[Jens]

I'm thinking about forking over $35 to join Survey Scout, but I'd like some opinions first. I'm skeptical for a few reasons. First, they seem to feel they have to bribe new members with a "two free tickets" vacation plan, BUT mvalue says that their "travel vendor" hasn't been honoring this deal lately! So why is this offer still being made on their site? Also, in their FAQ, they claim they're not listed with the BBB because they're less than a year old . . . I've seen the exact same excuse on a different pay-for-survey-lists site (forgot which one.)

SurveyScout users, can you tell me if this service is worth it? Thanks!

[puravida]

Hi Jen and Welcome to the forum!

This is an excellent topic, and I'm hopeful that others will also give their feedback and input. Here's my take on the subject:

Quote

they seem to feel they have to bribe new members with a "two free tickets" vacation plan

They probably feel the need to do this because every other competitor offers either these very same tickets or some other offer (usually worthless in my humble opinion).

Quote

BUT mvalue says that their "travel vendor" hasn't been honoring this deal lately!

The note about the tickets not being honored was written about 3-months prior, but we never heard any different; so it has not been updated. However, the owner of Surveyscout told us that he was going to remove that offer and replace with a new offer, so I'm a bit surprised they still offer it.

Either that means the company is now honoring those tickets or Surveyscout hasn't updated it yet. I will see what I can find out in this regard and post my finding here.

***

As far as the Surveyscout "value" factor... it depends on the intensity of your goals. Here's what I mean:

My wife has access to several of the databases (i.e. SurveyScout, PaidSurveysOnline, Survey-Platinum, etc), and she has applied to just about every single listed marketing research firm across all of the databases.

Her remarks were that there is no way she could have found all of these sites on her own (aside from the typical ones like ACOP, SurveySavvy, eLab, etc). Many of them do not even show up in the search results because they do not heavily market online -- they work online, but they do mostly offline marketing.

So, the difference is that as a truly, truly part-time opp; you can find probably a good 25 or so firms just by searching around the Internet. Some may be good and some may be scams (see our "Does NOT Pay" topic).

On the other hand, with a paid surveys database; you can quickly (and from one place) sign up with hundreds of firms. For instance, my wife is registered with about 550+

So, you can imagine that she receives a LOT of surveys (and spam, unfortunately). Many of those surveys come from "greenfieldonline", but we do not do those anymore because they do not pay and they do not reply to inquiries.

If you live in the U.S., you will also have access to the focus groups and will qualify for a good bit more surveys. As for my wife, she does not qualify for more than 20% or so because we no longer live in the states.

She also does not have access to the focus groups because the long distance would cost more than she would make per call. But, we believe focus groups are where some of the bigger money would be seen.

I hope that has been at least somewhat helpful

If you would like to sign up for some of the typical free surveys, you can visit mvalue's free paid surveys page (if you haven't already).

Cheers,

Brandon

[puravida]

Hi Jen,

I discussed the "tickets" question and the BBB question with Patrick Kennedy of SurveyScout (owner). He had the following explanations:

1. The "tickets" deal - isn't the same as the 2 free tickets deal mentioned on mvalue. That deal was a 2 free tickets to anywhere in the world (or something like that) -- it is what everyone else on the Internet is offering.

This offer is 2 hotel nights stay at any of over 20 hotels in designated cities. So, I imagine that this particular offer is being honored and mvalue will be updated accordingly.

2. The BBB - Patrick simply stated that they really are less than a year old and that is the reason. He further mentioned that every other competing site says the same thing because they are copycats.

In my experience, this is true. SurveyScout is the leader in the field, and there are literally about 25 copycat sites out there. Many of them just copy word-for-word from portions of the SurveyScout site. I would bet that a good many use the SurveyScout database (as customers) to populate and update their own databases.

The flip-side is that the one-year BBB claim from the copycats is also still true for now, because almost all of the "database services" are less than a year old. The whole "paid surveys" boom has just really gotten attention recently.

I hope that answers your questions, but I'd still love to hear other people's opinion and experience with SurveyScout. Hopefully, they are as positive as ours!

Regards,

Brandon

[Jens]

:) Wow, you really checked this out! Thanks for the info. I've seen so much questionable stuff out there, it can be hard to know what to think . . .

[puravida]

No problem, Jen.

Thanks for stopping back by. If you have time, post any other questions/thoughts you might have. I have no limit on the $2 top poster award for July

You can win everyday, if you like.

No one else seems to want to participate very much, so it's a few free dollars for practically nothing.. haha.

Cheers,

Brandon

[Foberswife]

I've also wondered about paying to join Survey Scout...I'd like to join if I know I'm going to get that money back with earning money but just hesitate to do it.

I don't know if this is the right forum to post this but has anyone seen the survey site called YouGov.com? I joined it and they give you $2 to sign up and say survey won't be more than 10 minutes and they give you 80 cents for each survey you do and pay out is at 50 dollars. So far I got $2.80 lol. Like I said not sure if this is the right place and I'm sure once I start looking around I'll probably find where I should have posted this LOL.

Again if anyone has joined Survey Scout I'd love to hear as others will if you've earned your money back that you had to pay and what is it like? Have a good evening

[puravida]

Hi Dawn,

I think that since you want information on surveyscout also, that your post is good for here.

But, I think you should start a new thread under "paid surveys" called "YouGov.com" and ask for opinions there. It only matters because people may not find it in this thread and if they are scanning topics, they might say "oh, I know about YouGov" and then help you out.

-Brandon

[puravida]

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booked into a local focus group that pays over $100.

Hi Xara,

This is encouraging. My wife hasn't tried to find any local focus groups because we did not think any would exist outside the U.S. So, congrats on finding one. Maybe we'll look in to this for ourselves soon.

If you have the time, I would recommend signing up for as many as possible --but first read through their "terms of service" and try to judge from their site if they look reputable or not (not always 100% accurate but helps).

I believe my wife signed up for all of those in about 2 weeks in her spare time. It took her maybe another week or two to fill out all of the "personal questionaires" that will help get you approved for more surveys.

-Brandon

[puravida]

Hi PsychicGia,

I agree with you. I have written several articles about how these people should not flat out lie about making that much money. I mean, they try to say that you could make that much -IF- you had enough surveys to fill an hour.

I write my articles and help tutorials in such a way as to point out these "little white lies." I always backed SurveyScout because they were the only one who also said this. And although I still back SurveyScout above the rest, it seems that eveyone has now resorted to stretching the truth. :(

I believe that the story on SurveyScout about that lady is total hype. I know -from experience- that you can earn several hundred dollars per month from surveys alone (not even considering phone consults and focus groups) because my wife does it every month.

However, I do not believe someone can make thousands doing it --not without focus groups and phone consults and having signed up with every good marketing firm out there (noting that many are scams), and even then you'd probably have to make friends with the people sending surveys.

It's tough to know where to really go, but I am hopeful that this forum and our site (http://www.mvalue.co...aid-surveys.htm) can help point people in the right direction.

Cheers,

Brandon

[mistletoe]

[FONT=Impact] :D Hello all!
I just made $20 doing a survey for survey savvy and should be getting a check anywhere from 4-6 weeks. I'll keep ypu posted when ( if ) I get it.
I signed up with 5 or 6 survey companys ( only those that I didn't have to pay for ) and so far havee made $50 total in the last 8 days...I'll finally believe it when (if ) i see any of the $ that were promised.,but I am hopeful
Incidentally, I couldn't afford to purchase anything from Survey savvy...I just signed up and filled out some demographics...

Julia a.k.a "Mistletoe"

[mistletoe]

:(

Sorry everyone! I inadvertantly put my raves about survey savvy in the wrong thread...Apologies...

mistletoe :o

[Kermit435]

I did the whole survey scout thing. I was not very impressed at first as my $25.00 instant survey they gauranteed turned out to be a dining gift certificate with restrictions (can only be used with a reservation of at least 4 people blah blah blah). When I searched for places that took the certifcate, I only found two in my area. Both in not so good areas if you know what I mean. The survey site itself is nice, straight forward and easy to use and it lists out what rewards the company offers. It also lists out pay to read and click sites as well as getting paid to drive (advertisements on your car) sites.

It's only been a couple of weeks for me. Still waiting, but I hear being patient is key. Only had a couple of surveys resulting in numerous sweepstakes.

Ohh, and also, their customer service answered my emal questions within a day.

Kevin

[puravida]

Quote

I was not very impressed at first as my $25.00 instant survey they gauranteed

We signed up long before they started offering this. So, I was curious if there was a catch to this instant survey. Thanks for letting us know not to expect too much with their "guarantee"

-Brandon

[Kermit435]

No prob, I still have the certificate and will post the number in freebies as I'm not going to use it.

Kevin

[puravida]

Quote

I still have the certificate and will post the number in freebies as I'm not going to use it

That is extremely thoughtful of you, Kermit435. :thumbsup:

I have approved your post there, and anyone (first come) can use it.

-Brandon

[scarletrose]

Here has been my experience with survey scout. I did take the leap and pay the fee to get their list. They offer a money back guarentee. This is a good thing because most of what I got from the site I had already signed up with from doing online searches and other forums. So all in all I ended up with a $35 list of surveys that I was already a member of. The good news is the site was honest and did refund my money upon request. You only have so much of a time however to get your money back. If you do decide to pay and get their list and find you are already a member of most of the sites quickly shoot them an email to let them know you want your money back and why to avoid running out of time for your refund.