How To

How to Spot Paid Survey Scams

Contributor
By eHow Contributing Writer
(3 Ratings)

Many people are looking to work at home and one of the more popular paid jobs are surveys. However, there are many survey scams and you should be on the lookout for them. The following will give you some ideas of what you should look for when you are researching paid survey jobs.

Difficulty: Moderate
Instructions
  1. Step 1

    Promise of high return. The truth is that you probably will not get rich doing paid surveys. Therefore if the site proclaims you can make thousands a day ,it is probably a survey scam. Although you can make some money for surveys, you probably won't make thousands a month, let alone a day.

  2. Step 2

    Understand what you are getting for your money. Most survey scams only give you a list of sites that may not be valid or that will charge you even more money for nothing. They will tell you that by joining these sites you will receive so many surveys a day, but never follow through.

  3. Step 3

    Check work at home forums. See the Resource section for forums you can check to see if a survey site really pays. There are plenty of forums and sites that will give you this information for free.

  4. Step 4

    Talk to other people who are working at home to get information on the site you are interested in joining. Even if you don't know anyone who is working at home on surveys you can always post in the forums for information about the site.

  5. Step 5

    Research the company by doing a Google search. There are articles out there that are listed in the Source section that will help you to find out if the company is legitimate or a survey scam. The key to spotting survey scams is research.

  6. Step 6

    Spot the surveys that ask you to "Compare Burger King and McDonald's: Who has the best burgers" as scams. These are not even real surveys.

Tips & Warnings
  • Chances are if you are asked to put up money, the site is a survey scam. However, there are a few legitimate ones that ask you to pay money.
  • There isn't a reason to pay for the information that you can get for free. So even if the survey site is legitimate, when they are asking you for money you can probably get the same information for free on another site.

Comments  

| View All 8 Comments

misledsue said

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on 10/13/2009 How do I check the legitimacy of the ones I have already participated in?

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on 8/5/2009 It actually is true. I found legit survey paying sites that pay out monthly and sometimes even daily. You really do have to sit at the computer and work at it if you want to make enough money to make a difference. I recommend joining a site and then checking out there forum. You will find TONS of info and get to talk with other members who have already been paid.

http://www.freewebs.com/whowantsmoney/

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on 7/1/2009 The only site that I've seen and used that is totally legit is www.HonestOnlineMarketing.com. I make enough each month to make my car payment with about 5 hours a week of typing.

saleens7r said

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on 6/29/2009
Thanks for the Ideas! reps up.
There's this site I actually use that pays you for doing surveys! its call CashCrate. I was actually skeptical at first thinkin that it wus a scam and all, but i did some research online and its actually
Legit!! There's no need to pay when you sign up bcuz its free!! So far
its a great site and good earnings for extra money my summer vacations
and holiday breaks. I love it!! go here and check it out for urself,
enjoy!!:
http://cashcrate.com/1403925

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on 3/2/2009 Very nice points just like my old man used to say if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. I also have a online survey review site its at http://www.survey-101.com

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