The survey sites themselves are quite well conceptualized and they pay out real well, but complaints arise when people have different perceptions of them and do not work in the right manner.  Let us see what some of the common paid online surveys complaints are and what their solution is.

“I don’t get enough surveys to fill out.”
You have to check whether you have opted for email notifications or not. When you check this box, you automatically come to know when there’s a survey to be taken and you can make the best out of it.

“The money isn’t good enough.”
This is a relative complaint actually, depending on what you were expecting. Remember that all surveys do not pay out an equal amount. The monetary compensation depends on the length of the questionnaire you are filling out. The shorter ones may pay you just about $2 but the longer ones could pay you as much as $70. The rare ones even pay up to $300 (note I say rare, as there are some scam survey sites stating $300 can be earned every day–true baloney).

“I am not finding any online surveys.”
This is because you are not part of a survey directory. If you are trying to search for surveys on your own by scouting for marketing research company sites, then you are not going to find a significant number of them. Instead, you must register on these survey directory sites. Even if they do take some registration money initially, the number of surveys you will get at the end of the day is really commendable.

“The online survey sites are spamming my mailbox.”
Now, think clearly about this – is this really a paid online survey complaint? If you are getting several survey notifications in your inbox, it is actually good for you, because these are survey invitations that you can participate in and earn some money. But if these mails are not survey mails but promotional mails, then you need to have yourself removed from that company’s mailing list and replace them with a genuine survey site.

Remember that there are bad apples in every cart, and in the Paid Surveys field there are an uncommonly high number of bad apples posing to be your best friend.  Buyer beware, however, I can honestly say with experience there are actual research companies that do pay with no hidden strings or surprises.

But first, let us get the bad out of the way. Why are some paid online surveys a scam? Actually, these are not paid online survey sites at all. They are just promotional sites that are masquerading as paid online survey sites. They are sites that are promoting some product; a genuine survey site will want to know your opinion on a product and just that. However, scamming sites are there only for pushing their products on you. While they may make you take a survey, they may not actually pay you much, if anything at all. They will also extort a large amount of money from you in the form of registration fees. They will continuous spam your email inbox. These are the sites that are giving honest survey sites a bad name. If you know about them, avoid them and select genuine survey sites.

It is very easy to find a genuine paid online survey site that can really help you make good money. Just try to find a survey directory instead of a single paid survey site. On these directories, you will find a long list of survey sites that you can use for filling your surveys and earning money. This is where you can be sure to find some genuine paid surveys sites, because the directories take care to select the sites that truly mean business. Since people need to register on the survey sites, it becomes important for them to come up with really truthful options for survey sites.

So, if you have ended up with a wrong paid online survey which you think is a scam, you need to rethink your strategy. Remember 1 in 100 survey sites out there may be for all the wrong reasons, but there are 99 in them that are really there to help you earn money. Learn to choose and you will know the excitement of earning good money by just chipping your own two-pence about everything.

That is the reason why you should not involve yourself in researching for the websites that need surveys. When you do that, you will most likely obtain results from affiliates of businesses which have commissioned to organize surveys for their products.

Since these affiliates generally get paid for you to fill out the form and enter the database of the company that uses the front of paid surveys to push various products on you, they will not want to work much in your best interests. They will also try to push these products to as many people as possible and that is the reason why you may not get genuine surveys with most of them, but instead be offered a chance to win a prize for your participation.

Your best bet would be register with a reputable survey directory which is kind of hard to find. A survey directory is usually run by a person with personal experience working with genuine market research companies that allows only the most genuine of them to become members on their database.

These are the online surveys that you will get in your inbox. Since the survey directory experts have already examined these market research companies, the chances that you will get scammed are very less.

For all these surveys that the directories list for you and also control scam operators, they will charge a nominal registration fee. This is okay, because they really do a lot of work in preparing the databases, that is if they are legit and haven’t just ripped off some other directory’s list without having any kind of knowledge or care of the companies in that list.

So don’t let anyone tell you that only free survey websites are the real deal. In fact, the free survey directory websites won’t bother much what kind of quality they are provided and your chances of getting scammed with those are much higher, as they use the “free” slant to hook you to join their site which is heavily filled with links to survey sites which pay them a commission and are not the true market research companies where you can earn real money with.

Now should that scare you from entering into the online paid surveys opportunity? No! If you consider the fact that there are people earning decent pocket change every month for doing nothing except participating in surveys for the things that they like, you should definitely not let this opportunity pass.

But at the same time, you must make sure that you end up with a legitimate paid survey company because only such an opportunity will bring in the money ringing into your cash account. This can be difficult to do if you are a novice since there are quite a few unscrupulous websites stating outright lies on their webpages just to get you to pay to join them.  Some keep operating by changing their website name from time to time, a simple and cheap thing to do as getting a new domain name can cost as little as $7!

Plus with the instability of Internet information due to infrastructure changes on resource websites that remove previous references to any warning notices or complaints from burnt consumers, so bad track records just vanish, shady paid surveys sites can keep on operating.

I have a lot of experience with legit paid surveys and I cannot abide scam sites, and there are too many, some “respected” paid surveys or rather popular sites online.  I will tell it like it is and help keep you from getting burned and hopefully enjoying just the positive part that does exist with taking real surveys that pay.

1.    You have to first find where you can get paid to take surveys. There are two kinds of places – the marketing companies themselves that are recruited by the businesses to conduct surveys over the Internet and the survey directories that have a whole database of marketing companies that offer surveys. Commonsense dictates that you should join up on a survey directory instead of a marketing company. So do that. Find a paid surveys directory and sign up on it.
2.    These directories could be either free or paid. You will have to check that out. If they are paid, the money required for registration will not be too high.
3.    Then you have to fill in your details on a registration form. This will have to fill up your name, age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, email id and most importantly, your subjects of interest. The last is important because you will get the surveys based on what you fill up here. So be careful in filling your interests.
4.    Then you can choose which mode you would like to be paid in. PayPal and ClickBank are the most popular methods, but you can also order for a direct check or money transfer or some such other method.
5.    You will also have to check in on the email notifications checkbox. This will give you email notifications about surveys whenever something interesting has come up according to your likes and dislikes. You may also get those high paying surveys known as focus group surveys if your qualifications and set of talents fit the bill.
6.    Now, you will start getting notifications in your email about the surveys. You can read a short description within the email itself and this will give you an idea whether you want to participate in this survey or not. You can choose whichever you like. If you want to take a particular survey, all you have to do is to click on the link of the survey page that will be mentioned in the email. You will be directly taken to the page where you can give the survey.

This is the method in which you can find your survey. Now, pursue it diligently so that you can get paid for online surveys and make a commendable second source of income for yourself.