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Get Paid Cash Doing Internet Surveys – A Genuine Way to Make Extra Money Online
by Rob Johnson

Do you have an opinion? Do you like sharing your experiences about products and services? Then internet surveys may be just the opportunity you seek to make extra money online. Anyone who cruises the World Wide Web has seen the advertisements. “Get paid cash with internet surveys! Or, grab this genuine opportunity to make extra money online!”

If you are a stay-at-home parent, retiree, student or anyone else who could use a bit of extra cash, you can benefit from doing internet surveys. But do you have any idea what it all entails? How do you know a genuine opportunity from a scam? In order to determine your best options, you have to know what these surveys are all about.

Why Companies Utilize Internet Surveys

Millions of corporate dollars every year is spent on market research. One of the ways these market research dollars are utilized is through surveys. These corporations offer many people on the internet a way to make extra money online by giving their opinions on anything from breakfast cereal to who buys all the electronics in the family. A survey is one of the ways that they evaluate products and services before releasing them to the general public.

What happens is this: these corporations pay market research entities to come up with various analyses on a particular set of parameters. So how do you think these market research firms come up with all the data? By advertising through various websites that consumers can receive money for giving their opinion.

Rip-off or Genuine Way to Get Paid a Few Extra Bucks?

A legitimate website will never charge you a fee in order to participate in their surveys. You may have seen hundreds of banner ads touting that you can make extra money online, as much as hundreds of dollars in cash! Be very leery of these advertisements.

Most of those banner ads you click on will bring you to a slick looking website with gushing testimonials. What they don’t tell is that those testimonials are not genuine. (The big hint that those testimonials are false is not using full names or just initials.) In addition, they charge you either a one-time or monthly subscription fee to access their database of survey companies. This website is not even the one who sends you the internet surveys!

Once you pay for accessing the database of survey companies, then you have to apply individually to each survey company. In other words, you are paying for the privilege of getting information that you can obtain for free! That’s right! Many of those survey companies that have those “Get paid cash” claims in the banner ads are just out to rip you off. Not only that, a lot of times the companies on their list are no longer in existence or don’t pay anything. Just remember – legitimate websites will never charge you for access to their list of internet survey companies. The ones providing the survey company information for free are genuine.

How does it all work?

When you find a free directory offering a variety of companies that promote internet surveys, the hardest part is taking the time to visit each survey website and filling out the online forms to become qualified. Please note however, that not every genuine survey company will advertise that you can get paid cash. Rather, some of them award points that can be redeemed at a later time for products. Or, you could be entered into cash drawings each month.

For each survey website you find, you will have to fill out online forms with various demographic information. The obvious information needed includes your age, race, relationship status, education and income. Some forms will also ask about your children, pets, purchase habits and hobbies. These questions serve to narrow down specific groups of people for case studies.

Periodically, you will be sent survey invitations via email, based on the demographic information you provide. There are two fail-safe ways to ensure you receive a greater return on the number of surveys you receive to participate in:

• Fill out as much detail as possible on the sign-up forms. The more information you provide, the wider the pool of surveys you can qualify for.
• Sign up for a lot of survey companies. Not every company will have a market research study going in which you qualify. Therefore, by signing up with a greater number of companies, you are increasing your chances of qualifying for something and possibly be paid for just a few minutes work.

The Reality of Internet Surveys

Your quest to make money online can take you many places. If you like the idea of shaping the decisions of corporations, then surveys are the right option for you. You can expect to be quizzed about your breakfast eating habits or where you buy your dog food. When do you plan to buy your next car? What will it be? Would you like to test a product before it hits the marketplace? These are all possible questions you might encounter. In addition, you might become privy to products before anyone else!

These surveys are a great way to make extra money online with minimal effort. Do not expect to earn a full time income however! This is a practically impossible endeavor. The most you can hope for is to get paid enough for some “mad money” each month. Many surveys take anywhere from five to thirty minutes and will net you maybe one to five dollars each. Very rarely will you be paid several hundred dollars cash for anything. That is all a bunch of hype perpetuated by those bogus survey companies.

Take your time and search for legitimate ways to get money for surveys. Ask around your favorite web forums or online bulletin boards. Someone in your circle of friends and acquaintances online can probably give you guidance. Be sure and avoid all of those places on the web which ask for a fee to access a database. Besides, think of all that spam email you might get from a bogus survey site! Yikes! There are genuine opportunities to make extra money online through internet surveys. You just have to proceed with caution.


*This article was written by Rob Johnson 17/06/2006, Rob has been successfully taking online and offline Paid Surveys in Australia for over 2 years and is also the webmaster of http://www.australianfreepaidsurveys.com, a free frequently  updated list of over 200 Paid Survey companies available to Australians.