Paid Surveys: Scam or Not?

Hi. I'm Yvonne Weng, and I am on a mission. Well, not really, but I am a young college student with internet access and way too much time on her hands, currently on an experimental investigation about those too-good-to-be-true, get-rich-quick offers floating around on our wonderful world wide web. I admit, I can't say I am an expert on detecting internet scams. In fact, in the past two weeks since I started my casual investigation I was almost duped into many of these suspicious offers. I am still in the process of finding out more about these possible scams as I type this article. Meanwhile I will give my experience about the paid surveys.

It started out one Tuesday night as I surfed the classifieds on the web. Craigslist.com is a favorite of mine, and I came across the usual postings proclaiming that the average American can make thousands a week without leaving their homes. Normally I would just raise an eyebrow and ignore the silly ads, but my curiosity got the best of me. I decided to follow the postings that boasted of making money from taking surveys, and eventually I was led to a site called SurveyScout.com, and with a membership fee of $34.95 they will give me access to their vast database of money-making surveys while they shoot miles of success story testimonials at my eyes encouraging me to sign up now! I was skeptical of course, but once again I was curious and I figured "hey, if the site is telling the truth, I can easily earn back that membership fee while earning some extra bucks for myself." It was worth a shot. And besides, I was bored at the moment.

I pay my dues, and immediately began my new "career" as online survey taker. On my first impression, I was fascinated that SurveyScout did not rip me off but delivered what it promised: a long listing of various different websites that offer cash or other forms of reward for participating. I eagerly sign up for a couple right away while noticing that all of these independent survey sites are actually free to join. (Later on, I realized that I could've easily gone straight to these sites without the help of SurveyScout and still sign up for free.)