Online Paid Surveys? Not!!!

In 2006 I experimented with taking surveys online because I thought that it was an easy way to make money without much effort. After signing up with a couple of research companies like Vindale Research and Panda Research I became uninterested and skeptical and did not continue to use this method to make money. I probably only made about $5-$10 dollars filling out these surveys according to these sites calculation tables, but I never received one penny from them because you have to accumulate at least $20 with most companies in order for them to send you a check!

Now fast forward to 2009. Recently I came across of couple of Internet sites and blogs that raved about how lucrative and simple it was to take surveys and read emails to make over $1000 a month! I thought wow they must have really stepped the game up and finally made it possible to sit at your computer all day and make tons of money like I discovered previously. Once again I signed up with a few companies like SurveySpot.com, Greenfield Online, CashCrate.com and Surveyhead.com. I must be really naive or really dense because I was going through the same routine of signing up to participate in several surveys and not seeing any real revenue from doing so.

Let me tell you my experience and feelings on the current system of making money online taking surveys and reading emails. All of these survey companies support each other and refer you to other sites to sign up on their sites. Then the catch is for you to click on at least 3-5 of their offers so that you can get your measly fifty cents! That's right you only get about .25-.50 cents to complete surveys and if you don't click on their offers you don't get the survey completion credit. Also, you have to enter all of your personal information and even your social security number for certain offers that you click. I entered my telephone number in several surveys sites and completed their registration process and after I sat on my computer for about 5 hours doing this and going through offers, my phone started ringing off the hook! I mean I thought I owed somebody some money or that someone had died as many times as my phone was ringing last Saturday afternoon! All these survey sites do is sell your information or give these offer sites access to your information from your registration form! If you are rushing through the registration and don't read all the terms and conditions then you can be screwed out of a lot of identity protection through these sites. I even got a virus threat or Trojan alert while I was on my computer trying to make money completing registration with these so called paid survey companies!  A good Identity Protection - 1 Year Subscription system is very important when working on the world wide web and a good virus protection program like McAfee Total Protection 3 User 2010 are great tools when working online.

So, in short, (because I could go on and on about how frustrated I was this past weekend, not to mention the fact that my boyfriend was so mad at me because I was so intense on filling out these surveys and was not paying attention or even listening to anything he had to say!) I must tell you that when I read somewhere that someone had received a $1700 check from an online survey company I was stoked about doing the same thing, but that quickly fizzled out! I don't want to have my inbox flooded with these bogus paid survey notifications and I don't want company representatives calling my phone like a harassing creditor just because I clicked on their offer and they bought my information from the survey company! If you don't mind disclosing your annual household income, address, phone number, how many people live in your house, your marital status and you have a great anti-virus/spy ware program then sure sign up to make money by taking paid surveys. If you find that too good to be true... then stay far, far away!