Another very heavily promoted scam is "paid surveys". You must have come across claims such as "Earn $100 per hour filling out simple surveys". How this scam works is that people are asked to pay a fee ranging from $35 to $50 dollars in order to gain access to a list of companies that offer paid surveys. The surveying companies themselves do not charge people for taking surveys, rather they pay participants who complete their surveys subject to certain requirements such as age, demographics, gender etc.

Many, if not most, paid survey offers do not deliver the rewards they promise. There are a number of ways that paid surveys mislead or inconvenience participants. Many of them compile personal information about participants to sell to marketers. Others require people to pay to access a database of survey opportunities that the participants could find on their own for free.

After going through the list provided of ALL the great leads I found that over 50% "could not be found", error code 404 or any other way that tells you the site isn't there any longer! Of the other 50% of the leads another 30-35% were not paid in cash but "Reward Points" to be used at the shopping site of their choosing not yours! 10% of the remaining sites were for certain areas of which I was not in and was not able to even apply to. Now that leaves the last 5% of the list of "Great Leads" half of these were not for taking surveys but "Get Paid For Shopping" or get reward points. However you have to use your own money which is a lot more than the reward points awarded for your use at a site of their choosing. Half of the ones left were ones that would pay up to $38.00 for taking their survey but you had to buy a product that cost you more than the money being paid. The last 1.25% left seemed to be straight up "paid for taking on-line surveys". It`s just too bad they were not running any surveys at the moment. So after spending over 140+ hours filling out forms and removing unwanted tracking programs, what did I get out of it? I know now that the people who " made back the money I paid for the list of 'GREAT LEADS' in the first day" had to have been paid to say that they made their money back by the person who sold them the list or they re-sold the list to some other fool.

Survey databases can cost participants money. Many databases let people have access to lists of paid survey opportunities for a subscription fee. Once people have paid the fee, they discover that many of the surveys listed do not pay, and that nearly all of the listings are available elsewhere for free. Many of these offers seem legitimate because they feature phony testimonials from satisfied users.

A few people might be fortunate enough to earn some regular money, but it will never amount to much, no more than a few hundred dollars per month at best!