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First, thank you for providing this extensive list. I wanted to offer a quick follow up. After reading your post I decided to give Survey Junkie a try and I’ve already closed the account. Yes, I can tell it’s well organized and it is definitely a user-friendly platform. The problems I experienced were first that not one of the surveys they emailed me about were available. I did, however, complete several surveys from the site itself and I found them to be lengthy – in itself, not a problem, but 3 out of 5 told me I didn’t qualify after I’d already invested 10 – 12 minutes filling out the forms. They got more than enough information from me to be useful which is an old and highly unethical trick in market research – which happens to be my background. All in all, it was a LOT of wasted time.
I’ve been a member of InboxDollars for at least a year which is what it took to me to just get to $30. I didn’t mind clicking the emails but once I hit $25 or so, I stopped getting “paid emails”. So I forced myself to do surveys. Once I reached $28 it was 3-4 days before I even saw another survey offered (besides the 4 that are always there “peanut labs” etc). I finally hit $30 and cashed out but if course there was another hoop to jump through, they tell you that your account must “remain active” until a certain date (March 2nd) for me. Who knows what counts as active to them, so I continue trying to qualify for surveys hoping that counts, otherwise in officially done with them like so many. I was just shocked at how difficult they make it.
Here’s my experience with InboxDollars. I was a member for over 5 years. I cancelled my membership about 3 years ago. Frank is right. They should’ve called themselves InboxPennies, and that’s exactly what it’s worth, pennies. I didn’t take a lot of surveys because you won’t qualify for many of them. I also didn’t do any of the trial offers because I don’t trust giving out my credit card info to these crooks, plus I was looking to make money, not spend it. But, I did all of the paid emails, and they amounted to about 3 or 4 cents per paid email. The minimum payout is $30. I made about $2 or $3 a month. Now you do the math on this one. I remember it taking about 12 months or longer to reach payout of $30! I even signed up a few referrals and never made anything; I guess they figured it wasn’t worth their time. InboxDollars should be shut down. Getting paid pennies is a direct insult to anyone’s intelligence. There are too many of these type companies that sucker you into believing you’ll make some decent money. Nobody’s trying to get rich, but at least a real part-time job will pay you about 200 bucks a week. We all have been bamboozled and hoodwinked.
I had to submit the tax info as well, but this is true for any legitimate business. They sent me a 1099 at the end of the year and I gave it to my accountant along with my other tax documents. The fact they pay on the books is good, it shows that they obey tax regulations. If you make money you need to be prepared to pay the taxes, of course expenses towards making that money are deductible. I am disqualified a lot, often for days, thus I mainly do surveys while watching TV etc…They should pay more and let u know sooner if u do not qualify, I wholeheartedly agree. In 3 years one a $25 sweepstakes once (Target Card) and am aware that their wheel is a virtual wheel which means some combinations much more likely than others)Have hit the $5 twice and the $1 about 4-5 times. There help desk has some good people and some who do not care. The only reason I stay with it is that little money is better than no money..
IOCS is a not-for-profit research organization that conducts studies and experiments on shopping-related behavior – things like how we, as consumers, evaluate products, how we make the buying decisions, etc. Although the focus is mostly on shopping related behavior, some of their experiments and studies include broader areas of marketing, psychology, and economics.
Rip off. I referred a couple people to Inbox Dollars that lived close to me and they closed out all of our accounts saying we were all in the same location and the same person. We provided IP addresses and even went to as far as asking if we could provide identification to show proof and of course it was negative. Lost a total of about $31. As for my neighbors probably the same or close to the same..
Also, Panel Place makes for excellent user experience. It’s known that survey sites cannot make you rich; instead they are just for earning an extra income. As a result, users typically join different sites to earn extra bucks here and there. Keeping track of your activities in different platforms can be overwhelming. However, if you join Panel Place and connect all the survey panels you join with your Panel Place account, you’ll be able to see and manage all your activities in one place.