Tips for ripping off the on-line survey companies

Posted by Offer Tsuriel on September 12, 2009

So you want to make a fortune from taking online surveys but they pay only few bucks for each survey. Here are few tips how to increase your income by taking online surveys:

• Avoid not paying surveys - You can find a short list here of survey companies that you should not waist your time by taking their surveys. In addition, you can use the services of www.surveypolice.com site which has a list of many approved and disapproved sites.
• Distinguish – winning surveys and paid surveys. With winning surveys

  you may never get anything for taking their survey, they usually use sweepstakes to draw a winner. Paid surveys usually credit you with few bucks after you take their survey. So, take more paid surveys and only few winning surveys since you not sure you will ever win.

• Winning surveys – though you may not always win, but as more surveys you take you increase your chances to win. Prizes can vary up to $50,000! You only take their survey once and forget about them. If you win they call you.

• Never, never, never - pay to take a survey, unless you register to one of the survey banks which offer you many survey companies and save you the search time.

• Terms & Conditions – before taking any paid or winning survey read their Terms & Conditions page. You can find its link usually at the bottom of the home page. Don’t waste your time on reading the whole document just look for the following terms:
  Elegibility – country and age.
  Promotion period – may be its over.
  Sweepstakes period – in case of winning surveys.
  Payment method – gift cards, cash, points and then cash…
  Example: this is how this document should look like
• Avoid Scams – scam survey is a phony survey whose purpose only to get your email address in order to send you spam emails later. They are easily recognizable by asking your e-mail address at the first question and not offering you anything for taking their survey. In addition you never find the site owner name or address mentioned on any page.
• Use WhoIs.com – using this site you can easily recognize the URL owner and contact him if necessary. If otherwise this site is a scam, don’t waist your time on it.
• Make a list – of every company that actually paid you and use them again and again. Always record your credits for you to know when is your redeem approaching. Don’t miss it.
• Use survey software – I use the RoboForm software which helps me to fill out surveys much faster. This software installs a simple toolbar in your internet explorer. All you need to do is create your profile with your basic info. which you have to fill each time you take a survey. Then, every time when you asked to fill your info this software will do it automatically for you. Download: AiRoboForm.exe. Video tutorial: FormFiller.flv (flash video).