Highway Robbery

Last week, I signed up with a couple of online survey sites that claim to pay money per survey completed. Well, it certainly couldn’t hurt and I could use the money, oh how I could use the money! I had to fill out numerous questionnaires about myself in profile section so that they could match surveys better suited for me. Soon (when I say soon, I mean not a minute after signing up) I started getting emails about surveys they wanted me to participate in. I thought to myself who knew I could make some extra money so easily? Well, I was wrong… of course…

Most of the surveys, I’d say 9 out of 10, either do not specify what the rewards are, or say that the reward is an entry for their sweepstakes upon completing the survey, which by the way, takes 20 minutes to complete. Uhh… no, I’m not about to waste 20 minutes for any stinking sweepstakes entry and I don’t remember seeing anything about being paid a sweepstakess entry instead of money?

Now, the remaining 1 out of 10 surveys says something like $5 or $1 or $0.25 guaranteed for the completed survey, which takes, again, 20 minutes. I pondered a while to determine if $5 or $1 or $0.25 is worth spending my precious 20 minutes, and decided that I couldn’t go any lower than $1 per 20 minutes.

Then I proceeded to take those surveys which would pay me $1 or up guaranteed upon completion. I’d consider that 20 minutes well spent for some easy, though very little, extra income. Well, dead wrong again. After asking questions for several minutes, which I of course sincerely answer, it tells me that I’m not qualified for the survey, thanks me for my time, and tells me I’ve been rewarded with one sweepstakes entry. Huh? Basically so far, I’ve spent a few hours all together filling out these surveys and have nothing to show for. A sweepstakes entry? What are you joking? I spent a few hours for entries for sweepstakes? Bunch of lying thieves!

To be fair, I do need to mention that I finally did qualify for a total of whopping ONE survey. Yup, I felt like I achieved nirvana at last! The questions were about the IT division of the company I work for. Since I’m in IT, I merrily answered my way to the end of the survey where it asked “What’s the name of your company?” WTF??? I mean, is it even legal? What are you friggin’ kidding me? Do they think I’m stupid or something? Like anybody in their right mind with a half a brain who do not wish to be fired or sued or ass kicked or get someone’s foot up the ass is going to answer that?

So I had to stop at that point after spending my 20 minutes on filling out this survey. I’m sure these people put that question at the very end on purpose so that they can get answers to the things they want to know first, then not pay people by having them drop the survey on their own. Bastards.