Online Survey SCAMs
There are a lot of scam survey companies out there and it is sometimes difficult to differentiate them from the legitimate ones. But there are a couple of things that you can do to protect yourself from 90% of the bad ones.
- Never sign up for a survey company where you are expected to hand over a fee. Participate only in free-to-join opportunities. Never sign up for a company that requires you to hand over credit card details. Never sign up for a company that requires you to take a trial offer of something. These types of plans normally get you to trial a product first, where you have to give your credit card details. You then end up being charged a monthly fee. Always read the terms of conditions before applying to online surveys. Use BBB (Better Business Bureau) to perform background checks on the companies before signing up to them. Look to see if there have been a lot of complaints filed against them, or see how long they have been in business. This will give you a good idea if they are reputable or not. Check that the company is identifiable with a mailing address, telephone number and e-mail address. You can even call them up to check that the phone number is not fake. Be wary of companies that make ridiculous claims like earning hundreds of dollars a day. The amount you'll earn from each survey is small and you'll never be able to complete hundreds of surveys each day.
Survey Taking Tips
It is a good idea to keep track of all the surveys that you complete and then check this with the stats that the company has on you just to make sure that everything is being accounted for.
When you sign up to different survey companies it is best not to use a personal email address. It only takes a few minutes to open up a new email account at yahoo. com, gmail. com or mail. com and that way if you do start to receive a lot of SPAM then it will be automatically removed. Best of all you have protected your own personal account.
Always run a good virus checker on your computer for protection. If you don't already have one then you can use AVG Free version. It is very good.
