How To Avoid Paid Survey Scams If you want to earn money doing paid surveys then you should learn how to avoid the paid survey scams and believe me there are thousands of them I have been caught my self a few times fortunately I took precautions to minimize any real damage from them.
The very first thing you need to do before joining any paid survey site is check out any privacy policies, terms of service, FAQs, disclaimers or website agreements they may or may not have, the lack of which could indicate a scam so stay clear of them but even when they are present it is not enough to assume they are legitimate.
Once you have read through all their legal matters you will have a better idea of what is required of you and what you can expect from the paid survey sites so you can make an informed decision weather you should join or not.
Some things you need to take close notice of is what they will do with your personal information, how you get paid, how much you earn for your activities and the minimum pay out amount.
Privacy Policies Your personal information is one of the main things scammers are after for numerous reasons the worst of is identity theft or Phishing then followed by email address harvesting so they can sell it to unscrupulous companies that will bombard you with junk mail.
This is way you must read the privacy policies of any paid survey site before you join.
Earnings Disclaimers This can also indicate a scam but it is not always the case most disclaimers will go something like this (all examples of earnings are based on individual efforts and or circumstance and may not reflect your personal earnings) basically they give you an example of earnings that may be achievable, usually a very high amount but this will not be possible for most people to achieve so be very careful of paid survey sites clamming you can earn thousands of dollars a month doing surveys.
FAQs website agreements and or terms of service You should always read these from top to bottom as this will tell you how you are going to earn your money, how much you will earn and what you need to do so you can earn money from surveys.
Things to look for The lack of contact information and business identification often means a scam for example if the contact emails address is from one of the free email services like yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail.
Things that you want to see are badges from places like the Better Business Bureau, eTrust and hack safe badges but these alone will not assure you of authenticity you need to check that they are genuine and the company is actually resisted with them Things you can do Other things that is advisable to help avoid paid survey scams are to check them out at the Better Business Bureau, whois.
net, work at home forums and paid survey forums.
Get your self a dedicated email account with disposable email addresses so you can organise all your surveys to the one account this will help avoid junk mail and spam.
Yahoo mail with address guard is the one I use myself and I find this an invaluable tool for doing paid surveys You should also consider getting an automated form filler to help you fill out all the forms this will minimize the chances of hackers getting hold of your personal information If you follow all the advice above and exercise common sense then you have gone a long way in protecting yourself from paid survey scams but just remember the scammers are always trying new things so keep alert and if it seems fishy then maybe it is better to stay away.