Are Free Survey's Really Free?


by Sarah Gumpp - Date: 2007-04-02 - Word Count: 694 Share This!

Your browsing the internet looking for something you can do in your spare time that will earn you some extra money, say $200-$500 a month. You have heard that there is an opportunity to make money by taking surveys online. You decide that it might be something that fits into your schedule to do. Now the question is…do I choose a subscription survey package or do I go for the free ones?

The main benefit to signing up to participate in free online surveys is the obvious….it's free! There are some websites that have compiled a small list of up to 30 companies. You can get access to their list for free simply by giving them your name and e-mail. Then you have complete access to the companies that they have compiled. You sign up with the companies that look good to you and you are ready to go. Sounds pretty simple! So I suppose you are asking, "What are the cons of joining a FREE survey listing?" There are several. Here are some things to think about.

First, you just gave someone your first name and e-mail address. What are they going to do with it? They are probably selling the information to another company. Then who knows what kind of company's they will sell it off to and what they will send you.

Second, maybe the company that you sign up with does its own marketing. Now they have your name and e-mail to send you out daily "junk" e-mails. They don't just send one or two you will be receiving 5-10 e-mail offers a day. Or maybe they do both and then who knows how many e-mails you will end up with.

Third, a lot of these survey companies don't pay cash for your opinion. They reward you with points that you can use to purchase things off of their rewards site. In order to earn the points you have to buy products according to their terms from their sponsored companies. For an example, you are asked to try a new eye cream. They send you a sample and as long as you purchase that from the company every other month for 6 months they will pay you $30. You don't receive the money from them until you have fulfilled your obligation. But because of the terms of the agreement you end of not making any money at all. Yes you do get to save money on the product but these methods defeat the whole point of taking surveys online - MONEY. And technically you're not taking a survey you're being asked to purchase products.

There are companies that you can join directly by visiting their website. With little effort you can locate about 10 legitimate companies that pay in cash rewards. Check out my website for several that you can join without searching the internet. So why would a pay a subscription fee to join a list? While it is possible to find several survey companies to join how much time do you want to spend doing it? You could spend 3-6 months coming up with all of the companies that have been compiled by one of these companies. Then you would have to constantly be updating your list in order to stay up with the changes. When you join a subscription based survey list you gain access to hundreds and hundreds of companies. The more companies you join the more money you can make. But, that is why you are asked to pay a small fee for the time that they put in to compiling the list for you. Also, they are constantly updating the list for you so that allows you to stay current on the new survey companies that have entered the field. Not only are you getting a very large list of survey companies but you will also gain access to companies that you can get paid to shop as a mystery shopper, watch movie trailers and participate in online focus groups. The small fee to join can usually be earned back within 1 hour of taking surveys. Think of all the time saved and potential money earned by taking this route.


Related Tags: work from home, paid surveys, online surveys, free surveys, taking online surveys

Sarah is creating an honest approach website to bring legitimate work at home opportunities to stay at home moms. You can visit her site for more information about online surveys and other work at home opportunities at http://www.mommymoneymakers.com

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