed with your personal information, scammers may attempt to steal your identity.
So, the question is, “How can I determine if a survey site is legitimate or not?”
– Legitimate survey companies NEVER require you to provide your credit card information before you can sign up for their programs.
– Be cautious when responding to ads that promise free access to paid surveys, especially if the offer sounds too good to be true. Most legitimate survey companies do not advertise heavily, if they advertise at all.
– Make use of one of the web sites that pre-screen the thousands of survey offers in order to publish only scam-free extra income jobs. Registering with these sites may cost a few dollars up front, but you will probably find it well worth it to help you avoid the scammers.
Taking paid surveys can be an excellent way to generate extra income while staying at home. You won’t become a millionaire overnight but it may be a way to pay for a few of those little “extras” that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. Just “be careful out there”.
About the Author:
Jim Navary has been a freelance writer and researcher for over thirty five years covering a wide range of topics. You can Learn more at his website
www.OpinionsResearch.com. You’ll find reviews of several different web sites that pre-screen
paid survey offers in order to exclude scam sites.