We all surf the Internet and we sometimes over do it. Since we already devote many hours checking our mail, chatting, reading news sites, watching streaming video, and playing online game, we might as well use up some of that time to get paid while surfing. One of these ways is to take online surveys.

As a long time Internet surfer, you will probably have noticed, learned to ignore, and remembered to distrust those ads and emails that say you can earn a lot without doing much. These ads and unsolicited emails spam our minds and waste our surfing time. The same goes for online earning schemes. A lot of them are scams. Online surveys are excluded from these.

It only makes sense for a business to survey the preferences and purchasing behavior of their target market. Since nothing is free these days, not many are too willing to take a break from what they were doing online and sit down and answer online surveys. Some might start to fill out forms and answer questions, but not many will complete it.

To offset these behaviors, companies offer to pay people to take surveys. The old ways of strangers knocking on your door to interview you are still being used. But online surveys reach out across age groups and earning strata. They are also cheap and can be completed in nearly real time. All one needs is a PC with Internet connection.

So if there are companies out there who offer online surveys that actually pay, and there are people out there who are out to scam you into paying to get involved in online surveys, the question then, if we don't want to waste time, is to find out how to spot online survey scams.

First, don't jump in on the first invitation you receive to answer a survey. Second, look for something that's almost nonsense, like being told that a survey that takes five minutes to fill out will get to earn you US$200. Do we all read and type at the same rate? Five minutes is not real. Two hundred dollars is a give away. Would anyone be giving away that amount of money? Use your head.

Third, look for what they claim to be proof and ask yourself how hard it would be to upload the same stuff yourself to your own blog. Do you see images of checks and printouts with blurred parts? Do you see testimonials with people's pictures and titles there? Fourth, do they offer a contact number? Call it. Ask questions. Usually email is enough. Fifth, do they ask you to pay a fee and give out your complete details? Bad sign there. If you pay a minimal fee and they are scam, think of all the people who pay that minimal fee until that fee snowballs into a lot of money.

To make the most out of answering online surveys, you'd have to do a little investigation. Look up the company name, Google it up, look for forums that talk about whether they got paid or not by doing their surveys. Usually there are sites that review online surveys and how well they treat their members and how promptly they pay.

Taking online surveys is a legitimate way to earn on the side, but you have to wade through the scams and do some back-checking till you find the legitimate companies willing to pay for your opinions and your time.