Can you really earn money with online surveys?

Many people very likely seen pitches like this via mail spam:

"Earn $120 per day! Earn $840 a week! Earn $10,080 a year! All by just sitting home, sipping coffee, and filling out surveys."

Is this too good to be true?

Yes. Although it does make sense that a few companies are willing to pay for market research by using online surveys, we believe this is not a good way to spend your time.

Why?

Here's how the scam works:

Scammers use spam and promise you quick money for little effort. They claim that you only need to spend a few minutes and you'll earn excellent money. Of course, you have to pay the "low" price of $35.95 to learn how to do this.

So their goal is to get thousands of people paying $35.95 (or whatever amount is charged) for the info.

This would be fine if they didn't spam and actually delivered what they promised. However, the vast majority of these online survey products are worthless.

Now, you may be thinking, "Well, I'll go online and find a site that screens out the scammers and ranks paid survey sites, and that way I'll find the legitimate online survey companies."

This makes sense on the surface, but unfortunately, many of these "ranking" sites may actually be middlemen who are paid commissions by the survey companies for referrals. Often, whoever pays the most to the ranking site gets the highest rating, and the online survey companies they rank well are not necessarily reliable.

Are there legitimate online survey companies? Yes, there must be, but unfortunately, it's almost impossible to find them. It's like picking a needle out of a 113,000,000 haystack (type "online surveys" into a Google search for similar results).

In fact, legitimate online surveys often are quite long, which means they take awhile to fill out. That's one of the reasons the hype isn't true.

Yes, you definitely can earn money on the Internet working at home. Many people do this very successfully. But not by doing online surveys, stuffing envelopes, or medical transcription!

Now, we'll probably get a lot of email telling us that we're wrong. We've followed this area for quite awhile, and we believe that our advice about online surveys is correct for the vast majority of our subscribers.

Before you become a survey stasher, there are a few things worth knowing.

Note: Patience and Consistency are key virtues.

DO...

Keep a log:
Some sites are better than others at tracking which surveys you've completed. To avoid wasting 20 minutes, keep a record of all surveys filled out, jotting down the title and the promised payment. Take a screenshot and make a note of any reference numbers.
Missing some cash? Chase the sites up, asking them to give you the correct points. Survey sites are often happy to add them to your account.

Set up a dedicated email address:
Don't use your normal email address - it'll be immediately flooded. Instead, set up a dedicated email account. As a powerful free option, Gmail is among the best.

Spend gift vouchers ASAP:
If you have a choice, opt to get paid in cash. If you do get paid in gift vouchers, spend them ASAP. That way the retailer can't go bust on you, invalidating them. Plus you can't lose them or forget them until they go out of date.

DON"T...

Tell porkies:

When a survey pops up that's clearly aimed at a certain group, it's temping to say, "Yes, I am a 41-year-old, tobacco-chewing dentist from north Manchester who was a middle child." Yet, in the long run, you'll lose out. Companies often corroborate previous answers, and will uncover any fibs.

Forget to check your emails:

The key is logging in often, because surveys close once enough people have responded. If your boss doesn't mind, check surveys in your lunch hour with a cuppa.

Forget tax:

Before you start counting the dosh, don't forget some of it belongs to the taxman. For most people it'll be around a third. Survey earnings are unlikely to push non-taxpayers over the threshold, however.

Store cash in survey accounts:
Survey companies aren't banks. There's no protection if one closes, taking your cash with it. So withdraw your cash as soon as you reach the payment threshold. When a previous survey firm closed down, many lost money. 

Expect to be instantly rolling in it:
One downer is you've no control over how many surveys you're picked for. So it can take a while to earn enough to hit survey sites' payout thresholds. If you give up, it means the surveys were done for nothing.