Paid Surveys: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

When surfing the internet for ways to make money online, you might run into a number of websites which claim you can make money by taking paid surveys. When you run into these sites, you may be wondering if they are scams or not, and might ask yourself the following question,

"Can I really make money online with paid surveys?".

While the answer is a definite yes, you need to be careful about how you go about doing it, and you need to realize that you may find yourself feeling ripped off by joining a paid surveys website. In this article, I want to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly of the paid surveys industry, and because of the "bad" and "the ugly", I will give you an alternative to paid surveys.

The Good:

There are a bunch of paid survey websites out there which will pay you for your opinion. They will pay you because they are doing market research for companies which need information about you, the consumer. A good paid surveys company will pay you somewhere between a few pennies and $75 or more for each research survey you complete.

The Bad:

There is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 paid surveys companies out there, some of which are very good, but many of which are very bad. The good paid surveys companies will pay you great money to take surveys, but the bad paid surveys will do nothing but sell your email address and send you spam, or send you surveys which will only compensate you with lame prizes. One problem many people who have attempted to make money with paid surveys have discovered is that they are only eligible for paid surveys which take a half hour or more to complete, but which only pay a dollar or two for the completed survey.

The Ugly:

A lot of paid survey databases use deceptive advertising practices, like showing you earning potential of something like $5,000 a month, which is nearly impossible to achieve with paid surveys...although you just might get 500 spam emails a month, and for the record, this in not an exaggeration. Additionally, many paid surveys databases are notorious for not giving refunds they promise in their guarantee when you email them to request one...instead, they just ignore you.

Conclusion:

You can make money doing paid surveys, but if you do sign up and pay for a paid surveys database, you are likely to get lots of spam, few survey opportunities, and will have difficulty getting a refund from the paid surveys product. Instead of paid surveys, I'd recommend learning how to market digital products online through internet marketing.