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Can you Really Make Money Taking Surveys and Mystery Shopping?
Can you Really Make Money Taking Surveys and Mystery
Shopping?
by Michelle Hansen
If you're like me, you get them everyday; emails about taking
surveys and getting cash. I'm sure you've heard that there are
people out there who earn a good living taking surveys too,
right? Well, our curiosity got the best of us so we set out to
find the truth about surveys! We were very curious and thought
it would be a great resource article to share with all our
visitors. Here's what happened on our SURVEY ADVENTURE!
We simply started at Google and typed in "surveys" then poof and
viola, there you go, over 160,000,000 links were found! Wow,
this is really going to be an adventure. But for our visitors
and all of you who have been asking about surveys and their
legitimacy, we decided to plunge forward in this scavenger hunt!
After milling through many of the links, we discovered that most
were sites that offered survey directories and promised other
tools for a small price. One that continued to surface and was
recommended by many work at home sites and mom sites promised a
$25 paid survey immediately after joining. The site was Survey Scout
and we decided to take the plunge with them since they
seemed legitimate and highly recommended.
We joined Survey Scout and were given immediate access to pages
upon pages of survey companies that they claimed were
legitimate. I must say, the lists were easily navigable and
showed us which sites paid cash and which ones offered rewards
in points and prizes. Some offered both. They also gave us tons
of information that we found to be worthwhile in getting started
with survey companies. It tells you how many companies you can
expect to join to earn what you want to from home and how many
hours per day or week you may expect to devote to taking
surveys. I was impressed to say the least.
Ok, so I jumped in and started following the directions the
company gave. I created a separate email (a real must) for this
type of thing as you will get all sorts of email and lots of it.
Then I started signing up for survey companies. After going
through 5 or so, I began to notice that a few seemed to be a
lower quality company than the others. One tip I learned quick
and will share with you is, if they ask you to "complete offers"
or join this or that in order to receive some bonus, don't
bother with those companies. You'll notice them when you start
to join the companies and then you can unsubscribe to those as I
haven't noticed any worthwhile real surveys from those types. So
tip #1..forget the companies that say you need to
complete some special offers that are going to cost you money in
order to get some product or gift card, etc for free. I've found
those not to be legitimate
So, after weeding through those, I did find many, many companies
in the lists that were legitimate. Tip #2 is, complete
the non-paid surveys or the ones with points offered or some
entry into a contest for completing them. Most of the companies
will send you these types of surveys to complete before ever
offering you the paid surveys. So I think it's much like a
screening process. So, take the time to do the unpaid surveys or
the ones that offer points in order to increase your chances of
getting paid surveys. Once I completed the points and contest
entry surveys, then I started getting paid surveys from some of
those companies. I found this to be really neat. Some were a
couple of dollars and others $10 or more. So..yes I can see
where people could make decent money at surveys if you invest
this time in being organized and treating it like a business.
Also with Survey Scout when you register you get a bonus area of
"get paid to read emails" which didn't interest me too much, but
for some of you it may. What did interest me was the list of
Mystery & Secret Shopping Companies that I got with my
membership. This was something that always interested me and
made me wonder. Can people really make money shopping and is
mystery shopping real? Yes you can! I went through the list and
went through the application process with several of the
companies and actually got sent on a secret shop within 2 wks of
doing so. The application process was detailed. They really want
to know that you are thorough and detail oriented. The testing
process included several multiple choice tests as well as an
essay portion. Once I was notified that I passed and was
accepted though, I was able to log into their site and view
mystery shops in my area and assign myself to them! Very cool! I
went on one shop and made $50 ! It took a few hours of my time
to actually do the shop, it was for a new home builder which was
neat. Then writing up the evaluation took about another hour at
home on my computer. I was notified the next day that everything
was submitted properly and that I earned the maximum amount for
the shop!
I plan to write more in the future on succeeding at Mystery
Shopping as I do more shops. I get tons of requests for
information on mystery and secret shopping, so I will write a
follow-up on this in the future including tips on mystery
shopping. The article will also detail getting started in this
arena of working at home. In our search for and evaluation of
taking surveys, we gained some great insight on the process of
making money with surveys as well as stumbled upon an unexpected
bonus way to make money...Mystery Shopping. From what we learned
in our research and actually taking surveys and doing mystery
shops, we have found that you really can make money with both of
these work at home venues. These are certainly not "get rich
quick" schemes but you can start small and depending on the time
you want to invest, you can really grow an income at one or both
of these. I certainly recommend it to moms who want to try this
out and make some extra money or eventually grow this into a
good income. I believe it can be done if you're willing to
devote the time to it. And, you have to admit both are fun ways
of making extra cash. If you like to give you opinion and you
like to shop, you can't beat taking surveys and mystery
shopping. I do recommend Survey Scout
since we researched several avenues and found this website
to be a worthwhile membership. I can't speak for the other
sites, but we did plenty of research before choosing Survey Scout
and haven't been disappointed at all.
I hope this has offered some insight to you and been enjoyable
for you to read. We had fun doing the research and were excited
to actually make money with this. With the little effort we put
forth, we made money so with more effort you could probably do
well with this. It will depend on the time you devote, of
course.
Oh, and the $25 paid survey they promise for joining..it was
legitimate also. I believe that one was paid in a restaurant
gift certificate, so we enjoyed a nice steak dinner courtesy of
Survey
Scout ! What fun!
About the author:
Michelle Hansen is a home business entrepreneur and consultant
who helps families succeed in their home businesses. She lives
in TX with her husband and two children. She and her husband,
Shane are the owners and publishers of www.mommybizmatchmaker.c
om and www.cybermomz.com
providing multiple resources for work at home families.
Written by: Michelle Hansen
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