As little as 10 years ago, the majority of online survey sites were less than trustworthy, if not outright shams. In the last decade, the balance has shifted and now the greater share of survey sites are completely legitimate.
But not all are created equal! Completing surveys online has proven to be a great way to earn a little extra cash to supplement incomes, but before you dive in you should know what red flags to look out for.
5. If earning potential sounds way too good to be true, it probably is.
If the hook declares you could earn $50, $100, or more per survey, while that sounds amazing, it’s not likely. Completing surveys online should not be considered a replacement for full-time employment and should be thought of as supplemental income.
An aggressive survey panelist could average $10-$15 an hour, but understand, that it truly an aggressive panelist working through a variety of sites. To be presented with a promise of a great deal more should be considered a red flag. They tempt you with the possible but not very probable outcome.
4. They require too much personal Information.
A certain level of personal information is required for survey sites to ensure you are receiving offers to surveys that are applicable to you. General information requested as part of your onboarding would likely be your name, age, the gender you identify with, race, and state and/or zip code.
A survey site should never require your social security number, and because of the number one red flag in our list, they should never require a credit or debit card. Neither are part of their database demographics.
3. Emails come from generic mailbox services like Yahoo! or Gmail, and not custom business accounts.
If you receive requests for sign up, or for more personal information, or for really anything at all with a generic email address like Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, etc you would be well advised not to continue. A legitimate survey site would have a business email address linked to their company name. They would not use a free mail service program.
2. They have no privacy policy published on their website.
The most common place for the privacy policy to appear is in the footer of the website. If there is no easily located privacy policy, you may want to consider moving on.
1. Membership requires a fee.
Never, ever pay a fee of any kind or at any time to join an online survey program. Legitimate survey sites are a business working with business partners for their revenue; you are not and should not be their revenue. Even if you sign up, earn their minimum, and then they ask for a credit card or payment, don’t do it. You may have lost out on what you theoretically earned, but at least you didn’t lose more.
Pointclub Offers All This, and a Bag of Chips.
Okay, so not an actual bag of chips, but by signing up with Pointclub you can earn that extra cash so you can splurge on those chips.
So, how does Pointclub differ from the other legitimate online survey sites? Here are a few… points.
• Not every panelist is eligible to complete every survey. If you try, but are deemed ineligible, Captain PC has the authority to grant you points regardless of completion. We are the only online survey site to provide this payout.
• We grant signup bonuses and extra points for completing your initial panelist dossier.
• We have one of the lower payout thresholds at $25, which you can take as payment to a Paypal account or through a variety of gift card offers.
Haven’t signed up yet? Now is a great time to begin earning that extra pocket cash! Join Pointclub today!
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