When my son was first born and I was struggling to make it a full time freelance writer, I tried other types of work from home jobs to help contribute to the
household. While searching, I was forever coming across ads to work for a paid survey site. “Work from home!!!” they said, “Earn up to $2,000 a month!!!” Well heck, color me there. I registered for several paid survey sites and waited for the opportunities and money to flow.
After a few days it became apparent the only thing I would receive in abundance is spam. Finally, after about a week a paid survey opportunity came via email. Did I want to talk about my family’s grooming habits? For up to $2,000 a month? Indeed I did! I eagerly followed the link to the survey site and typed in my login details. Soon I was answering questions about toiletries and paper products. At the end of the survey I was informed ten points would be added into my account. Points? Lordy. Fine print got me again. After doing a bit of reading I found each survey paid in points and I could exchange points for some really interesting merchandise. For instance, several hundred points would get me a really cool mouse pad. Who wouldn’t want to take part in hours’ worth of surveys for that? And the $2,000? Well, I would need tens of thousands of points if I wanted to see the cash.
Soon after, I received an offer to take part in another survey, this time from a paid survey site promising cash. Mmm Hmmm. I wasn’t falling for that again. I went back and read the fine print, and it’s a good thing I did. After completing a survey they would enter my name into a drawing to receive valuable cash and prizes. To prove this was a “legitimate opportunity” they listed each month’s drawing winners. Thanks, but I’ll pass. I ended my career as a paid survey taker soon after it began.
See, this is what gets me about a lot of the places advertising work from home jobs. They’re not offering jobs, or even employment opportunities. Sure, there might be the opportunity to earn some cash, but it’s not something one would consider a form of employment. Lots of “employment opportunities” geared towards stay at home moms are like this. They use lots of exclamation points and promise earnings of “up to” thousands of dollars, when the fact is, they pay pennies, if that. Have you ever seen those ads promising a fortune for reading emails? Tried them too! These paid pennies for reading spam. You could get a few more pennies for asking friends to receive spam. If you were lucky, you would have a dollar at the end of the month.
Fortunately it didn’t take me too long for me to find success as a writer. I’d freelanced a bit before leaving my office job which helped me out immensely. This was in the pre-cheap SEO/web content days, so it wasn’t as easy to find work. Nowadays, I have more work than I know what to do with, and I can write to my heart’s content. I’m glad it all panned out though, how many mouse pads does a girl need?
» Making Money With Paid Surveys is NOT a Job from FreeCashSpace
Deborah Ng at WorkFromHomeMomma posted about paid surveys today, and I suspect her experience with them sounds very familiar. I totally agree that doing paid surveys isn't a job, or even an employment opportunity, and it's a shame that they're often ... [Read More]
Tracked on: April 21, 2007 5:42 PM | Permalink to Trackback