Survey sites guide discussion

kspence

"DooYoo: I have earnt well over £100 from it, but have had a lot of problems with very rude staff there"

I was wondering about that myself; I signed up for a premier a/c after seeing the link from Martin's newsletter and wrote a few - I though pretty good - reviews in quick succession; I have far too much time on my hands and found reviewing on dooyoo just as 'satisfying' - and potentially more gainful - than wasting my efforts on e.g. IMDB where I used to lurk about a lot.

Anyway, I soon got a message from some green-clad dooyoo staff viper - suggesting I'd written too many reviews in too short a time, saying that as a new member I hadn't read, reviewed or commented on anyone else's reviews yet (actually I had read quite a few, but most of what I read was too - forgive me - bloody boring for me to find anything nice to say about, so I'd witheld comment. I mean, presumably to boost their word count to the 150 word minimum, dooyoo old hands were literally writing material along the lines of (for, say, a review of fish and chip flavoured crisp) the following:

'Walker's crisps are made from thinly-sliced potatoes deep-fried in sunflower oil. Potatoes are a type of edible tuber grown from a plant originating in South America. Many varieties of potato are grown in Britain today. Walker's crisps are sold in supermarkets, newsagents, pubs and service stations, and cost about 45 pence for a 28 gramme bag. Flavouring and salt are added to the sliced potatoes and oil you will find in contained in these bags of crisps. There are a lot of different flavours of Walker's crisps available from different retail outlets.'

I mean it's supposedly a review site, not bloomin' Wikipedia! Anyway, the dooyoo staff person continued to watch me - the site shows you who's been rating your reviews, and visiting your profile - for the next day or so.

Anyway, I thought this was rather odd policing behaviour. I think I shall continue writing the reviews till I have notionally enough for an Amazon voucher, but given your experience, I won't hold my breath for it.

kspence

Thanks for the annika's recommendation xmoobagx - it's apparently still open to UK residents but there was a warning on the Annika's page about downloading some plug-in from the site....which may or may not be a computer virus / file containing a virus. Apparently a few of Pinecone's memebers in the States have had no end of trouble with this, though some people claim they can do the surveys without.

Anyway I've filled in an application with them. We'll see how that goes...I think they ask me to download anything however I'll just leave it.

mrkbrrws

Di_X wrote: »

I would like to try using these survey sites, but at the moment I don't have to fill out a tax return as my company sorts it all out for me. Having to fill out a tax return sounds like a lot of hassle. Will I have to fill out a tax return if I start using these sites?

I think it is unlikely that HMRC will ask you to complete a Tax Return if your only untaxed income was from surveys. Don't register as self-employed if you are only doing a few survey sites.

You have 6 months from the end of the tax year to notify HMRC of any income which has not been taxed, so I would just see how much you make and then write to them after 5 April if you have made any money.

If the tax due is small enough they may write back and say they won't bother to collect it, or they may adjust your tax code so the tax is deducted by your employer.

k4ssie

I used to be a member of surveysavvy, but found that once i got reasonably close to the (high) payout minimum, the number of surveys i was offered reduced dramatically, and of the ones i do, they're mostly unavailable when i actually click the links.

More annoying was this issue of "qualifying questions". Now, i have friends who work in market research, and a genuine qualifying question would be, for example, to determine whether you have or are likely to use a certain product. I got extremely fed up of completing up to 10 pages of questions, which were blatantly providing the company concerned with valuable market insight (see example below) only to be told subsequently "sorry, you don't qualify". People, this is blatent abuse of the deal you're making with these companies, which is that you give your time and opinions, and they reward you. It doesn't take too much imagination to see what's going on here - set up the survey so that 70% of what you want to find out are "qualifying" questions, and then knock out most of the respondants at that stage. The small proportion you allow to go on to the final few questions, actually get paid.

On the recomendation of this site, i signed up to Valued Opinions. I was pretty concerned about the amount of detailed personal information they wanted from me, on every aspect of my life, just to set up the account - from the financial products i use to my medical status. This alone is extremely valuable information to a marketing company - for demographic profiling etc - and again we're all giving it away FOR FREE. Then this morning i got my first survey invite. I spent about 10 minutes filling in what i thought was the survey - including questions asking me to rate a ton of McVities and Cadburys snack foods against the statement "X product brings out my fun side" before being told i "didn't qualify". Now, surely you have to be quite dumb not to realise what is going on here - i've just given them detailed survey opinion information that they will be using to define their ad campaigns, that is NOT a qualifying question in any way!

I am extremely fed up with this, and certainly won't be participating any further. I have no doubt that, for those posters who've dedicated serious time to this, they get good rewards - but for me that doesn't make up for the fact that there's a huge con at work here, and overall we're only getting paid for a fraction of what we give these companies in terms of valuable info.

Jesthar

Just found time to read this article, and now I'm panicking somewhat - I'm supposed to register a company just to fill out online surveys? I'm sure I can't be the only one who has been doing surveys for a while but had no idea about this apparant requirement - it's not like it's ever mentioned on the sites themselves...

Heigh ho, off to cancel the accounts before I reach threshhold then. Dang... :rolleyes:

maytaurus

Has anyone heard/had experience of Springboard UK

https://www.springboarduk.com/S.aspx?s=17&r=b0ZLbSvdv06_Dsv5.7mRoA&o=0Q_uf_2C7b&fromdetect=1

hammersuk

Had an email from a 123 cash surveys today offering fairly big money for surveys. Thinks its one u need to pay to sign up with.

Anyone had any experience with them>?

sylviesinc

I am signed up to most out there and have been for years but I have never heard of 123. I would NEVER pay to sign up with anyone, however.

sylviesinc

maytaurus wrote: »

Has anyone heard/had experience of Springboard UK

https://www.springboarduk.com/S.aspx?s=17&r=b0ZLbSvdv06_Dsv5.7mRoA&o=0Q_uf_2C7b&fromdetect=1

They look fine so I have just joined.

cheap_charlie

kspence wrote: »

"DooYoo: I have earnt well over £100 from it, but have had a lot of problems with very rude staff there"

I was wondering about that myself; I signed up for a premier a/c after seeing the link from Martin's newsletter and wrote a few - I though pretty good - reviews in quick succession; I have far too much time on my hands and found reviewing on dooyoo just as 'satisfying' - and potentially more gainful - than wasting my efforts on e.g. IMDB where I used to lurk about a lot.

Anyway, I soon got a message from some green-clad dooyoo staff viper - suggesting I'd written too many reviews in too short a time, saying that as a new member I hadn't read, reviewed or commented on anyone else's reviews yet (actually I had read quite a few, but most of what I read was too - forgive me - bloody boring for me to find anything nice to say about, so I'd witheld comment. I mean, presumably to boost their word count to the 150 word minimum, dooyoo old hands were literally writing material along the lines of (for, say, a review of fish and chip flavoured crisp) the following:

'Walker's crisps are made from thinly-sliced potatoes deep-fried in sunflower oil. Potatoes are a type of edible tuber grown from a plant originating in South America. Many varieties of potato are grown in Britain today. Walker's crisps are sold in supermarkets, newsagents, pubs and service stations, and cost about 45 pence for a 28 gramme bag. Flavouring and salt are added to the sliced potatoes and oil you will find in contained in these bags of crisps. There are a lot of different flavours of Walker's crisps available from different retail outlets.'

I mean it's supposedly a review site, not bloomin' Wikipedia! Anyway, the dooyoo staff person continued to watch me - the site shows you who's been rating your reviews, and visiting your profile - for the next day or so.

Anyway, I thought this was rather odd policing behaviour. I think I shall continue writing the reviews till I have notionally enough for an Amazon voucher, but given your experience, I won't hold my breath for it.

Shame you feel that way because based on this post it seems to me that you have a lot to offer dooyoo in the form of well written reviews which are full of character and dare I say it, even a sense of fun.

However the 150 word thing IS a minimum - if you read the reviews dooyoo award crowns to you will see that they have far more words. Granted you may be bored rigid by them, but it gives you an idea of the standard they like.

Try to remember that there's a very good chance that some of the criticism given to you was constructive - well I hope it was - and carry on regardless :-)