1. Contact the company. This is the most important action. E-mail them a question and wait for a reply. A company that offers legitimate paid online surveys will give good support by replying within 1-2 days. Don't stop here. You still need to analyze the way that they answer you. Make sure that you understand what they are talking about. A legitimate company will give a concise but detailed answer.

2. Check the content of the website. A legitimate paid online survey company would confess to you that taking surveys will not give you immediate riches overnight. However, they can at least help you make some extra cash outside your main job. This is in stark contrast to scammed survey company that lie outright to you that you can quit your normal job, stay at home and make some easy and fast cash with minimal effort when you sign up for their program.

3. Check the comprehensiveness of the website. The more relevant information that you can find, the higher the probability that the program is legitimate. For instance, a legitimate company will describe to you in full details the various methods of you getting paid: take online surveys, participate in focus group, be a mystery shopper or even get paid to drive. Some scammed survey companies will fill up their website with useless information unrelated to paid surveys at all. Their intention is make sure that their site does not appear empty.

4. Check that the company has a forum or a frequently updated blog to communicate with their members. A good legitimate online survey company will value its members and help each individual succeed by answering their questions posted in the forum or blog.

5. Go to Google and type "xxxxx scam". The "xxxxx" refers to the name of the company. For example, if the company is known as "Red Survey", you can type in "Red Survey scam". A legitimate survey company should have little or irrelevant search results showing up.

From a personal experience, it is very tedious to check the legitimacy of each survey company individually. It is better to pay some money and become a member of a legitimate online survey program that does all the hard work for you.

Isn't it better to join a free online survey program? The answer is no. Why?

Firstly, free online survey programs do not have a comprehensive list of survey companies to join compared to paid survey programs. Majority of free online survey programs have only about 10-50 survey companies while paid online survey programs have hundreds of survey companies in their directory. If you are serious about making more cash, you definitely need to join a paid and not free survey program.

The second reason is that some free survey programs are in fact scams. They entice you to sign up since they are free and make money by selling your information to 3rd parties. What happen next is a huge inbox of spam e-mails and strange phone calls from insurance and telemarketing companies asking you to buy their products.

Thirdly, only a legitimate paid online survey program will offer a step-by-step guide such as how to get started with online surveys and mystery shopping? What are the common mistakes to avoid for new survey takers?

Last but not least, only legitimate paid online survey program offer good customer support. Most people who are new to paid surveys will encounter some problems when they first get started. It is important to have a mentor who has been through it all to guide you one to one and answer your e-mails when you have any query.

So the question now is: How do you find a legitimate online paid survey program that gives you a list of legitimate paid online survey companies? The answer is exactly the same as the above, except that we apply the methods to a survey program and not a survey company:

1. Contact the staff of the survey program.

2. Check the content of the website.

3. Check the comprehensiveness of the website.

4. Check that the program has a forum or a blog.

5. Go to Google and type "xxxxx scam". The "xxxxx" refers to the name of the survey program.