When it comes to paid survey sites sometimes it can be a bit confusing what to believe. There are sites for free, sites requiring registration and sites that want you to pay them for access to a "special" database of survey companies. Which ones are for real and which are scams? If you folow my three guidelines below it will help you to avoid the scams and very likely save you some money as well.
First: NEVER pay a membership fee to get access to a paid survey site. Not EVER! Don't even give out your email address to register with a paid survey site, it's not necessary. All of the information you need regarding paid surveys and the companies offering them is available on the internet for FREE. In fact, the market research companies that pay you to take the surveys NEVER ask you to pay to take their surveys. It would make their results biased and they take a very negative stance regarding sites that require you to pay them to access a list of paying survey sites. Even though the sites that ask you to pay for membership may claim to have "secrets about taking surveys" or "special access to member only surveys" that simply isn't true. Market research companies make their surveys freely available to everyone in the demographic they are targeting.
Second: Don't ever pay for or give out your email address to get access to a database of paid surveys. This is the same tactic as above used just to take your money or email address without providing you ANY additional value. It is possible to find out about all of the market research companies that offer paid surveys for free on the internet. If someone wants to charge you for access to a database or requires you to register for access to a database of paid surveys sites click the BACK button on your browser right away!
Third: Avoid Get Paid To (GPT) sites that are posing as survey sites. You'll recognize these because rather than asking you question in a survey type format they will require that you sign up for offers with other companies to get paid. These GPT programs can be very profitable, but they also require additional monitoring and special care. When you sign up for an offer there may be a recurring billing that you are agreeing to and if you don't keep track of these well you could end up being charged for services and products you neither want nor need. If you want to do GPT's make sure you keep a complete record of EVERYTHING you sign up for and when you need to cancel it before they bill you.
Remember, most paid surveys are legitimate you just need to watch for the few warning signs I've given you. One other thing to remember when you're trying to make money with paid surveys…
KEEP WORKING IT…IT WILL GET EASIER…YOU CAN MAKE GOOD MONEY WITH PAID SURVEYS