So, a little while back, I decided that I would look into this business of earning money from surveys that is touted by various websites as being a way of earning some money from home. I had always been a bit wary of the ‘Making money from Surveys’ thing but decided that I would just investigate it myself and see what it was all about.
When you google ‘making money from surveys’ you get a heck of a lot of results and there are a few key players. But also there are companies that get you signed up to quite a few different survey providers. It can all get rather confusing and even now I can’t remember which website I went to originally because they all seem to be linked in to one another!
Anyway, I signed up for a number of them which include Panelweb, Valued Opinions, Inbox Pounds, Global Test market and Opinion Outpost. There may even be more but those are the ones that appeared in my inbox most often. A lot of these companies invite you to other panels as well but I figure this is quite enough for now and I probably can’t even keep up with this lot!
How Does It Work?
So, pretty much every day, if not more than once a day I was getting an email from all of these companies inviting me to take part in a survey. In return for completing the survey I could get points or even in some cases actual money. Some of the sums are quite large (up to £8 so far) but these kinds of sums are not available by just filling in some questions but by actually taking out a trial subscription for something. Most of the emails that come through with this kind of offer I just delete.
The surveys that offer points for completion do enable you, once you have built up enough points, to exchange then for things like Amazon vouchers which would also be just as useful as money as I often spend money on Amazon anyway. But I was more inclined to try and complete the surveys that offered real money more often.
Every morning when I got up there were a bunch of surveys waiting in my inbox as they come in all times of the day and night. If you are going to do this then you really need to keep a good handle on your inbox so that your email does not get bogged down with surveys. Even with what seems to be a small number of companies that I signed up for I was already feeling that my email could get overwhelmed.
The best method of dealing with them seems to be to set aside some times in the day when you will go through the surveys that you have received and try and complete as many as possible.
Can You Really Earn Money From Surveys?
Ok, so here is the rub, each survey you complete you have to go through some questions to see if you are actually eligible to complete the survey. In some cases I have found that these questions in themselves can take a good amount of time to complete and all you get in the end is ‘I’m sorry but you do not qualify’ so you have wasted your time. In fact, for the surveys that I have completed so far I would go as far as saying that I have been ineligible for around 80% of them!
For example I got a survey one morning asking if I had had a fungal nail infection in the last year! But first it asks personal details and information about which TV region you are in etc.
So I tried to complete at least a few surveys a day (a lot of them take about 20 minutes to complete) but after 10 days of doing this I had earned less than £2 due to being ineligible for most of them. Not exactly a great rate of return.
Perhaps I was not the right demographic for doing this and other people might have more success and be able to earn more money!
Is It a Scam?
Well this is the key question and I have to say that I think in a way it is. The reason I say this is the you can tell by the way some of the questions are phrased that the survey is not there to get your opinions about things but it is there to see if you are likely to be interested in a certain product. No doubt the product of the person who is conducting the survey. I will give you a couple of examples of this:
1. I took part in a survey which asked which charities you were most likely to give money to (this was just one of the many questions) – I think there were a list of only a few specific charities. I ticked the box for Great Ormond Street Children’s hospital. A few days later I got a phone call from their office asking if I wanted to give just 75p a week to the charity. So really this wasn’t a survey about opinions as it was made out to be, at least one factor of it was to try and get people to give money to charity.
2. I remember completing a survey where one of the questions was about pre-paid funeral plans. I must have ticked that this would be a good idea as I had a relative who died recently who had one and it made life so much easier for us. However, it’s not something I would do now but maybe in about 10 years time. Anyway, just this morning I got a call from a company asking if I would be interested in taking out a plan.
So, to me, the majority of the surveys are more than likely just companies trying to find people to flog stuff to. I’m a bit annoyed as I don’t generally give out my home phone number so I don’t want now to have a whole rush of cold calls coming in. Perhaps I just won’t answer the phone unless it is a number I recognise!
The other point that I think makes it a scam is the fact that you can fill in a whole lot of surveys without being eligible for any of the rewards, thus completely wasting your time.
If you are eligible for a survey then you can earn really small amounts – but then this is your decision. If you have spare time and it is the only way you might earn some money then you may just do it anyway.
