How to Avoid Becoming a Victim of a Paid Survey Scam

Paid survey scams exist all over the Internet and you probably won’t see an end to them any time soon. If you don’t want to become a victim of a paid survey scam, there are three main things that you must do before taking advantage of a paid survey opportunity.

Never pay money to take surveys

You are trying to make money, not give it away. A legitimate survey company will never ask you to pay money in order to participate in paid market research studies. If a survey site requires that you pay any kind of fee to make money, keep your credit card in your wallet and search for legitimate survey websites that are completely free to join.

Avoid paid survey membership sites

Paid survey membership sites are like greedy middlemen who take advantage of gullible and lazy individuals. They supposedly connect you with tons of survey companies that will pay you cash for surveys and often throw in bonuses like guides on how to make a lot of money with paid surveys and other money making methods.

In return for saving you a bunch of time, supplying you with hundreds of survey companies you can sign up to, and ebooks that can help you earn hundreds of dollars with paid surveys and other methods, they want you to pay them a fee.

Makes you want to pull out your credit card to pay that fee doesn’t it? But it’s better to keep it in your wallet because you are probably going to be disappointed when you actually see what’s on the other side and experience first-hand that the claims they were making to reel you in were far from the truth.

You may just get some value out of the membership but not enough to justify the fee that they would charge you – unless you are able to use the information to make your money back. If the membership site is somewhat helpful, which may be true in a few cases, you could indeed make your money back.

But if you do some research on your own, you could acquire the same information for free. Yeah, you’ll pay with your time, but not with your money.

Research

If people took a little time to research paid survey companies prior to jumping on board with them, they would learn enough about the company to determine whether or not the company is legit. Good research and judgment can help people avoid most, if not all, paid survey scams. So, before you sign up with a survey company, try to do the following:

Read reviews regarding the survey company in question. Reviews can be unreliable at times but if you check out different reviews from different sources, you can get a vague idea of whether or not a survey panel is genuine.

Check the terms and privacy policy of the survey website and make sure you know exactly how they use your information. A legitimate survey panel will only use your information to send you paid survey opportunities and payments. They won’t sell your information to third parties or send you spam.

Read over the company's FAQs page to learn important information like: when you get paid, how you get paid, minimum amount you need to request payment, and so on.

Check for payment proofs. See if you can find recent payments from the survey company posted by someone who has gotten paid by them.

Check their BBB rating. The Better Business Bureau has a website that allows consumers to look up various companies and read feedback or complaints the company has received. Often, you can find many legitimate and disreputable survey companies listed on their website.

Check message boards. There are a few forums that are dedicated to paid survey takers. They go there and share their experiences with different survey companies. You can browse these forums to get information on various survey companies.

If you stick with free paid survey websites, avoid paid membership sites, and do your homework, you should be able to avoid becoming a victim of a paid survey scam.

Just remember that this is an opportunity that can help you make extra money. You’re not going to get rich or come even close to it. If a site is making claims that sound “too good to be true”, it probably is and you should proceed with extra caution if you haven’t already walked away from the site.