The Sun's Financial Diary » Paid survey

PineCone Research Sign Up Link Is Back

Sun — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:35:32 +0000

Just got an email from PineCone Research with a new sign up link.

To become a PineCone Research panel member and get paid for completing online surveys, use this latest registration link to sign up. And, like always, you have to act quickly before the line expires. If you are not familiar with PineCone Research, check my paid survey reviews page, where I reviewed some popular paid online survey providers including PineCone Research, Survey Spot, and Greenfield, etc. You can also find more about PineCone Research from my previous discussion. Right now PineCone Research is the only online survey program that I am still actively using. The payout of $3 isn’t a lot, but it’s guaranteed as soon as the survey is completed (usually within the next couple of days).

In addition to PineCone Research, I also use MyPoints to earn points for free by simply clicking advertisements they send to me every day. For each click, I can usually earn 5 points that are accumulated. I can also earn more points by shopping through MyPoints or taking up some offers, but I am too lazy to do that, so most of the time I only got free points. MyPoints also have surveys for 50 points per completed survey (but you have to qualify first, different from PineCone surveys). Check it out. Maybe you will like it.

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PineCone Research Sign Up Link Is Back

New PineCone Research Sign Up Link

Sun — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:08:43 +0000

To become a PineCone Research panel member and get paid for completing online surveys, use this latest registration link to sign up. And, like always, you have to act quickly before the line expires. If you are not familiar with PineCone Research, check my paid survey reviews page, where I reviewed some popular paid online survey providers including PineCone Research, Survey Spot, and Greenfield, etc. You can also find more about PineCone Research from my previous discussion. Right now PineCone Research is the only online survey program that I am still actively using. The payout of $3 isn’t a lot, but it’s guaranteed (that’s different from other survey programs that you have to qualify first before completing the survey and getting paid). And since joining PineCone isn’t as easy as other survey panels, I’d like to keep my membership active.

In addition to PineCone Research, I also use MyPoints to earn points for free by simply clicking the ads they send to me every day (there are usually multiple Bonus Emails every day) and earn 5 points for each click. I can also earn more points by shopping through MyPoints or taking up some offers, but I am usually too lazy to do that, so most of the time I only got the free points. MyPoints also have surveys for 50 points per completed survey. Check it out to see if you like it.

Get it before it’s gone again

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New PineCone Research Sign Up Link

Paid Phone Interview: $150 for 50 Minutes

Sun — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:50:10 +0000

Got this offer from Focus Forward.

Right now, they are recruiting respondents to participate in a paid telephone interview to be scheduled at your convenience between Monday, February 2nd and Monday, February 9th. Compensation for the 50-minute phone interview is $150.

If you are interested, use this link to answer a few questions to see if you qualify. You can only participate in the study when you qualify.

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The Latest PineCone Research Sign Up Link

Sun — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 02:11:29 +0000

I posted a PineCone Research sign up link in October after getting the link from PineCone. But it wasn’t long before that link expired. If you missed the open registration last time, here’s your opportunity again.

Get it before it’s gone again

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The Latest PineCone Research Sign Up Link

PineCone Research Sign Up Link

Sun — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:36:12 +0000

If you are interested in becoming a PineCone Research panel member to make a few bucks every month from doing online surveys, you can now sign up using this link that I received today.

I used to do a lot of surveys online in the past, but now PineCone Research is the only one I am still using now because there’s no such thing as qualification for each survey, so I can guarantee to be paid for every study I receive, which doesn’t come very often. You can fine more on PineCone Research from my previous discussion.

Since PineCone membership isn’t open to everybody, you need to act quickly before the link expires. Remember, only one member from each household may sign up.

Update: The sign up link has expired. Subscribe to the feed using the form below to receive notice when the nex round of sign up is available.

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PineCone Research Sign Up Link

Join Focus Group, Get Paid

Sun — Fri, 30 May 2008 02:51:57 +0000

A couple of months ago I joined a online focus group, Focus Forward, hoping to make a few bucks in my spare time. I used to do a lot of online surveys, making a couple of hundreds a month. Not a big money, but nice to have. The problem with those online surveys, however, is that they are really time consuming and the payout is very low. Usually, I got paid $5 for 20 or 30 minutes of my time if I qualified and completed the survey. Not a good way to spend my time, so I gave up that activity a long time ago. Right now, I only do paid survey with PineCone Research because there’s no such thing as “qualification”, so I can surely make $5 for 20 minutes when an offer comes along. But PineCone is not always accepting new members.

With the focus group, the payout is much greater for the same amount of time for completing a long $5 online survey. For example, since I joined the group, I already received several offers and just yesterday, another new opportunity came up for a 45-minute telephone interview with a compensation of $125, which is a decent amount of money for 45 minutes.

Though I joined the group, I haven’t taken any offer yet because I really don’t have the time. If you are interested in participating in focus group studies and have the time, maybe you can earn some extra money each month (of course, you have to qualify first to become a participant).

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Free Money: $25 Hallmark Insight Gift Card When Completing a Survey

Sun — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:37:06 +0000

Found this deal on Slickdeals.net.

The survey is about Microsoft Virtual Earth platform and will take 15 minutes to complete. A list of Hallmark Insight merchants can be found here (PDF file), including Amazon.com, Best Buy, and Circuit City, etc. To take the survey, use the link in the original Slickdeals post found (or this one).

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PineCone Research Signup

Sun — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:17:08 +0000

Update: Here’s the latest PineCone Research Sign Up link.

Spotted this deal on My Money Blog.

If you are interested in making a few extra bucks every month, here’s your chance. PineCone Research, a provider of paid surveys with guaranteed payout, is now accepting new applications to join their research team. Unlike other survey providers with which you can basically signup at any time, PineCone Research doesn’t take new members all the time. So, when the opportunity comes around, you need to act quickly before it’s gone. To become a member, use this link to signup. Be careful don’t enroll multiple times withe the same mailing address because

Multiple registrations of the same Household will void all registrations.

I used to do a lot of paid surveys (check out my review of paid survey providers) with various providers and made more than $100 a month, but stopped the activity long time ago as it became more and more time consuming. The only surveys that I am still taking are those from PineCone because I will be paid regardless when I say during the interview once I am selected to participate the study. Other providers, however, may have more opportunities, they all require a pre-screening to see if I am eligible or not and I will only get paid if I qualify to take the full survey. So many times, I ended up without anything after spending 10 minutes on the pre-screening questions. That’s not the case with PineCone, though. I always get $5 for about 20 minutes of my time. Now they are using Paypal to make payment, the money will hit my account in two days after completing the study.

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$25 Amazon Gift Certificate. That’s Sweet!

Sun — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 22:04:19 +0000

Early last month, I took an online survey about financial planning, which promised to pay $25 Amazon.com gift certificate if I qualify and complete the survey. The survey was delivered via Financial Planning magazine (the free magazine I subscribe to, which is also a very good magazine BTW) and I indeed qualified and finished the entire survey which took me 2o minutes of time.

That was more than one month ago. Did I expect to receive the gift certificate? Not really. I participated some this kind of random surveys before, but not all of them lived up their promises. For example, one week before this survey, I also participated another one which offered a $20 Amazon gift certificate. That never materialized.

An email arrived in my mail box yesterday and when I clicked it, guess wheat I found? A $25 Amazon gift certificate! I totally forgot the survey thing and didn’t really expect the prize. Actually, I had to search my email archives to find out what it’s for. A pleasant surprise!

So I didn’t win the $100 giveaway at Money, Matter and More Musings. This is equally good. And what’s better than “free” money?

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$25 Amazon Gift Certificate. That’s Sweet!

Earn $20 Amazon Gift Certificate by Taking a Survey

Sun — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 15:04:41 +0000

I am not sure how trustworthy this is, but decided to share it with everybody who wants to give it a try.

I got this email last night from a survey website that sends me surveys everyday (I think I registered with them before) but I never took any, but this one certainly looked interesting:

A client has engaged us to survey consumers about their attitudes and behaviors when it comes to real estate. If you qualify for and complete the survey we will email you a $20 Amazon.com gift certificate within two weeks of the closing of the study. You will be asked a few qualifying questions. If you pass them you will then take a 20-25 minute survey.

It’s the promise of a $20 Amazon.com gift certificate that got my attention and I thought it won’t hurt to try it out. After a 10-question screening, which I did pass, I got another 60 questions mostly about mortgages, and in the end, I was told again I will receive the gift certificate, though I don’t know if eventually it will come. But just as last time when I tried ScriptLogic software for a $5 gift card, it could be real.

If you want to take the survey, use this link.

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Earn $20 Amazon Gift Certificate by Taking a Survey

$75 for 2 Hours of Fast Food Study if Qualify

Sun — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:20:01 +0000

I got this email yesterday from Herron Associate for participating in a fast food study. Back in October I did a 40 minutes study with them about KFC hamburgers through SurveySpot and was paid for $35. They sent me this email because I am in their database.

This study, according to the email, is looking for male age 18 to 49 who "eat hamburgers from fast food restaurants such as Rally’s, Hardees’s, or Sonic on a regular basis." If you want to participate, call them at (800) 392-3828 Monday – Thursday 10 am to 8 pm, Friday 10 am to 3 pm, or Saturday 10 am to 1 pm and refer to Study #696. But for this study, you have to call before January 20th (so maybe today is the last day). Those who qualify will be invited to participate in a 2 hours study at designated time and location. By the way, it seems that there's no any restaurant in New Jersey.

If you also like to get a notice for future study, click here to register and join their database.

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Paid Survey Sites: My Review

Sun — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 18:12:21 +0000

I joined many paid survey panels back in June and July before I started this Diary, trying to collect some extra money in my pocket once in a while. At the beginning I really had fun doing some of the surveys and was happy to get paid for a few bucks for 10 to 20 minutes of time. I never thought I will make it a big deal but I love free money (well, they are not really free because you do have to spend some time), big or small. I just take whatever comes to me (will you take the survey if it pays you $2 for 20 minutes of your time?). Actually, at one time, I felt I didn’t pretty good, making more than $100 in a month. In the last couple of months, however, the pace slowed down. Also, I no long spend as much time as I used to on surveys recently as this Diary takes most of my spare time every day.

If you have time and want to make a few bucks on the side, you can definitely try doing some paid surveys. With some luck, you make some nice spare money

Survey Adventure

Survey Adventure is like an aggregator of paid survey sites. Though Survey Adventure, you can do paid surveys with such survey providers as Panda Research, Inbox Dollar, Opinion Outpost, and Survey Spot (one of my favorites). If you like the idea of having one site manage your survey, then you should check out Survey Adventure. Once you complete the registration process, you can start to earn money by doing surveys immediately.

SurveySpot

This is so far my largest resource for free money and it’s also one of my favorites.

Multiple invitations on an almost daily basis
Has more cash-reward opportunities than any other survey providers I am using
Relatively easier to qualify for full survey than other places as well
Payout amount from $3 to $10, with $3 being the most cases
Reasonable amount of time for each survey (10 to 20+ minutes)
Minimum payment $5 and have to request the check
Customer service not very good (once I sent them an email for a survey related question, they didn’t response for more than 10 days and when they did response they told me they lost my original email and asked to repeat it. I then decided to forget about it)
No Paypal service

Greenfield Online

I used to use it a lot but not recently though it had earned me more than 100 dollars so far

Multiple invitations every day, but almost all of them only reward sweepstake entries
Payout amount is low, many only pay $1 for 20+ minutes, which I think not worth the time
Once in a while, they have interactive survey opportunities (real time, takes about 60 to 90 minutes) for $20 to $25 if qualify
Difficult to qualify (sometime I felt I was rejected with apparent reasons)
Has problems with recording the survey results
Good customer service, quick response
Length check processing time (6 to 8 weeks to get the check) and have to request the check
Paypal not available yet

GlobalTestMarket

Another one of my favorites

Survey invitations quite often (several a week)
Rewards points which can be redeemed for cash
Points per survey usually range from 50 to 75 points in most cases
1 point = 5 cents, second highest among providers I use that reward survey points
Guaranteed 5 points even don’t qualify for the full survey
Minimum payment 1000 points and have to request the check

Your2Cents

It’s an OK place

Only sends cash-reward invitations, but not many
Rewards vary even qualify ($1 to $3, $1 to $5, or $1 to $10)
$1 bonus reward towards next completed survey for filling out your profile (total 6 profiles)
You only know how much you will get at the end of the survey
Have to request the check, no Paypal service
$5 minimum payment

Pinecone Research

Another my favorite provider

Once join the panel, automatically qualify for their surveys
However, not many opportunities
Pay $5 for every survey (though I completed every survey, it seems that they issue the check even before I finish the survey)
Automatic payment, no request needed
Paypal payment now available

Brand Institute

Another good provider

Usually pays $2 fixed amount, no matter how long the survey actually takes
Most surveys are about 30 minutes
Not many opportunities (once or twice a month maybe)
Many surveys (at least those I took) are medicine related
Automatic payment 6 weeks after completing the survey, no payment request needed
Pay via Paypal

American Consumer Opinion

I only got a couple of invitations when I first enrolled. Didn’t get any in the past 2+ months. Cash only rewards.

SurveySavvy

Same as American Consumer Opinion, I haven’t got any survey for more than 2 months. Cash only rewards.

I also joined Opinion Outpost, MySurvey, and Lightspeed Panel, but haven’t made any money from them as they all reward points for completed surveys and the minimum points to redeem for cash is 1000 (except Opinion Outpost which requires 50 points), a threshold I haven’t reached yet. For Opinion Outpost, you will get $1 for every 10 points (that’s 10 cents per point, better than GlobalTestMarket). For Lightspeed Panel, 1150 points can be redeemed for $10 Paypal cash. A $10 Amazon e-certificate costs only 1100 points.

Some Tricks

All other providers will send you an email invitation when there’s a survey available. So if you log into your online account, you probably won’t find anything other than you already knew: your history, what’s available, etc. Not so for SurveySpot and Greenfield. For these two, there are many cash-paying opportunities that are not sent to you by email. That means you have to log into your account quite often to find them. And if you refresh your page, you may see more of those opportunities showing up !

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Paid Survey Sites: My Review

September 2006 Score Card — Part III: Free Money

Sun — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:08:24 +0000

Well, they are not really free as the money does not fall from the sky. But I call it “free money” because it comes from outside of my job (so I won’t get fired if I did poorly) and my investment (so I don’t have to spend money in order to make money). And, the time and effort required to earn a few bucks are no way close to those for my job and investment, so relatively speaking, they are free.

Yes, I am new to the paid online surve, only started in late July. However, I think I did pretty good in the short period of time.

When I first checked my survey record on September 28, I was surprised that I already made $100 at that time. Eventually, I did even better. For the month of September, I took a total of 35 paid surveys (wow, that's a lot and only the surveys I completed count) and made $108, up from $90 in August. It's not a big money, but I take whatever I can get.

I have joined several online survey groups and most of the money I made were from two survey providers: SurveySpot and Greenfield Online. Other providers, such as Brand Institute, SurveySavvy, ACOP, PineCone, and Your2Cents, only send out invitations once in a while (sometimes only one per month). Though every invitation carries a cash reward, there just weren't many opportunities. From SurveySpot and Greenfield Online, however, I receive multiple invitations every day. Most of them only provided sweepstake entries as rewards, but there were still many cash-paying studies. I'm not interested in sweepstakes because I never won a lottery, so I don't think I will win a sweepstake either.

In addition, like every blogger out there, I also have Google AdSense, Chitika EMiniMall, and Amazon Affiliate accounts. When I started blogging, I was checking my AdSense account almost every day, sometimes more than once. Not any more! My feeling is that it will be quite a while before any meaningful money can be generated from this dairy. I am not counting on any of them, at least for now.

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September 2006 Score Card — Part III: Free Money

Wow, Can’t Believe I Made So Much Already This Month

Sun — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 01:51:44 +0000

by taking paid online surveys.

I just checked my record for paid online surveys I participated and it surprised me that I have already made $100 so far this month, enough to pay my phone and internet bills! Or I can use it to pay for the web hosting fees for my diary! Can you imagin that if at this rate, I could make more than one thousand a year? That's unthinkable!

Considering that each survey usually pays anywhere from $1 to $5 (there were rare occasions when the payouts were more than $10), that's a lot of surveys I have taken. And in the past two months, I have accumulated $201 free money (well, it's not totally free because I did have to take some time to finish each one, but I won't complain about the time I spent), though I have received only $16, including the first payment of $2 from Brand Institute I got today. Since it usually takes about six to eight weeks to be credited for each completed survey, I can expect some regulary payments from now.

Nothing is better than (kind of) free money!

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Wow, Can’t Believe I Made So Much Already This Month

How Do You Fund Your Domain?

Sun — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 05:37:21 +0000

Do you have a budget for your own domain?

It really took me some time to make up my mind to switch from free blog at Blogger.com, which I started in June, to this domain. First of all, I am not sure if it’s worth it. Secondly, where does the money come from to pay for the hosting? After taking a look at the paid survies I have completed since June, I knew at least I found the answer for the second question.

My diary is hosted at Bluehost.com and I signed up for a two-year subscription with $6.95 per month. That’s $166.80 and how much have I earned from paid surveis and posts? $175, though I received only $14 so far. If at the current rate (about $50 per month), I could raise enough funds to keep this diary domain for a couple of more years before 2007 starts!

Now I can concentrate on addressing my first concern: whether or not it’s worth it. Well, time will tell!

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Experience With Brand Institute

Sun — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 14:03:00 +0000

I have signed up with some online survey sites, such as Greenfield Online, SurveySpot, SurveySavvy, Your2Cents, and Brand Institute, for more than a month and my overall experience with them so far was OK. Yes, many times I didn’t qualify for the paid surveys and I passed a lot surveys that only rewarded me with a sweepstake entry. I did manage to get through some survey screeners and completed the offer, though I haven’t seen any payment yet.

What seem to be interesting and confusing are those questionnaires from Brand Institute. I have received a total of four invitations since I joined in early July, yet I didn’t qualify for any of the offers. That’s fine. If I don’t qualify, I don’t qualify. However, what bothers me is how Brand Institute selects the candidate. For example, yesterday I got an email from them with a survey invitation and the usual stuff:

We would like to invite you to participate in a short screener. Participation in this screener is voluntary and those qualified individuals will be invited to participate in a paid online survey immediately.

After I clicked the link in the email, I was brought to the disclosure page:

So the study is about “potential logos for a new product,�? at least that’s what they said in the disclosure. It’s always good to have an idea of what’s the survey is about before starting it. I agreed and there came the first page of the screener.

What? Why my health has anything to do with my ability to evaluate logos? Actually, this was the second time that a Brand Institute’s survey screener began with a list of diseases. I’m in my 30s and what’s the chance for me to have cancer, HIV, or high blood pressure? The first time when I saw the list (I forgot what the survey was about), I chose None. Guess what? I was disqualified. So this time, maybe I shouldn’t be that healthy. OK, I have high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Continue.

Isn’t that amazing? I mean if the survey is about medicine or health care, or anything related to health, I can understand why they need to know if I have certain diseases or not, but this survey is for LOGOS!

Seriously, I have to ask them about the screener, which doesn’t make any sense to me.

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Experience With Brand Institute

$5 From Bloggingads.com

Sun — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 18:44:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I submitted my blog to Bloggingads.com following a link on Getting Out Of Debt. About a week later, they emailed me, saying my blog was proved and I can post their prepared ad on my blog (you can choose to write yourself ad with keywords they provided, but I decided to take the easier route). So I inserted their ad wiht only minor changes and sent them the location. After they verified the placement of the ad, a $5 one-time payment was sent to my Paypal account today.

The first impression to me was good. I got paid within 24 hours after the post was verified and with their prepared ad, I don’t have to be creative after all. However, I am wondering if this kind of business can last long. Anyway, that’s not for me to worry.

Just enjoy the $5 free money.

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Response From Greenfield

Sun — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 16:27:00 +0000

It really surprised me this morning when I opened my mailbox and found the response from Greenfield, lease than 24 hours after I complained about the problem I had. Here’s what I learned:

” … there was some technical problem with the servers. This could have resulted out of heavy user traffic within the survey, or connection/communication issues between servers. At times there are server difficulties beyond … control.“

For those surveys that I was cut off:

” … unfortunately you would not be able to retake this survey as (only one submission per email address) is our policy. This is to ensure the integrity of the data we collect and to meet our client’s policies and demands regarding the exposure of the material shown in these projects.”

And for the future, though I didn’t get the assurance that the same won’t happen again,

” … you will have many more opportunities to participate in our upcoming surveys and get rewarded for your efforts and the precious time you share with us.”

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Response From Greenfield

Trouble With Greenfield Online

Sun — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 05:03:00 +0000

Greenfield online is a company that provides paid online survey and I joined the panel last month. Since then I have been receiving nearly five survey invitations every day and almost all of them only rewarded me with an entry to their sweepstake, which I don’t have much interest. Once in a while, they did send a survey that pays cash. However, for these rare opportunities, I always had problems and so far didn’t earn any credit, not that I didn’t qualify.

For example, when I took today’s survey, I passed the screening and went through most of the questions. When I was asked the question “Any people under 17 in your household,” I answered and pressed the button to go to the next page. Instead, I got a “Server error/Configuration error” page. I couldn’t go forward so I moved backward and re-tried that question. The next screen I got said I already completed the survey. However, when I checked from my account, there was yet another sweepstake entry for me, not the cash prize. Then I tried another survey and the same error appeared and for this survey I even didn’t get a chance to go to the third question. For this two surveys, I used with two different browsers, Firefox and Internet Explorer, just to verify that it wasn’t my Firefox causing the error. Twice I got the same error message.

Before today, there were also a couple of times that I had the same problem, almost all near the end of the surveys. This makes me wonder if Greenfield online deliberately did this. Otherwise, why didn’t they fix the problem? Or is it just me having this problem?

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Trouble With Greenfield Online

Paid Surveys I Completed

Sun — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 21:22:00 +0000

I have been doing online paid survey since July 2006 and here’s a list of surveys I completed so far:

Movie survey from SurveySpot, 07/22/06, $3.00
Credit card survey from SurveySpot, 07/26/06, $3.00
IT survey from SurveySavvy, 07/31/06, $5.00

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Paid Surveys I Completed

Paid Survey. Will You Do?

Sun — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 21:53:00 +0000

During the internet boom of the late ’90s, you could find all kinds of money-making websits that pay you to simply click links on their websites, or install a small banner on your computer and let it run when you are surfing the internet. Easy money indeed. I can still remember a couple of names, such as Alladvantage.com, Surfing2cash.com, and Utopaid.com. Sometimes it made me wonder how these compaies can make money by paying you do nothing other than clicking some links. Sure the advertisers got some traffic to their sites, but what else did they gain? I never bought anything through those links and I believe I am not alone.

After the internet bubble burst, these companies all vanished.

Now if you want to get some free money, it won’t be an effortless job and the payouts don’t come close to those of the go-go days. Yet, free money is free money.

One way to get a few bucks once in a while is to join some survey panels and do online paid survey. The trick is you have to qualify. These surveys usually come with a screener and you will only get paid if you pass the screen and complete the survey. The payout is anywhere from $2.00 to $6.00 per survey. If you don’t qualify to take the survey, you will get an entry to the sweepstake.

From my short experience (I only started to do survey this month), I like Brand Institute and SurveySpot. Brand Institute only sent me two surveys so far, but they were all paid surveys. I got several survey invitations from SurveySpot, as well as from Greenfield, every day, but most of rewards are sweepstake entries, which I am not very enthusiastic about.

The other one is the so-called paid email. The paid click arrives in your mail box every day and you can earn 3 to 5 cents by clicking the link. I currently use SendEarnings and InboxDollars. Both of them also offer sign-up bonus.

Relatively speaking, paid email sounds easy and requests much less time. Some surveys, on the other hand, can take you up to 40 minutes. That’s kind of long for only a couple of bucks.

If you have some spare time, it may not be such a bad idea of getting some extra cash, like an email from Survey Explosion says:

… if you just want to have fun and make a little extra cash then you can start slowly and put just a few hours per week into this effort.

If you really have a lot of time

… if you want to replace your current job income with survey income then you will need to put as many or more hours into this effort to be successful.

That I will never do.

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Paid Survey. Will You Do?

Fight with Ebates.com

Sun — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 15:01:00 +0000

My Ebates.com account was created nearly three years ago. However, I haven’t used it for a while (for more than two years) until recently I re-discovered this site and decided to use it whenever possible. I already spent the money, why not get some back?

So early last month, I opened two Sharebuilder.com accounts, one for myself and one for my wife, all through my Ebates account. The reward from Ebates is worth $20, meanwhile, there are $50 promotions from Sharebuilder as well. That made the total free money to $70.

So I went ahead and opened the two accounts and was patiently waiting for my cashbacks from Ebates and Sharebuilder for a month. After making an initial deposit and a stock purchase at Sharebuilder, the $100 promotion reward from Sharebuilder finally got into my pocket last Monday. Then, there came the fight with Ebates.

It’s a long story, so read on.

After the 30-day period has passed and no sign the Ebates cashbacks will appear in my account any time soon, I contacted Ebates, asking about the status of my cashbacks while providing the Sharebuilder account numbers on July 7th. Ten days later, I was notified that my acount has been credited. Indeed, but only one $20 cashback. Where was my other cashback?

When I questioned Ebates the cashback, I got a reply saying:

We do apologize for this misunderstanding. However ShareBuilder $20.00 cash-back offer is only a one time offer. Since you have already been credited for a ShareBuilder purchase you are ineligible to receive cash-back from this merchant.

Where’s the misunderstanding? When I opened the accounts, there was no condition whatsoever about the “one time offer.” I then challenged them to give me the exact like to the “one time offer” condition. I am 100% sure I followed the rules. To prove what I said was true, I even made a copy of the Sharebuilder offer from Ebates. Well, later on, it turned out this copy indeed saved my cashbacks.

From another CSR, Ebates reiterated the claim they made in the last email:

Please note that only one Ebates account can earn cash back from a sharebuilder.com purchase. You may review our FAQ page for more information. Unfortunately, sharebuilder.com does not issue cash back on multiple accounts created by a link from one Ebates account. This is part of our Affiliate Agreement with Sharebuilder.com.

We apologize for any confusion and appreciate your understanding.

They again failed to provide the link and there was nothing in the FAQ regarding the Sharebuilder offer. I hope they knew what they were talking about before they talked. On July 18th, one day after I demanded the exact terms on Sharebuilder, I was directed to the Sharebuilder offer page on Ebates website. However, this was not the one I saw a month ago when I opened the account, not even the one I copyed 24 hours ago. The new page reads the following:

The difference? One line was added:

(Only new paid Sharebuilder members will receive the one time rebate.)

Now they really tried to make things happen, in the wrong way though. And this was not the end of it.

Outraged by their little play, I sent back the two screens I saved and demanded an explaination of what happened on their website and this time my message got into the hands of a manager. In the reply, I was asked to provided the confirmation emails from Sharebuilder after the accounts were opened and proofs that the accounts were both funded, which I have provided already. Added a little twist to the problem they were dealing now, the manager accused me of having two Ebates accounts, in the first apparent attempt to deny me:

Please let me know the email address you use for your two Ebates accounts. Also, please let me know why you would need two Ebates accounts, and two ShareBuilder accounts. Currently, Ebates does not allow any member to have two Ebates accounts.

I don’t know where this impression was coming from, but it was absolutely not true. Rejecting the manager’s claim, I told Ebates there is always one account. The manager then said

We are currently investigating with ShareBuilder to find out why Ebates did not earn commission for either of your registrations with ShareBuilder.

After two days of silence, during which I assumed they were really doing the investigation, the manager brought up a new issue:

Can you please let me know the amount that was funded into each of these ShareBuilder accounts that did not earn Ebates cash-back?

What they were doing? Why should they care how much I made the initial deposit if Sharebuilder didn’t care? Were they trying to come up with a new excuses?

Well, since they asked, so I told them I deposited $5 into both accounts, which caused absolutely no problem with Sharebuilder. What really shocked me throughout this event was the reply from manager following my latest email:

Thank you for your reply. I think we now understand this issue. ShareBuilder does not consider any new account “funded” unless at least $20.00 is added upon activation. Therefore, neither of the two Share Builder accounts that you started qualified for Ebates to earn commission. We are glad to leave the $20.00 credit that Thomas gave you in your Ebates account, however, the other Share Builder registration will not qualify to earn cash-back in our program. We are very sorry for any misunderstanding.

Thank you for using Ebates every time you shop online.

Meanwhile, the Ebates website was updated to

with the new addition:

(One time only. Requires new ShareBuilder account to be initially funded with at least $20.00)

You can never underestimate the creativity of a sales person! In the matter of 3 days, Ebates manipulated their website twice, desperately trying to deny the cashbacks I deserved. Not just that, all of sudden, I became the bad guy try to steal 20 bucks from them, and they were doing me a favor by giving me $20!

I shook my head in debelief of they said. How could they be so dishonest? Where is the integrity of doing business?

In my furious reply, I attached all three screen copies and threated to use them, together with the emails exchanged, as evidence for further action against them if I didn’t get two $20 cashbacks and let everybody shoppes online knew what they did in the past three days.

In the end, Ebates backed off:

Thank you for your reply. We certainly understand your point. It turns out that we did not know the rules for the ShareBuilder offer prior to your complaint. Based on your emails to us, we were able to find this information out during our investigation. Due to these discoveries, we have been updating the rules on our site over the course of the past few days. In all cases, if Ebates does not earn any commission then we have no funds to pass along to you as cash-back. However, we do value you as an Ebates shopper, and today I have added another $20.00 to your Ebates account.

Looks like I might just help them fixed a loophole as well.

Lessons I learned from this incident:

Sometimes, you just have to fight for your right;
Always keep the evidences.

Original Post on The Sun's Financial Diary

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