Internet Scams

I don't know about some of you but I have been noticing the increase in Internet scams. The one I'm most interested in right now is the survey scam. I worked in the survey industry for a couple of years so I have a first hand knowledge of how it works, whether it is on the net or in the mall they all work pretty much the same. A company wants to know what people think of their product or service. They go to a company whose purpose in life is to ask the questions, they negotiate a price that normally is dependent on the number of questions and how accurate they want the finding i.e.. the more people you ask the better the findings. When I was working as an asker about 20 years ago I could make $5 to $20 per respondent.

Now here is the scam, You get an email saying your opinion is important and that you could make thousands a week, quit your job and lay around on some sunny beach all day with nothing more than your lap top as you give your opinion on various subjects. Thinking to yourself wow what a deal you click on the link and you end up a some sight that tells you that they will get you all kids of survey gigs and all you have to do is send them $29.95 as a handling fee. What a deal you think spend so little to make so much and you immediately send in your hard earned dollars. That is when you find the scam, one they only give you the names and contacts of companies that are doing surveys and you must contact them to get on their list. Two most of the companies you contact are no more than a sign up to receive spam and out of a thousand emails you might get one survey to do. Three the survey you get doesn't pay anything it will get you points in some contest or you are entered into a drawing to win some amount of cash and if your real lucky they will pay you 3 to 5 dollars. Basically if you were to sit on that sunny beach with your lap top you would be fried to a crisp before you made enough to quit your job.

This doesn't mean that there are no legit surveys out there you just need to follow some basic rule to find them. The biggest is if they want money from you to join don't do it. If they don't offer cash up front more than likely they are a little shady, remember they are making good money for you opinion you should be to. Lastly be ready to have your spam filter go into over drive until you find the good survey companies they are out there you just have to do the work to find them.