Online survey scams are popping up more and more now as the popularity of taking part in surveys online to make some extra cash grows. As you will have have seen from my review of Survey Club ( click here if you want to read it) it isn't however just the paid membership sites that are online survey scams.
Many sites make money, especially the free ones, by only linking to sites that will pay them commissions for getting the companies members. This isn't necessarily a bad thing provided the companies been referred to are of a high quality but as in the case of Survey Club this obviously isn't always the case.
The biggest problem however lays with the directories that are very happy to pass on your personal details to other companies. This leads to an amazing amount of spam but in the worst case scenario can also lead to identity theft if the companies aren't too picky about who they sell your details to.
So how can you avoid such scams. Well firstly I'd recommend you check here on this blog by seeing if there is a review of the company you are looking into and checking there rating on on the rankings list, you can do this here ( reviews) and here (rankings). If however you would prefer to do your own checks here is what I would recommend.
Firstly see if the site has an email address or contact number for support, if it doesn't chances are it will be one of the online survey scams. Once you've found the address don't just leave it at that, test the email address and again if you receive no reply after several days don't use them. They may not be one of the online survey scams but there is a chance of it and even if they haven't they have already shown they offer poor support.
The next step is to check the domain details, the web address in other words. The most important thing to check here is the length of time a domain name has been registered for. If a company has paid for the domain name to be used for several years then they obviously plan on sticking around, if on the other hand they are registered for 18 months or less I would seriously doubt them and consider them as one of the possible online survey scams. You can check this out here
Next step is probably to get yourself some web browser software which will alert you if a site is a risk. I use several but the most popular and easiest to set up is McAfee Site Advisor which you can get here. I'd recommend this free tool whether your going to do your own research or not as it is a great tool that makes surfing the net safer.
Any paid site, like the highly recommended Express Paid Surveys, should also have a money back guarantee. Again if not consider it one of the online survey scams until proved otherwise.
Finally try to find actual users of the programs you are interested in. This may prove pointless as you will usually come across satisfied and unhappy customers no matter which product you are looking into but if you do happen to find something where all you find is negative comments then at least you will be more cautious.
As I've said you can always avoid the online survey scams simply by sticking with this blog however of you choose not to at least you have some solid advice now to help you to do it yourself.
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