Survey Stashing: Valued Opinion hints & tips

Sbarkia

I have been with them for years and find some rewards now seem to sit in 'pending' for longer than the suggested 28 days, whereas others go straight through. I find that after contacting them and getting the standard reply not long after they move up the ladder.

I also find I am getting less surveys recently and being screened out further through which is frustrating but I still find them one of the better survey sites. I always cash in immediately I have enough points rather than wait to go to the next level as it is a mistake to use them as a bank.

MrsSurvey

VO were in my top 5 survey sites for eons; but the last couple of months has seen them decline.

I've had the same technical errors that people mention here, but it's the patronising automated responses to queries that drives me up the wall!!

I now log into the site after completing any survey and check to see whether it's an instant credit, or whether it's sitting in my rewards. If neither, I check my participation history to see what it says there. On more than two occasions recently my participation has recorded surveys as "completed not rewarded" - I was furious! Now, I don't mind holding my hands up to making a mistake, but at least have the bottle to pull me up about the mistake, and don't do something sneeky like cancel my rewards in a cloak and dagger fashion.

I challenged them about it, got the automated response which I then replied to and said that it had nothing to do with my query - two more emails later, and two weeks of waiting, I received a short (in tone as well as length) email to the effect that the surveys had been manually credited. Result! Or was it? Since then, I seem to be screened out more often, sometimes halfway through a survey; and I have received considerably fewer survey invitations that I did in the past.

It remains to be seen whether or not they let me redeem....Shame such a good site has gone downhill.

digging

I have now finally hit the £10 mark to claim a voucher. I waited for a 'pending' reward for 3 weeks. I clicked to claim it and it says it is having difficulties with amazon vouchers and to either try again another time or chose a different voucher. Has anyone experienced these kind of 'problems' before and how long do they take to fix? I only did surveys for amazon. The other vouchers would be a waste. I've checked for 3 days now. Do I cut my losses and get a voucher for somewhere i'll probably never use or wait?

JDPower

digging wrote: »

I have now finally hit the £10 mark to claim a voucher. I waited for a 'pending' reward for 3 weeks. I clicked to claim it and it says it is having difficulties with amazon vouchers and to either try again another time or chose a different voucher. Has anyone experienced these kind of 'problems' before and how long do they take to fix? I only did surveys for amazon. The other vouchers would be a waste. I've checked for 3 days now. Do I cut my losses and get a voucher for somewhere i'll probably never use or wait?

This thread is better for more up to date discussion: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=411174

Amazon vouchers have been unavailable before for short periods on Valued Opinions and according to the above thread should be available again next month.

competitionhound

thanks for sharing.

DaveTheGeordie

I qualify for somewhere between 1/5 or 1/7 surveys IMO and VO is about that same average. So I get a survery from there which is complete once or twice a week taking into account hawking and attempting additional surveys. Whether that is good or not I do not know, and that is a rough estimate not a science.

I did try VO some months ago only to get fed up of being booted after 20 minutes with no pay. I only restarted recently. It's going better but not great. They disqualification time seems generally acceptable now at least. I think if you want to do surveys you should join a few sites to make it worth it.

sparkyrob

I've not had a survey invite for months - August was the last one. Nothing is available when I log in, and I have a few quid just sat there which I can't do anything with. I've emailed their support, but am not hopeful...

JDPower

sparkyrob wrote: »

I've not had a survey invite for months - August was the last one. Nothing is available when I log in, and I have a few quid just sat there which I can't do anything with. I've emailed their support, but am not hopeful...

The same happened to me. Turned out my account had "become inactive". I'd been filling in surveys and using it normally so not sure how that happened (and no explanation was offered), but they did fix it straight away.

JDPower

thriftymanc wrote: »

Valued Opinions really seem to have it in for my OH these days. After deactivating his account for months and not telling him or giving any explanation, he finally managed to get it back, but now they're sending him emails telling him he keeps getting strikes on his account for giving rubbish answers and if he does it again they'll ban him - ?! He's asked them for more details but it's like drawing blood from a stone. One of the surveys showed up on his account as a date at New Year when we were staying with some of my relatives who don't have internet access so that was clearly a lie. He's asking them to tell him exactly what answers he's allegedly written, but they won't. Methinks they won't tell him what he's meant to have done wrong because he hasn't actually done anything. My OH is always very careful when answering surveys, especially with Valued Opinions since the whole inactive account issue, he's been walking on eggshells trying not to annoy them again, so it really takes the pee that they're telling him he's not doing their surveys properly! God knows what they want from their members exactly?!

You might want to take a look at THIS THREAD, apart from the fact it's more active than this one, I've had both your husbands issues and have just posted about receiving the "inconsistent replies" warnings myself this week.

sparkyrob

Apparently my account had been blocked as they were receiving bouncebacks from my email address. Since I've been using the same email address every day for nigh on 18 years, and have had emails from them regularly (with them added to my safe sender list) for a good 5 years, I suspect something more happened here - sounds like they are covering for technical issues and don't want to admit it. Unblocked now, and getting emails again so that's something.