Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Paid Online Surveys: Can I Really Get Paid?

By Jennifer Ho

Paid online surveys have been around the internet for quite some time, and a lot of people are getting into it in hopes of getting some extra cash, whether to pay for home expenses, everyday needs or buy life's simple luxuries. Companies that are doing marketing research with their products and services are willing to pay consumers who partake in their ongoing surveys and focus groups. There are a lot of paid for surveys in the web and one must be able to discern those legitimate survey sites from the scams.

The truth is, there are really some genuine websites that are offering paid online surveys; what they need is your opinion and what you get is some form of payment for completing it. It is no secret to many companies that consumer's opinion matters since they are the ones that are using or consuming their products and their feedback will greatly help them in the improvement of its quality. These companies will have no problem giving out money for their advertising and marketing programs which include surveys like these.

Paid for surveys can come in a wide range of topics. From your favorite restaurants, to new movies and shows, upcoming products, foods, drinks and even the latest gadgetry, every one of these can be the topic of surveys. No matter what age group, work category or hobbies people are into, there are a lot of surveys available for them that can help companies in their quest for producing better products and services.

The moment you register in genuine paid online surveys, you will be required to relay some important data that will basically include your age, gender, profession and income or salary range. Once the survey site has gathered all the necessary information, you will then be waiting for their email whenever there is a survey that you qualify for based on the data you have given. An invitation will be sent to you containing the direct link to the survey form itself.

The rewards coming from these paid online surveys may take the form of cash, discount coupons, merchandise or points that are convertible to cash and other freebies. Each survey site will have different means of giving you incentives for participating in their surveys; some will directly give you a small amount of cash, and some will require you to earn points and exchange them for a particular gift item.

With the advent of paid online surveys also comes unscrupulous websites wanting to take advantage of people looking for some ways of earning some money. These said sites will usually promote themselves as having a huge database collection of paid for surveys in which you can access through membership in their websites.

Membership of course, comes at a price, varying from $25-$100 or even more. Their websites are filled with a lot of data about their members and how much they have earned after signing-up, even putting up screenshots of the daily or monthly earnings of their so-called members, which we can't even determine if they really exist at all. You will also see many testimonials from their fictitious members saying how thankful they are that they found that particular website.

Most of these suspicious websites will try to entice people to sign-up with the promise of huge daily or monthly earnings, from $300 to even more than $1000 daily! They will also tempt you with their great stories of success of people that have joined their website and how their life has changed ever since. They will give you exaggerated claims that are too good to be true, and say anything just to get you to join.

Knowing all these, one must be very careful in participating in paid online surveys. For one, they must not require you any amount of fee for completing a survey, as legitimate companies will not ask for anything in return; in fact they are the ones which will give something. Do not get carried away with their too-good-to-be-true promotions and promises. With a little effort, you can easily find yourself some genuine websites offering real paid for surveys. Good luck!

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