Avoiding Online Paid Surveys Scams

The bottom line is, if the hype for online paid surveys sounds too good to be true, it likely is. That's the safest way to screen out "offers" that hype big rewards for small investments of time or money. Don't be fooled by:

Testimonials - Ropers and shills typically write these for scams, not satisfied customers.

Documented Proof - Some questionable paid survey sites provide checks and other documental replications as "proof." But just because someone made money at least once, doesn't mean that you will. Besides, with today's computer technology, anybody can counterfeit just about any document and make it look authentic.

Guarantees - Don't believe guarantees that promise the Moon. paid survey sites can't possibly guarantee you much of anything, except that they'll refund your fees if you're not satisfied. But good luck collecting your refund if it's a paid surveys scam.

Reliable- and Trusted-Site Logos - Some questionable paid survey sites display these logos to indicate that they are self-regulating in compliance with the standards represented by the logos. But even legit logos can be stolen, such as those trademarked by the Better Business Bureau (BBB), with a simple right-click of the computer mouse. Click the logos to see where they lead. If they don't lead to valid reports at reputable sites (such as the BBB's official, national reliability site, the URL for which begins with https://www.bbbonline.org/) or the reports are unfavorable, be wary.

The "fine print" at questionable paid survey sites often contradicts much of what their hype implies. (That's how they try to cover themselves legally.) Don't let the hype alone sell you. Read all of the fine print too and ask questions if it's vague or you don't understand it. Think twice about submitting your personal information to any paid surveys site that does not provide a clear privacy policy or arouses your suspicion in any other way. Also read disclaimers, terms, conditions and any other fine print. Avoid sites that don't answer your questions in a satisfactory and timely manner. Be wary of conducting business with sites that list only email or PO box addresses for questions and other matters, as they might be fly-by-night, paid survey scams.

Perform "whois" lookups to reveal if paid survey sites were registered by proxy. If so, be wary of doing business with them too. Site owners might be hiding their contact information behind proxy services, because they're running paid survey scams. Whois lookups will also tell you if different sites were launched by the same owners (unless they were registered by proxy). If so, be wary about that too. Owners might have launched multiple sites so to make their "industry" appear to be more legit, dupe you into buying the same list of paid surveys more than once, or both.

Check with the BBB for complaints against specific online paid survey sites and their owners. But, be aware that, just because there are no complaints, it doesn't mean that all who have conducted business with the sites are 100-percent satisfied. It just means that no one has yet complained to the BBB about those specific sites. More about that is below.

Browse scam forums, such as Scam.com and RipOffReport.com, for messages from consumers who think they've been duped by online paid survey scams. But, proceed with caution. Some messages are posted by ropers and shills pretending to "rescue" those who've been duped by paid survey scams or who are looking to avoid it. For example, the "rescuers" might say that all online paid surveys are scams, except for the "wonderful opportunities" they've found. But, what they don't tell you, is they profit from recommending the "wonderful opportunities". (The same goes for many sites that claim to screen out paid survey scams.) Scam-forum moderators typically remove such messages. But, natch, they'll remain posted until the moderators screen them.

For more information about avoiding scams, see the consumer advice from the FTC and BBB. But, although both have issued general warnings about easy-money schemes (such as work-at-home and Internet business-opportunity scams), at this writing neither has specifically warned about online paid surveys. To issue specific warnings, both agencies typically require many complaints in short order. But many victims don't file complaints, because they're embarrassed that they were duped. Additionally, online paid surveys are a fairly new easy-money scheme at this writing. So, the agencies might not have collected enough complaints to issue specific warnings. But this writer is willing to bet that it won't be long before they do.

If you've been ripped-off by online paid survey scams, as indicated you may file complaints with the FTC and BBB. You may also file complaints with the U.S. government's Internet Fraud Complaint Center.

One of the questions I get most often is how to tell whether a work from home job posting is a scam or a legitimate job. There are some warning flags. In addition, there are sites that can help you determine what's a real work at home job and what isn't.

David Clemen has over a decade of experience in the online marketing world. Previous clients include Cingular and JD Powers. Currently he is a contributor to http://jpcservicesinc.com/page5.html , an online work at home opportunities screening and referral service. JPC's mission is to provide legitimate work at home opportunities to consumers ABSOLUTELY FREE.

Cash Surveys

Many companies need a wide variety of feedback on opinions and taste from different people of all ages and all backgrounds. This helps them to research their products and services. They want to be able to do many things. One is to reach large audiences of people and to mold their products to fit people the best.

Cash surveys online have been paying people money for years. It takes you anywhere form five minuets to maybe 15 minutes per survey to fill out and send in. The key is to find money making surveys. Surveys that pay well range from $5 per survey to $25 and up.

Good surveys making money are the ones that pay you the most and cost you the least time. Once you find some good cash surveys you can start making some really good money right from the comfort of your own home.

This is nice because you can set your own hours. Spend as much or as little time as you want each day doing cash surveys online. Making money surveys can be found in many programs and e-books. I have found some very good ones that give you expert advice and map out the blue prints for you to find surveys making money.

I have placed some links off to the left side of this site where you can look over some really good books and sites that will help you get started in money making surveys. Check some of them out. These have been tested and work very well. You can start making money the same day you get started.

Some sites can take up a lot of your time but as you try different and new sites you will find which sites optimize your time to take their cash surveys. Some spend hours at the wrong sites only making a few dollars, while others are taking money making surveys every few minuets. This is were you make some good money for your time.

If you spend the time to find the right places and use the advice from the experts you will be successful taking cash surveys online. There are some sites they say they will get you started but only to take your money and run. That is why I have placed links on the left that are well known and reputable places to get started in online surveys.

I will be posting some articles and reviews on cash surveys that are real money making surveys in the future. For now I know if you take the time and start money surveys, you will be very successful.

I enjoy family and entertainment as well as travel. My interest and hobbies are in business visit some of of my sites about prices wholesale products Cash Surveys

GET FREE PAID FOR ONLINE SURVEYS

Get free paid for taking online surveys
Get free paid for completing offers
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Job from home:

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Get paid for doing online surveys and give up the rat-race for good

Paid surveys have been a long held secret of a few priveleged people who have discovered that taking internet and offline surveys sure beats a two hour drive through the smog every morning and evening. Working at home is a goal that many of us have but the problem has always been to find a suitable source of steady, reliable income that will pay the bills on a consistent basis every month.

Did you know that there are loads of different ways that you can be paid to fill online surveys for cash? There are people all around the world who are quietly working away and earning a full time income from home just by doing paid online surveys.

The main reason for the huge rise in popularity of the paid survey industry is that big companies simply can't get enough people to do the surveys for free any more. People nowadays are just too busy! These large multi-million dollar corporations still need to know what the public want in order to sell it to them, so they are willing to pay good money to find out.

So what kind of surveys can you take for cash? Here's a few of the types of online survey that people are making money from right now:

- Fill survey online and get paid $5 to $75 per survey
- Focus group online paid surveys can pay $50 to $175 per hour
- Try out new products for free and get paid too, $10 to $50 per product
- Review brand new movie trailers, you could get paid $5 to $50 per hour
- Go shopping or eat out and get paid $24 to $75 per hour
- Drive your own car and make from $8 to $35 per hour
- Drive a new car and make $3,200 per month
- Take telephone surveys and make anything up to $120 per hour

So you see there's a lot of variety and fun in the world of paid surveys, your biggest problem might be to decide which of the great ways to make money you'd like to do first!

For more information on paid surveys and to get started right away visit http://www.worldofebooks.com/surveys

Paid Surveys ? Why You Shouldn?t Pay Anything To Do Surveys For Money?

Whether you are familiar with paid surveys or not, read on - this information will prevent you from getting scammed.

You have probably discovered by now some sites that offer you the opportunity to earn money by doing paid surveys online. These sites claim you can make significant monthly income and can provide you with a list of market research sites you must join in order to receive surveys and get paid. The only catch is that you must pay some fee (usually 20$ to 30$) in order to lay your hands on their list of ?proven? market research companies.

Creating a database of survey sites does take a lot of work, effort and time and it may sound reasonable to set up a price for it and many people agree with this. If you do appreciate this work and wish to buy this list, feel free to do so but at least read this article to know what you should seek on such sites and how to determine if you are on a legitimate site, or not. Use your own judgement. I, for myself, prefer free opportunities.

According to some online resources relating paid surveys, no respectful company would ever ask for any sign-up fee for granting you the opportunity to work for them. Such a company would have no need to conceal their address and telephone number on their website.

As you can see, legitimate membership survey sites should be free and should not conceal their street address and telephone number on their websites. Since most of these sites are not free, they should have a correct contact information and state on their websites or in their terms the requirements for participation and the real possibilities of making money. They should also have a refund policy in case you don?t earn anything and honor it. You?d be surprised as how many refunds are not honored.

That is why you should do a research on your own about a site you wish to purchase a list from. Try to find everything you can about positive and negative experiences and then decide what will be the best thing to do. Especially check if they honor their refund policies. There are a lot of scams out there.

In my opinion I don?t believe you should pay anything to access these lists and here is why. Although it is possible to earn a lot of money and cover your investment ?fee?, it is also possible never to earn any money. Why is that?Paid surveys are not for anyone. They are conducted by a market research companies on behalf of some large company seeking to improve sales and willing to invest certain sum of money in the market research. Since they are spending quite large amounts of money, they can?t afford to waste it, so they will target their research to population which brings them most profit. So if you do not live in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, or some other developed country, you?ll probably never make any money from surveys. Even survey companies that claim to be available worldwide are very often restricted to some countries.

Besides your demographic location on most survey sites you have to fill in your profile based on your age, interests, education, income, etc. The number of surveys you will get will mostly depend on your profile. If your profile fits the required target population you?ll get more surveys and more chances to earn money. It is also possible that your profile will not fit in and you?ll rarely have an opportunity to complete paid surveys.

There are also other reasons why you shouldn?t pay anything to access market research companies:

You will be paying for something you can easily have for FREE! These membership sites are only selling information anyone can get. Sites that conduct market research are not hidden. They need as many possible members as they can find, so they will not ask for any fee. You can join all of them and never pay a dime.

Many market research companies have affiliate programs to help them recruit new members. Therefore if someone introduces you to a survey site, he/she will get paid for it and there is no real justification in asking for any more money from you.

These sites usually don?t have a refund policy, so if you don?t earn anything with surveys, you won?t be able to ask for a refund. It is more likely that they have a refund policy, but do not honor it. This is typical for scam sites and that is why it?s very important to do some researching first.

There are a lot of free lists of survey sites you can join and earn money if you qualify. You can test them out and see if they work for you or not and you won?t have to pay anything. Here is one of them: http://www.nettrafficsecrets.com/surveys/list_of_surveys.html

You probably won?t earn enough to quit your daily job with paid surveys, but they can help you get some extra money. And remember - you don't have to pay anything to access these sites.

This article was written by Jaksa Dubljanin. Visit his site: Internet Traffic Secrets located at http://www.nettrafficsecrets.com. You have full rights to republish this article on your site as long as the resource box and article body remains intact and with all links clickable.

The Advantages, Considerations and Risks of Employee Satisfaction Surveys

Although there are distinct advantages to conducting regular employee satisfaction surveys online - there can also be risks.

Listed here are some of the main advantages, considerations and the possible risks to conducting employee satisfaction surveys online.


Advantages

Identify Problems - Surveys are can be very effective in identify problems areas before they become serious, especially those that are hidden from senior management.

Working Environment - From something small like a broken chair to the more serious problem of sick building syndrome that can result in personnel experiencing headaches; eye, nose, and throat irritation; a dry cough; dry or itchy skin; dizziness and nausea; and difficulty in concentrating. Surveys allow environmental problems to be identified in a measured and controlled manner.

Remuneration & Benefits - Measure and monitor how satisfied personnel are with their remuneration and benefits.

Mood and Moral - Provides a simple but effective method to measure and monitor the mood and moral of an organization.

Benchmark - In the same way that an organization will consider their financial position by comparison with previous years, so the regular use of online surveys will allow an organization to monitor and measure their progress and development in non-financial terms.

Processes & Procedures - As businesses evolve some of the traditional processes and procedures can become antiquated, personnel are often the first to know and the last to be asked. Businesses evolve and the business processes need to be regularly re-aligned

Training - Lack of proper training is a common cause of dissatisfaction among employees and can lead to more serious problems such as stress.

Communication - For an organization to run efficiently good internal and external communications are essential, surveys can provide a method to help organizations to monitor and measure how well an organization communicates.

Goals and Objectives - Surveys can measure and monitor the extent that the personnel are aligned with the senior management's business goals and objectives.

Cost Effective - Using an online survey service such as www.surveygalaxy.com survey are quick and easy to create, simple to deploy and will provide real-time results.

Compliance - To properly comply with an ever increasing array of regulations the modern organization needs to be able to disseminate information throughout the organization and ensure, through records, that the information has been received, and importantly, understood. Online surveys provide organization with a cost effective method to meet many of their obligations.

Keeping the Initiative - It is always better for management to ask than be told. By conducting regular employee surveys management are able to keep the initiative in trying to identify problems that may otherwise manifest into demands.



Considerations

Management Backing - A survey that is both sanctioned and has the support of senior management will go some way in ensuring that any action required, based on the survey findings, will be implemented.

Ask the right questions - Consider careful the questions being asked. If employees feel that the survey is just trying to tick the right boxes the survey could backfire.

A survey that is to be conducted annually should try and ask questions that will provide senior management with an overall health check of the organization.

Avoid questions that will only apply to specific departments or personnel. If some areas of the organization require detailed investigation consider running separate one-off surveys that can be targeted at specific personnel.

Incentive - Most employees will feel that by being able to give their opinions that they are already stakeholders in the exercise and will be happy to participate in the survey as they will expect to benefit from the process.

However, some incentive may help improve the overall response rate or could be used to encourage early participation.

Smaller incentives could be handed out to all employees or all participating employees could be entered into a lottery to receive a more substantial prize.

Anonymous - The decision to allow respondents to remain anonymous or not needs careful consideration. A survey that is conducted anonymously may allow employees to be more candid, however, anonymity may encourage some individuals to make wild accusations that can not be substantiated and cause considerable concern. When in doubt it is often better to keep everything 'on the record' rather than 'off'.

Where survey respondents are known there is the opportunity to chase for surveys that have not been completed and also to follow up on some issues directly with those employees who have raised them as problems.

Comments - Keep free text comments to a minimum because they are difficult and time consuming to measure and analyze.

Consider limiting free text comments to one at the end of the survey or, in the case of surveys that are not being conducted anonymously, allow for a post-survey follow-up to obtain more information where additional and more specific detail is required.

Risks

Management - Some managers can regard any form of employee consultation as a sign of weakness and may have a tendency to dismiss out of hand any negative comment.

Warts and All - A survey is likely to reveal warts and all. Senior management should be prepared for discovering that the top down view can differ from the bottom up view and that ignorance, of any identified problems, can no longer be used as an excuse.

Non-Action - Many employees will invest time and effort in participating in a survey and their hopes and expectations will be raised. Any post-survey non-action is likely to promote cynicism and jeopardize any future initiatives to obtain employee feedback.

Management should formally respond to the issues raised in surveys even if the demands of employees are not to be met. If senior management agree to address and resolve some issues then action needs to have started before any further survey is scheduled.

Can Cause Problems - Where surveys reveal, or bring problems, to the surface there could be a tendency for senior management to blame the messenger.


Summary

The benefits of conducting regular online employee surveys can be considerable, but for surveys to be effective important upfront considerations need to be made. Although the process of conducting a survey can be therapeutic in itself it is the post-survey analysis, response and action that will ultimately determine how useful and effective the process has been.

For a sample employee satisfaction survey:

http://www.surveygalaxy.com/surPublishes.asp?survey_id=1163

 

Maximize Your Online Survey Profits

One of the most common questions I get on this website is "Peter, how do I make the most money with these online survey opportunities?" There are a couple of extremely easy ways to add to your bottom line in the survey-taking world.

1) Apply to as many survey and market research sites as possible. When you join a Survey database, you will be given anywhere between 350 to 550 different survey companies. This may sound insane, but at some point, you will want to have had applied to ALL of them on the list. Don't try to knock them out all in one day, but go for 10-20 a day. The more survey companies you join, the more people who will want your opinion at some point and will come looking to pay you for it.

2) Decrease the amount of repetitive work that you have to do. When you're joining survey sites, they all ask basically the same information when first getting started. You don't need to put in the same info manually every time. Instead, use a tool like RoboForm. Using RoboForm you can fill in your information once, and when prompted on subsequent sites, fill in ALL your personal information with the press of a single button. This is a HUGE time saver. Saving time means having more time to fill out surveys for cash.

3) Many survey sites will offer you opportunities to complete sections that reflect your own personal information. There may be a section on your finances, what kind of car you drive, your travel habits, etc. Whenever you see these, FILL THEM OUT. This will give you access to surveys that the other 99% of the people who don't fill them out won't ever get to see.

4) Cash is good, but points aren't bad either. Many survey sites pay you in "points" and when you accumulate enough of them you get to use them to purchase items. Don't avoid the sites that pay in points. I don't know about you, but a $250 Wal-Mart gift certificate is as good as cash to me because it will definitely get used.

5) Don't avoid the drawings either. A lot of times, particularly on short surveys, market research companies will offer an entry into a cash drawing for your participation. There's no reason not to take the time to fill out a 3 minute survey for a chance to win $1,000 in addition to many other smaller cash prizes. Your chances of winning something are actually not bad because a LOT of people do not complete these surveys at all! They just wait until the cash surveys fill their box.

So basically the name of the game is to maximize your exposure. Join as many companies as possible, give them as much information about you as possible, and take as many surveys as possible. Those are some of the ways you can maximize your online survey profits! But you're not going to get anywhere if you haven't taken the first step. Click the link below to go back to the survey list page and get started!

Peter Dimas is the webmaster of http://www.surveysthatpaybest.com