Don’t want to pay a hefty fee to get access to a directory of paid surveys? You don’t have to because you can find free paid survey websites at no cost to you using only the Internet. By following the steps below, you can find many legitimate survey websites that will pay you cash for taking online surveys.
Ready to grow your list of legitimate survey sites?
Step 1: Open a blank Word document. If you don’t have Word, just use whatever text editor is installed on your computer.
Step 2: Open your web browser and go to Google or Bing and find a list of paid survey websites. Start with a query like this: “List of legitimate free survey sites.”
Step 3: Review the search results and visit a few sites to see which survey panels they recommend. Copy the names of each survey panel that you find attractive and paste them into your Word document.
This should take 10-20 minutes. Don’t spend too much time on this step because at this point, you’re just trying to see what’s out there. Once you have 20-30 survey companies on your list, you can move on to the next step.
Step 4 – Now, you need to do another search. Take the first survey company on your list and Google it followed by the word “review.” Your query should end up looking like this: “ABCSurveys Review”.
You will be presented with websites that have reviewed that particular survey company. Read the reviews on some of the sites you come across and see what others are saying about the company.
However, don’t take them too seriously because some reviews may be biased or false. What you want to pay special attention to are negative comments. What kind of complaints do you see? Do others complain about the same things? If you think the negative comments outweigh the positive comments the company received, cross the site off your list and start with the next one.
Step 5: If the negative comments didn’t bother you too much, your next step would be to find proof of payment. If you saw some recent pay stubs while reviewing the reviews, you can skip this step. If you didn’t, write the name of the survey company followed by proof of payment.
You may want to use Google Images for this search query to get better results. Look for recent pay stubs: checks or PayPal payments that were sent last year. A survey panel that you paid in 2006 may not yet be legitimate today, so look for recent pay stubs.
If you can find any, continue to the next step. If you didn’t find any, reflect on the reviews you read. Did people say that this company paid them? Sometimes you may not find proof of payment, but the survey company sends the payments. Some people do not record the payments they receive, and sometimes, though not often, it is against the terms of a survey site to post proof of payment.
In cases where you don’t have proof that they pay, you should use your best judgment to determine if the site is worth trying. If necessary, do a little more research on the company. Find out what their BBB rating is, visit their Twitter profile or Facebook page and see what comments, if any, the company has received from those who talk about their experiences with survey panels on discussion boards.
Step 6: After you have searched for proof of payment, it is time to visit the website directly to see a few things. When you enter the website you should see if they have a Terms, FAQ and Privacy Policy page. If they do, great! Go ahead and read those pages to see how the site works, how they handle your personal information, and whether or not you meet member eligibility requirements.
If the site doesn’t have a privacy policy or Terms of Use agreement, you should probably cross that site off your list. You need to know in advance how they use the information you provide and what their terms are. If they are not releasing this information publicly, they probably have something to hide and it is probably not good.
Step 7: If you have determined that the company is a legitimate survey website worth joining, please do so. Become a member.
Step 8: Now, all you need to do is repeat steps 1-7 for the remaining survey companies on your list.
It is a long process but you only need to do it once. Once you belong to 10-20 genuine survey companies, you can start taking surveys with confidence and earn money.