Not a “scam” in the sense of the word, but really not a way to earn any type of money. If you can find the companies that do the surveys and do them on your own with out sites like this you will make a substantially bigger amount of money. The “scam” is they take 90% (if not more, to be honest probably 99%) of the survey payout for themselves. Its the same for the “offers”, they will take the majority of the offer from the company, and give you a small percentage, And if that was not enough, they also take a percentage of your payout. This should be illegal as it is criminal to do this to people.
InboxDollars is one of the worst programs. Unlike others, they have a very short “6-months of inactivity and we’ll close your account and keep your money” term. Plus, you earn next to nothing. I too stopped getting paid emails and tried to unsuccessfully qualify for surveys. As such, I mostly did the big-ticket things, like signing up for money back on donations to charities. I accrued $98 and log in monthly to avoid the “inactivity” thing. But, guess what? They just closed my account for not completing anything in six months. They don’t even hold up their own definition of “activity”. So, user beware–withdraw when you can, even though UNLIKE the other programs, they charge a 3% fee on what you’ve earned. Sketchy, sketchy, sketchy.
I’ve been a member of inboxpounds (UK version)for almost two years now and only managed to earn som £90 in four payments, most of it from paid offers like bingo and other rubbish. I have to admit their surveys sucks, not only being potentially low paid, but also due to extremely low possibility of qualifying to get paid. And than you have to double check what you do, I just got one completed a couple of weeks back, spend some 40mins on it as it was promised to pay £2.00, got qualified and than I only got paid £0.20 a couple of days later. Also they don’t seem to pay for radio loyalty captchas any more.
How it works: LifePoints is the survey platform of a company called Lightspeed, which is owned by Kantar (one of the world’s largest market research and consumer data analytics firms). The platform was formed as a merger of two of the company’s other products, MySurvey and Global Test Market, and gives users a variety of ways to earn points that can be redeemed for cash:
Above all, thanks for that great article. I really enjoyed reading it all for the last 5 minutes with a mug of coffee! Despite this article being next to perfect, if I can, I’d like to add one of the best survey sites, in my mind, to this list. It would be, “ClixSense”. They’re a really old, and huge, presence in the research industry and have partnered with many of those listed in this very post. So, signing up on ClixSense lets you take paid survey invitations from multiple survey sites and research firms, like Opinion Outpost, Nielson Media Research, YouGov, I-Poll, MySurvey, Toluna and more. Almost half of all of those survey sites are listed here.
IPoll provides surveys via their site and mobile applications, and this has made it easy for most iPoll members. In case you are waiting for someone in a parking lot or you are in a waiting line in a bank, or when getting groceries, you can utilize this time to complete some surveys using your mobile phone and make money. iPoll offers its subscribers $5 upon signing up. Once you join, you can take surveys and get paid via PayPal.
How it works: LifePoints is the survey platform of a company called Lightspeed, which is owned by Kantar (one of the world’s largest market research and consumer data analytics firms). The platform was formed as a merger of two of the company’s other products, MySurvey and Global Test Market, and gives users a variety of ways to earn points that can be redeemed for cash:
The only reason Springboard didn’t rank higher on our list is because some users have reported a fairly limited supply of available surveys, making it difficult to reach the $50 minimum cashout threshold. However, the availability of surveys depends on your demographics — so my recommendation is to join, making sure your profile is 100% complete, and then see if enough opportunities come your way to make it worth your while.
How it works: Panda Research is a market data company that claims to have paid out over $2 million to date. Users complete surveys, which can take anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes each. The sign-up and survey completion process are both easy and typical, but there are a few things you should be aware of before investing too much time on the platform:
Why do you earn just $0.25 to $0.75 for completing a survey rather than $5.00 or more? And why does Inbox Dollars require certain people, based on their lifestyle and certain answers to questions to qualify for surveys? Also why are Inbox Dollars members required to earn $30.00 before they can make a payment, rather than make a payment after first opening an account?
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