Are Paid Survey Sites a Good Way to Work at Home?

I've read one article after another regarding paid online surveys. I'm sorry, but I don't believe a single word any of the people have said. I'm finding the words are a regurgitation of articles found elsewhere. It's a good topic to write on because the writer is playing to people who want to make money at home. It's wrong. It's nasty. It perpetuates the myth of "stuff envelopes at home" because you make money off it yourself.

All I hear from anyone who touts this as a form of working at home is a litany of buzzwords. People who want to do it figure they'll make money once they understand the words. They won't. They learn that they start using the same words to draw others in, and all of sudden they're working at home. Not. Well, in a tiny way. They're making money through referrals.

Yes, I've tested it. I've gone on the real, real, real sites, and they, too, refer you to the extra 20 places that you don't recognize. You think you are filling out info for that first site, when, in fact, you've been diverted elsewhere right after the first screen. And you can't exit. You will never finish one of the preliminary questionnaires. You'll just be sent to a new site with other surveys you may want to try in the future.

Part of my job as a reporter has been in testing out theories before I put them in public on paper. And I did. In short, it's a lie. For those who write the how-to's on this, I want to see your bank statements from places that DON'T require that you rope your friends and families into this crap in order to make money.

I've signed up for at least 25 that then turned into 50 like rabbits. Only one site sends me legitimate surveys. I haven't earned a penny, although they pay token amounts, because I never seem to be in the right market. Still, as I used to work at the Univ. of Maryland's Survey Research Center, I get that that's the way it goes. I stop for the mall survey now and then. That is how better products are made.