I’ve seen a lot of stuff around forums and on blogs about getting paid to do online surveys. People post their referrer links and brag about how much money they’ve made. Of course, I got curious. I’m a work-at-home mom trying to make some extra dough. And if I can do that between other gigs just by picking yes/no/maybe then I’m all for it.

So, I signed up for a couple. Surveysomething and Dollarsomething, I think. It was three but I can’t remember the third one. For the Surveysomething, they would send me these great offers. I could make money if I qualify (by answering a short survey). I did probably about twenty short qualification surveys, each consisting of about 5-10 minutes of my life. I qualified for ZERO. So, I finally unsubscribed. Don’t worry, though, I still get offers from them – even though I don’t want them. Isn’t that great?

The Dollarsomething was a little different. I signed in and was sent to an “offers” page. Here they had lists of surveys and what each one of them pays. It seemed simple enough. I did one initially, just to test the system. The next day I was 50¢ richer. And I was thrilled. Back I went to do a few more. I had an eye on the ones that paid a whole dollar. I did about 10 surveys. Let me tell you about these “surveys” before I go any further.

Each one of them asked the same questions. “Do you know how to lower your interest rates?” “Are you interested in a home based business?”. They were ALL yes/no questions pertaining to one ad or another. For 10 minutes you click the same questions reworded and decline the same invitations to sign up for this thing or that thing. Over and over and over. And if you don’t click ‘yes’ on something you find yourself trapped in an endless loop of CRAP. But I was persistent. I kept clicking no. I think about 20 minutes passed for one before I saw the sunlight again. Worth a dollar?? I don’t know.

You’ve reached the end. And every single one of these offers demands that you choose three search terms to view ads for before they’ll give you your “big winnings”. So, you pick three and you are forced to look through 5-8 pages of ads before you get to the end, where they try to trick you into getting back into the vortex and doing it all again.

Did I mention that I did that 10 times?

So, I followed the instructions, suffered through endless ads and asinine questions. Where’s my money? For the work I did I was paid…*drumroll*… 75¢. So, not only was my time WASTED, my computer infected with adware, and my spam box (on a throw away account) stuffed to the brim these idiots refused to believe I made the effort. I’ve come to the conclusion the people paying you for taking the “paid online survey” are probably the same people who make up the “paid online survey”. Unfortunately, too many people really believe this crap is good business and work really hard to scrape those pennies together.

The third one was like the first, but they unsubscribed me when I sent them the email asking for such. They could be legit, but I don’t know because I never qualified.

I say it’s not worth it. There are plenty of legitimate ways to make some pennies online. There’s no reason to develop carpal tunnel and blurry vision for these survey pennies. You’ll have to do too many of those “surveys” to even make it past the $10 mark. Pitiful.

They will get you to think you can make some money, but the real money is made through the referral links. Which means you have to con some poor people into jumping into a waste of time and effort. That’s just sad and, quite frankly, a tad disturbing. Someone made 5% of my $1.25 from Dollarsomething. Unfortunately she’s also lost my trust and esteem. The next time I see a link under her name I won’t click it, because she KNOWS what those surveys are like. But she chose to sugar coat it to con other people. For shame.

Now I know.

Tags: online surveys, scams, referral links