Paid Surveys: How to Avoid Scams

On another post I shared some reviews of legitimate paid and rewarded survey sites. I don't claim, by any means, to have an exhaustive list. There are many other good survey sites out there. Unfortunately, there are also scams. Here are a few tips on how to avoid them.


1. Don't sign up for any survey site which asks you to pay to access the surveys. These generally only offer links to other survey sites you will have to register at separately (and you can find these other ways without paying a dime). These are not worth your money. You should never have to pay to do a job, and that includes taking surveys.

2. Always carefully read a site's terms of service and privacy policy before registering. If in their privacy policy they say they only use aggregated info, this is GOOD SIGN they are legit. Aggregated information is info (such as answers to survey questions) that is grouped together so it can't be connected with anyone's personal identification like name, e-mail, phone or address. That's what survey sites SHOULD collect. Watch out for sites that say they give, rent, or sell any personal information (info that is not aggregated) to third parties.

3. Watch for language like "get paid for taking surveys AND SIGNING UP FOR OFFERS" if you don't want to have to sign up for stuff with other companies to get paid. There are sites which say they pay for surveys, but what they actually do is pay you to sign up for offers...and to take surveys when you sign up. They also may refer you to some legitimate survey sites which have affiliate programs or pay for referrals. If you decide that you want to try any of these sites, be careful to read all the information on the specific offers--as these offers come from separate companies with their own terms of service and privacy policies. Otherwise, you may end up paying more than you're getting (or give away your info to those who will sell it).

4. NEVER sign up for a survey site (or any other type of site) through un-solicited e-mail. These can be phishing schemes, where they try to get your information to mis-use it (often pretending to be legitimate sites). I've gotten e-mails asking me to sign up for survey sites I've already been a part of for some time. I contacted the real sites, and they confirmed the e-mails had nothing to do with them.
Some legitimate sites do have e-mail referral programs, so if the e-mail is from a friend (or claims to be sent on behalf of a friend) check with the friend first to make sure they sent it.

5. Check around and do a little background research. You can check the site's rating on Survey Police.com (a very good survey rating a review site) and see if there are any reports against it on Rip Off Report.com. A google under the survey name and the word scam or review can also be revealing. Remember though, many survey sites offer affiliate commissions for sign ups, so the absence of bad reviews is much more convincing than the presence of good reviews.