are these survey sites worth it?(merged)

JDPower

Angie74 wrote: »

why are you so bothered, do you work for them or something? You seem quite annoyed by my post?

I don't see anything in my post that expresses annoyance, but 'scammer' is quite a strong accusation to make against a company, and one which I feel is unfounded in this case so put an alternative/balanced point of view.

You say "they've got all the information anyway", well it serves them absolutely no purpose at all 'having' it, if they've reached their quota all your data will have zero use and won't even be submitted, it will just be discarded. So they gain nothing from it (except in your conspiracy theories). Not a great system but the same as most every survey company uses.

I don't work for them, I've just used them for a while and find them one of the best sites with regards to it's treatment if end users. You got screened out but still got something for it (you get that regardless, not just cos you messaged them BTW) AND got an actual reply to your email, both of which are things you wouldn't get on a lot of survey sites.

Screening outs happen, at various stages of surveys, and yes they are a pain in the rear but if you can't cope with them then perhaps surveys are not for you.

Angie74

JDPower wrote: »

I don't see anything in my post that expresses annoyance, but 'scammer' is quite a strong accusation to make against a company, and one which I feel is unfounded in this case so put an alternative/balanced point of view.

You say "they've got all the information anyway", well it serves them absolutely no purpose at all 'having' it, if they've reached their quota all your data will have zero use and won't even be submitted, it will just be discarded. So they gain nothing from it (except in your conspiracy theories). Not a great system but the same as most every survey company uses.

I don't work for them, I've just used them for a while and find them one of the best sites with regards to it's treatment if end users. You got screened out but still got something for it (you get that regardless, not just cos you messaged them BTW) AND got an actual reply to your email, both of which are things you wouldn't get on a lot of survey sites.

Screening outs happen, at various stages of surveys, and yes they are a pain in the rear but if you can't cope with them then perhaps surveys are not for you.

As I already said, I wont be bothering with the longer surveys, as almost every time I've bothered to try and answer them, something always happens so I don't get my points. I wouldn't have got anything had I not emailed them, as I already checked my account to see if any points had been added or entries (which are useless in my opinion anyway, I would have just preferred 10 points) and nothing had been added, and I don't email them every time it's happened and I've been awarded nothing, so you're wrong there.

Also how can you be so sure that they just bin the information if you don't work for them? They can say whatever they like to avoid giving you the points. If you don't know for sure, then your theory is as invalid as mine if we're going by your rules. Oh and it was your use of capital letters used for certain words in your first post that made it seem like you were annoyed

Sorry if you think I'm being unreasonable, but it's probably because of the 30 hour headache I've now had from answering a 40 minute pointless, worthless survey. And thanks for the advice, but I think I can decide for myself whether I want to answer anymore surveys, and whether I want to be annoyed if they take the absolute MICK!

(Edited to add) Although I see you seem to get quite 'offended' if anyone has anything negative to say about ANY survey site. Strange that you care so much to be honest. Is it affecting your life in any way? Why do you feel the need to defend them at every opportunity? I only fill in surveys for mysurvey, so I couldn't really care less what happens on other survey sites. So just because you are prepared to just 'put up with it' and not say a bad word against them, doesn't mean everybody else has to, whether it makes any difference or not. You make it sound like I should go grovelling back to them and thank them that they even bothered to reply to my email, and give me 10 measly mysurvey entries that I WOULD'T have got had I not emailed them. Well no, I'm annoyed and quite rightly so!

jenniewb

I have had quite a few surveys screen me out after about 20 minutes, some you can tell you've actually done the survey, given feedback on watching several videos and rating each individually, some where you've gotten to the final lot of screening asking you for the second time (at the end) what town you live in and some that even say "thankyou for finishing this survey, please click here to submit" and after clicking through you get a message saying "sorry we have enough people already".

It is very frustrating and IMO it is on the increase. The only thing you can do is to email the survey company its come from and some are better then others.

I've seen this increase from GlobalTestMarket, IPSOS, MySurvey and and cint. A few times on Pureprofile but they are pretty hot on dealing with it.

Onepoll are also frustratingly bad at this but I do get the feeling it is because 1001 other people are also doing the exact same survey in a vain attempt to reach the threshold. (£10 and I'm out, Onepoll are not worth bothering about because the surveys are too low paid and far between when the threshold is so high).

Torialou78

I do not think we should be screen out of so many, we sit and fill out profile surveys so they know if we fit a profile. So why send me surveys that ask do I have kids? No! sorry we need people with kids.

Well it's in my profile I do not have kids and computers can sort out who meets criteria for the questions so there is no excuse.

As for full targets met, I am sorry but how many people can be filling in the same survey at the same time? with the prices of most surveys being 75p how much really would it cost them in a year to pay us all for work? Come on we are not talking millions here.

No where else in the working world would you be allowed to work and not get paid. Imagine you were working in an office and they suddenly said ok we won't pay you for the last 45 mins you have been typing because joe blogs just finished the quota we need done for today! would you take it? No the company would be expected to work out how many people it needed to employ to cover the work loads and if they miss judged they are still expected to pay. You do not say oh well the miss judged so I worked for free never mind! do you?

I do like my surveys but I do think there should be some regulation. It astounds me that there is not. Some sites like pinecone are so well organised and regulated that they deserve massive respect.

I spent nearly 2 hours the other day doing a survey on Valued opinions that crashed at showing 99% it was for £4. I reported it to them but got the bog standard reply that I may get it sent to me again if they do not fill their quota! erm so I get to sit and type in my answers again for 2 hours :-/ eh thanks lol. While I like the site a lot I do get fed up of no monitoring and poor customer service. We are earning well below legal minimum wage. So at least pay the pennies we are due lol.

Kantankrus_Mare

Well its took me long enough to get to this point and the end is in sight!!! :j

I need 5p to reach £40 threshold on OnePoll

Not sure whether to continue with it?

Think its took me two years to reach second pay out.

mcculloch29

I have definitely noticed an increase in 'screened outs' after a lengthy period, but I have done well on surveys. In 2 years I have had £70 in rewards from different sites (Ipsos, MySurvey, Valued Opinions, Springboard) along with roughly a dozen products to trial, plus a £50 Amazon quarterly prize draw win from Springboard. Worth keeping going on that basis!

olliebean

Some of them are worse than others though; I gave up on OnePoll after reaching my first payout, because I had noticed a dramatic change during the period it took me to reach £40 - fewer paying surveys, more screenouts, lower rewards, and longer surveys to the extent that it wasn't really worth the 10p that most of them were worth. I was only slogging on with it because I was already up to about £25 before things started deteriorating.

Angie74

Torialou78 wrote: »

No where else in the working world would you be allowed to work and not get paid. Imagine you were working in an office and they suddenly said ok we won't pay you for the last 45 mins you have been typing because joe blogs just finished the quota we need done for today! would you take it? No the company would be expected to work out how many people it needed to employ to cover the work loads and if they miss judged they are still expected to pay. You do not say oh well the miss judged so I worked for free never mind! do you?

It's like you read my mind lol. I was thinking that exact same thing the other night almost word for word as you typed it It's ridiculous that they expect you to just sit there and fill in their surveys and they might or might not pay you for it. And if you get screened out on the last question, well it's just tough! I'm sure they've sent me more surveys in the last week than I've ever been sent by them before, all 25mins and over, and I refuse to do them now so I feel like they're testing me to see if I crack hahaha.

jenniewb

I agree with onepoll. When it first started a few years ago it was brilliant and I reached the £40 required within the first year! Its now been years and there are some months that go by without a single 5p survey being paid. I've even finished surveys for them but not been paid, complaining does nothing as they ask for the survey code....without it they don't seem to act.

I doubt I'll be sticking around when I've next reached payout though I'm not anticipating getting to payout before 2015 (yes really) at the current rate. I'm on £30.

There is a website called the surveypolice which is made up of lists of all the survey sites they are aware of where people can post their experiences. It does help if it puts future people off because it may make survey sites sit up and listen.

I have so many sites on my to-go list now due to the lack of payment (competition entries do nothing for me) or for screening me out at the last minute.

olliebean

Torialou78 wrote: »

No where else in the working world would you be allowed to work and not get paid.

That's a nice principle, but sadly not true: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/06/27/how-we-all-started-working-for-free-3/

Seems like the online survey sites are pretty much in line with the general trend.