Well, I wanted to know the same thing. When I first started with Survey Spot, I was sent invitations for surveys offering chances to win in a sweepstakes. Feeling as I do about receiving chances in a sweepstakes, I refused them. I thought they would eventually send me something that paid out with money. I was wrong.

What I needed to do was take the surveys offering me chances in a sweepstakes. And I needed to be faithful and diligent about doing a good job taking these surveys for them. Then, after I’d done my share of sweepstakes entries, they finally started sending me surveys that paid. I had to earn my way into this upper realm of paid surveys, though.

By the time I’d reached this point, I was seeing why everyone liked Survey Spot. It took patience and time to work my way through the sweepstakes entries and waiting. Many sites are like this, too. They save the really good surveys for those who have proven themselves.

As frustrating as this is, you can’t really blame the survey sites. I wouldn’t want to send my best surveys to people who I wasn’t sure would do a good job for me. This seems to be one place where time and patience pay off.

Don’t give up. If you don’t qualify the first time, try again. Remember, you can complete one every day. That means you can keep trying until you qualify for a survey that will pay you.

Greed doesn’t pay. Don’t try to take daily surveys from more than one site. It won’t work and you’ll find yourself being disqualified. Choose one site and stay with it.
Daily surveys are picky. You may find yourself spending a lot of time on a survey only to get an error message. Look at the big picture instead of the individual error message. Try again. Be consistent and persistent.

Hast doesn’t pay off. Don’t hurry through a survey just to save time. The powers that be in the survey world will think you’re not answering with thought and you’ll be disqualified. Don’t take the chance. Take your time and be thoughtful in your answers.

Questions are sometimes repeated. At times they will give you a question at the beginning of a survey and then repeat it at the end. Sometimes it will be the same question with slightly different wording. This is to see if you are consistent with your answers.

Always clear your cookies. To have a good daily survey experience, it’s important to clear your cookies before you start. This will help in getting you credited correctly. There is even a program that will help you with this.

CCleaner will keep a list of the cookies you want to keep. When you constantly log into websites, you collect a bunch of cookies and CCleaner will help you manage them.
It’s a good idea to use the link sent to you by Yourfreesurveys when you take your daily survey. If not that, you can log onto their website and go from there. By taking these daily surveys, you can add a couple of dollars to your payout amount everyday. Good luck to you, and I hope this has in some way helped!

I didn’t qualify for any surveys in the first 30 days. Not any at all. I don’t have any trouble qualifying on other sites, so I don’t think it’s me. I had great hopes for this site because it’s associated with GoZing, which is a reputable site. That doesn’t seem to be the case, though.

At this point, I don’t recommend joining SurveyHead. I won’t give up trying to qualify for one of their surveys, though, and I’ll let you know what happens.

I’ve tried and reviewed enough survey sites that I thought I’d done them all. Well, I think there must be 500 more that I haven’t gotten too, yet. If you find any you want checked out, let me know. I’ll go look them over and get back to you.

When you click on the button to subscribe by RSS, you will be asked to choose a reader such as Google or Yahoo. When you want to catch up on reading the blog, visit your chosen reader and it’ll be right there.

I prefer to have updates of things sent to me by email. I find it quicker and easier to have it in my inbox, than to go someplace else and find it. I can’t forget to check on it that way, either!

To sign up to receive the blog posts via email, just enter your email address and then confirm your email address. It’s that simple to have the posts sent to your inbox, and you can still post comments. Just click on the title of the post you’ve received and you will go right to the blog. Once there, go down the page to the leave a reply area. That doesn’t sound so hard, now, does it?

While on the blog, you can look through a list of survey sites that have been reviewed and even read each review. Just click on the name of the survey site and go to the post. You can spend hours there, happily reading away.

You can also send me emails directly, if you have questions or concerns. I will answer you, I promise!

The world of online paid surveys can be confusing, with survey sites, offer sites, scams and such things. What’s the difference in the types of sites and how can you tell if they’re legitimate or not? That’s the kind of thing I’ve been sharing with you.

Is that what you want me to keep doing, or are there other things you’d like to have explored? I want to hear from all of you, so no one, or their questions get left out. If you have suggestions, don’t hesitate to send them. This blog is for you, so let me know how I can help you.

Do you want more reviews on specific sites? Would you like some of the newer sites reviewed again, after they’ve been around for a while? How about some information on some of the opportunities we’re emailed that try to convince us we’re going to be rich by the end of the month? What is it you want to hear and learn about?

Send me an email or leave a comment here on the blog. I’ll catch it and follow up. I’m here to help make your survey site work easier and maybe in some way more pleasant and productive.

How can you keep this from happening? Be aware of, and don’t do the things the sites deem as fraudulent. Fraud is the leading cause of finding yourself banned.

One thing to avoid is signing up with information that is not correct, not current or not yours.

Don’t open more than one account. One account per survey site. You can’t get much plainer than that.

Remember: one IP address; one account. Don’t let anyone else open an account from your IP address, either.

Only complete an offer once. Don’t try to complete the same offer from a different account. Don’t try to complete the same offer on a different site.

Don’t cancel an offer that requires a purchase. Don’t cancel it before the purchase ships.
Be sure to wait long enough between accepting an offer and cancelling. It’s recommended that you wait until the trial period is nearly over.

Use real credit card or debit card numbers. Using fake numbers is really frowned upon.
When sites offer payment to you for people you refer, don’t “refer yourself” using different email addresses. Don’t let anyone else use your IP address for this, either.

I hope this helps make it a little more clear what the sites look at before banning someone and closing their account. Be smart, not greedy!

When you’re first starting, you’ll find many survey websites with a lot of information, and you’ll have bunches of questions. When your head starts spinning, you don‘t need to panic. You’re not wandering around lost anymore, you’re here now, and hopefully I can answer some of your questions for you.

First of all, read. There’s lots of information out there about online paid surveys. Beware of any websites or blogs that have only good reviews. There writing fluff and will not tell you about questionable or shady survey websites.

I tell things as I find them, and anyone who has read any of my reviews knows this. I have even been accused of being harsh, but I believe you deserve accurate information. You can always use Google, and should look up any websites you question. Type in “name of website” + the word ‘scam’, and see what info you get. You may be surprised.

Next, don’t expect to get rich. If a site tells you you’ll be making $500 an hour, leave. They’re lying to you. It’s not going to happen. Look at the forum on this blog and see what some of the members here are making. It’s not nearly that much.

It may take a few months for you to see income from your surveys. Some payouts take that long. Some sites only send a couple of surveys a month and require a minimum amount before they’ll send you a payment.

Other sites don’t pay in cash. They offer sweepstakes entries or gifts. You need to be careful and look over the site information before joining. There are legitimate sites and there are those where you need to proceed with caution, if you proceed at all.

Marketing firms and the websites that are doing surveys for them are very serious about what they’re doing. Answer honestly and take time to think about your answers. They have ways of evaluating data and you will be red flagged and disqualified if you finish a survey in less time than they think it should take to give thoughtful answers.

After a short time, you will realize it’s necessary to join many survey sites to make any money at all. Only joining a couple won’t generate enough income to make it worth while.

There are blogs, like this one, that will help you figure out which survey sites are the best to join. Why not learn from people who have already made the mistakes you’d like to avoid? Others have joined and quit survey sites, read their experiences and you’ll learn about the process.

Be sure to share what you learn on your survey site journey here, in comments! I want to know if I misrepresent a survey site, and I need to hear about others’ experiences.

Do you need to claim income earned from online paid surveys on your tax returns? That’s a question many people are asking and many people are answering; with various answers.

“Do I have to pay taxes on my survey income?

You should check with your accountant. Survey income is considered earned as an “independent contractor” and no taxes are withheld from your payments. If you earned more than $600 from any one survey company, they will send you a form “1099” and the IRS listing your income from them for the year.”

They add, and I reiterate,

“Please note that we are not accountants and are not qualified to provide accounting, tax, or other legal advice. Our answer is based on our understanding of the tax laws, and how we handle this situation ourselves. Always check with your accountant or other tax professional.”

Each survey site seems to have a different answer. One says you don’t have to report earnings if they’re under $600. Another says everything earned needs to be reported. It’s true that if you earn less than $600 from an individual survey site, they won’t send you a 1099 form without a request from you.

Every person’s situation is different though, even when it comes to paid surveys and taxes. This is an issue that needs the attention of a trained accountant; someone who can study each person’s situation, and provide a totally accurate answer. Federal and state tax laws differ, too, complicating the situation even more.

It is fine to get information here, and on other sites, but to be completely sure, as you should be on something this important, I recommend you consult a trained accountant.

I think I’ve been in every sweepstakes imaginable and have never even heard of anyone actually winning one. I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences if you’ve done any survey work at all. If you’ve ever heard of anyone winning one of these sweepstakes, please let me know; I’m becoming skeptical… or is that cynical.

This week it seemed every email I got was for a cash paying survey! I actually received offers for 3 that paid $20 each. An unheard of event, but I sure hope it continues. I qualified for 2 of them and chose not to participate in the other.

One of the $20 ones was from Greenfield Online – it was an interactive survey. They generally schedule for a specific time slot and last about an hour. These are pretty good – just make sure you have a quiet place to take the survey!

The other $20 survey I accepted was from Survey Savvy. In the beginning, I rarely heard from them, but now, I’m participating in a forum which pays a $10 gift certificate every month., not to mention this one that they just sent.

Lightspeed also sent me a $20 opportunity this week, BUT they wanted me to download something onto my computer that would track my credit card and credit card purchases. I did think about it for a couple of minutes, but I am just too paranoid. If any of you signed up for this one, please let me know how it works out!

As you can see, I did have a great week this week. Of course, we all know that depends on what the companies need each week. There’s no predicting it, ever, and I sure hope this run of good money paying surveys continues.

If you just enjoy taking surveys for fun and to get your opinion out there, then OpinionSurveys can be a lot of entertainment.. If you like to be paid for your efforts, don’t waste your time. They offer zero cash payouts at all, just entries into their quarterly $50,000 sweepstakes entry. Of course, the idea is that the more surveys that you take, the more chances you have to win. The surveys are pretty basic, covering topics like grocery shopping, fast food, cars, finance etc. If you are over the age of 13, you’re eligible for membership.

I joined this site about six weeks ago, and still haven’t received anything from them by email. I did go directly to their website, and it looks like you can usually find 4 or more surveys to take when you log in. This isn’t a site that I plan to use often and I’m not including it on my list of recommended survey sites. I’m sticking with the parent company, Greenfield Online.

If you haven’t signed up to SurveyCasher yet then you can do this now by clicking here.