However, Opinion Outpost is one of the most widely used survey sites that has been around for quite a few years now and only continues to grow in popularity. But is Opinion Outpost a scam, or is it a legit survey company that’ll really pay you cash?

Short answer – yes they’re legit and they do pay you for taking surveys

BUT….

Even though Opinion Outpost is a legitimate survey company, the reality is you will not be getting paid anything substantial and will end up wasting a heck of a lot of time trying to take their surveys. They make it seem like it’s very easy to get paid $100’s of extra dollars taking a few surveys every month, but the reality is very different.

Let me go a bit more in depth with how it works and what kind of payment you can expect to get a better idea of how you’ll be wasting your time with this company (or any survey company for that matter).

How Opinion Outpost works

You first need to fill out a pretty extensive profile and answer tons of personal questions in order to qualify for an account. My first attempt I was rejected from even signing up (they told me my application was denied but there was no further explanation) but I tried again using a different address and it worked… (very odd).

I actually found they asked extremely personal questions, and even wanted to know the name of my company and the phone number to “confirm I was being honest”.  I’m not sure why they would need quite that exensive amount of information. (And no, no one actually called if you were wondering).

Once you complete your profile set up, they’ll send you surveys you can start taking to earn points. Surveys vary in points depending on length, but you can expect to earn a few cents to a couple of bucks per survey. They have occassional survey opportunities that pay more, but it isn’t an ordinary occurance.

It also seems to be quite hard to qualify to actually take the surveys they send you, at least in my experience. The major problem here is you don’t know you won’t qualify until you’ve taken the pre screening survey.. which basically is an entire survey in itself. You can spend anywhere from 5-15 minutes answering questions only to find out you don’t qualify and don’t get compensated for your time.

Add that up several times per day and you’re essentially working for nothing.

For example, upon joining they immediately told me I qualified for a survey which ended up being about dishsoap. They asked me several questions pertaining to what type of decisions I made purchasing dishsoap, what brands have I bought in the last few months and what brand(s) I used the most. I probably spent about 5 minutes of my time going through the questions, only to be told I didn’t qualify to actually take the real survey.

Then, they sent me a few more surveys about additional product purchases and preferences. After going through the prescreenings it turns out I didn’t qualify… again.

Geeze… it can’t just be me, either (and it’s not judging from several user reviews which I discuss below). The companies are looking for a very particular group to take each survey and if you don’t meet the criteria then it’s tough luck. I’ve had the same issue with other survey companies before, there’s always going to be a certain portion of surveys you won’t qualify for and unfortunately that means spending your time answering screening questions just to find out.

Survey points and monetary compensation

The way it works is you earn points for every survey you complete, with 10 points = $1.

You have different options for cashing out your points, but the most popular options are either a direct Paypal deposit or an Amazon gift card. The minimum cashout for Paypal is 100 points ($10) and Amazon gift cards are only 50 points (5). They seemingly pay very quickly too.

But like I said before, it will take you awhile to accumulate 100 points – probably several hours. The survey points range from around 5 – 100 points per survey, but most of them are around 15 – 30 points ($1.50 – $3). They take anywhere from 5 – 60 minutes to complete.

The more honest and in depth you are in your surveys, the longer they will take you (and the less money you make). But they can kick you out if they feel as if you’re just randomly checking boxes, so you don’t want to speed through them too quick!

But no matter how you approach it, it’s not a way to get rich online.

Something to take into consideration if you’re seeing tons of positive reviews… the company has gown downhill in the past few months

Now personally I haven’t used Opinion Outpost prior to January 2015, but after reading hundreds of user reviews there seems to be a pretty high general consensus that the company has gone downhill within the past few months.

This user pretty much summed up what 100’s of others were saying. It was a smooth site prior to 2014, but now there are tons of issues with not only customer service, but it’s become increasingly harder to qualify for the surveys and they let you take pretty much an entire survey before they kick you out for “not qualifying” and not give you any points to compensate.

I only used it for the purposes of trying it out, but as I stated previously within this review I did spend awhile “prequalifying” for surveys only to be told I wasn’t a match. That is pretty obnoxious and a waste of time considering you get no points whatsoever for it.

And frozen account issues…

While I haven’t experienced the frozen account issue personally, it seems to be a pretty common complaint.

So many of the extremely positive reviews were prior to last year, before the company apparently made it much more difficult to qualify for surveys, started giving less compensation per survey, as well as kicked people out and froze accounts.

The reality is you’re getting paid way less than minimum wage – is it really worth your time?

So even when I take the positive reviews into consideration, there’s something I find totally mind boggling about it. These people say they’ve spent weeks or months taking surveys and brag about how much they’re making… which most of the time equates to $20 – $30 per month.

So… this person spent 16 hours over the course of 4 days and made out with $30. That’s a very little amount of money to get for such a large investment of time. If you do the math, it works out to less than $2 per hour!

Okay to be fair, I get it.

These surveys can be taken from the comfort of your own home without having to deal with all the stress, crap and drama that goes along with carrying out a low paying job for some extra cash (trust me, been there, done that). You can do it in your PJs, laying in bed on your laptop… that is the ultimate dream and I think most people would prefer that to flipping burgers or cashiering.

But at the same time, the money you make from the time investing just isn’t worth it. I learned there were much better (and more profitable) alternatives for making extra cash online that were way more fun.

A better solution for making extra cash online

While Opinion Outpost may not be a scam, it isn’t the best option for people looking to make any type of real, sustainable online income.

Think about this – would you rather invest your time working on something that’ll pay you once (like filling out a survey for at most, a few dollars), or spend time working on something that’ll pay your over and over again, day in and day out, even though you only spent that one day doing the work?

I know, it sounds too good to be true. But honestly it’s what I have been doing for the past couple of years now (building affiliate niche websites online) and I cannot explain how amazing the feeling is of waking up and seeing you’ve made money while you were sleeping…literally.

It’s so much more practical and profitable then any online survey site, and if you are bored to death of taking surveys then I recommend you give it a shot.

Have any of you tried Opinion Outpost or similar survey sites? What have been your experiences? Please share them down below, I’d like to get a decent collection of reviews/stories down below.

Progam:

Survey Money Machines may look like another paid survey scam site at first glance, but it’s actually an entirely free program to join. However, it’s really nothing special or different than any other survey site.

I’m quite familiar with online survey companies such as this one, so I’m going to do a quick Survey Money Machines review. I’ll go through the process of how it works, discuss the pros and cons, and help you decide if it’d be a good fit for you.

If not, I can provide an alternative solution for those looking to make extra cash online. (See my #1 recommendation here).

How does Survey Money Macines work?

You won’t be taking surveys directly via the Survey Money Machines site; rather it’s simply a database that provides listings to a bunch of companies where you’ll be able to take surveys from. You’ll need to register seperately for each company you want to take surveys with, though, and you’ll end up giving out a lot of your personal information left and right if you aren’t careful.

Basically all these survey job board sites are all the same with only slight variations of listed companies.

SMM actually did provide a rather large database; when I signed up they gave me 45 different companies to choose from!

These are companies such as Swagbucks, Ipsos I-Say, YouGov, National Consumer Panel, Clearvoice Surveys, MintVine, Opinion Outpost, and Inbox Dollars, just to name a few. But a closer examination on my part revealed not everything listed within the database to be completely legit. Some of them weren’t even related to online surveys but were actually scams!

WARNING!!! Some of the websites listed are not survey sites at all. I ran into two completely irrelevant sites, Project Payday and Real Writing Jobs.

Project Payday is a CPA freebies site where you make money by completing CPA offers and referring others. It isn’t really a scam, but it is NOT an online survey site.

Real Writing Jobs is supposedly a membership site where inspiring writers can find legit freelance jobs, but I’ve previously joined and reviewed the program and it’s a total scam.

What survey companies should you sign up for?

All of the suggested survey websites are not created equal. Some are very professional and strictly business, while others are overly promotional and spammy (or downright scams!!!).

The ones I liked best:

• I-Say
• YouGov
• Swagbucks
• Inbox Dollars

These all offer very clean, professional and easy to take surveys that don’t send you to the moon with additional offers. All of them work by earning you points to cash out for some type of gift card (such as Amazon or Walmart)  or PayPal deposit.

I’d stay away from:

• Big Bucks Survey – VERY spammy and slaps you with an overwhelming amount of promotions while you try and take the surveys.
• Media Insiders Panel – not really a survey site at all. They pay you to install an app on your tablets and/or smartphones which allows them to spy on you!
• Project Payday – CPA freebie offer site, not related to online surveys at all
• Real Writing Jobs – total scam

I noticed the trend with some of the survey companies is to sneakily incorporate CPA offers into their questionares…

For example, you’re answering a survey regarding your tastes for restaurants. You come across a question like “Which is better – McDonald’s or Burger King?“; upon answering a new screen will pop up and take you to a form to fill that claims you’ll get a $50 gift card to your choice of McDonald’s or Burger King. After you select your choice and fill out your basic information (name, address, birth date, phone number) you’ll be redirected to a 3 step process you need to complete to get your gift card.

This is where it gets sneaky. Each of the offers you need to complete will require you to register for paid access to different services. For example, creating an account with freester.com; become a member of the disney book club; or sign up for a 30 day trial to Gamefly.

Within the terms and conditions you’re told that you must not cancel any more than 1 of the accounts before the first 30 days if you want to remain eligible to recieve the gift card. So you’ll have to stay a paying member of these sites to even qualify.

You need to be very careful when a survey redirects you to additional offers, because it happens all the time. Before you know it, you’re in over your head with accounts to 40 different companies you didn’t even want in the first place! And as for actually recieving the gift card rewards you’re promised for signing up for the offers, that’s another story…

How much money can you make with Survey Money Machines?

They claim $50 an hour or $15 – $30 per survey, but that is a load of crap. Realistically you can expect probably around $2 – $3 for every hour you put in.

While they do make it quite clear it isn’t a get rich quick program, they go on to claim you can expect to make quite a bit per every survey. They tell you that all of the companies will pay you $15 – $30 per survey, but you’ll only be able to fill out a couple surveys per week from each company.  Therefore, you must sign up to at least 10 companies to make sure you’re getting the most opportunities possible.

First of all, most of the surveys you encounter won’t pay anywhere near that amount. I’ve signed up with many different survey companies and taken lots of surveys, and the ones that do offer more are only with certain companies and usually it requires signing up for a service first to qualify (meaning you must invest some money).

It may be something like signing up for services to a particular insurance company or book club so you can provide a fair assessment. With this initial investment required, that bigger reward is much less worth it.

Let me give you a more realistic view of the type of income you’ll earn from online surveys…

I spent about 2 hours the other day taking various surveys from I-Say and ended up with 500 points. Now, the way that I-Say operates (as well as several other survey companies) is each survey earns you a certain amount of points. When you accumulate a mimimum amount, say 1,000 points, you can cash out for prizes such as gift cards or Paypal deposits.

Cashing out 2,000 points from I-Say gets you $20 PayPal funds. Seeing as it took me 2 hours to earn 500 points, I can figure it’ll take about 8 hours to earn the 2,000. Earning 20 dollars for 8 hours of work is only $2.50 per hour!

And that wasn’t the first time I’ve ever taken online surveys, either. These companies are all very simliar and you do have to put in several hours of survey work just to get a few extra bucks.

Here’s a glance at some surveys for Inbox Dollars:

As you can see, that’s only $4.75 for 1.5 hours of work!

Pros:

• Some of the survey sites recommended are completely legit and provide you with clean, professional surveys.
• You can definitely earn some extra cash by taking surveys.
• It’s relatively easy and requires no particular skills.

Cons:

• While you can earn extra money, it takes a lot of time and you end up working for just a few bucks an hour (way less than minimum wage)!
• It’s a waste of time if you don’t actually enjoy it.
• Every company has a minimum payment threshold. If you sign up for many different companies, it’ll take a lot more effort to reach the minimum payouts for each one.
• Some companies within the SMM databaseare overly promotional and really spammy. You’ll be up to your eyeballs in pop ups and offers before you can finish a simple questionnaire.
• Certain companies will make you sign up for services or buy products before you can complete a survey, which requires an initial investment.
• You’re giving out a lot of personal information, sometimes even your social security number is required
• They claim they don’t spam you, but your inbox will be filled with spam emails before you know it and your phone will be blowing up with telemarketer calls. Create a seperate email account speficially for online surveys if you want to get seriously into it. Try to avoid any offers that require a phone number as well.

My final opinion – Is it worth it?

Survey Money Machines is only a database that provides you with links to survey companies and nothing more. While some of the suggested survey sites are pretty cool and a fun way to earn some extra cash, other recommended companies are actually scams, which really makes this program lose a lot of credibility in my eyes.

Remember to be careful when it comes to giving out your personal information – create a new email address for online survey companies and try to avoid offers that require a phone number. Also, don’t go too crazy when it comes to signing up for these companies; be selective and only join the best ones. I-Say, YouGov, Inbox Dollars and Swagbucks are my personal recommendations.

If you genuinely enjoy taking online surveys, it’s a hobby that can pay a few bucks. But only you can be the judge of whether the little money is worth it or not.

If you are looking for a way to make consistent, reliable income online there’s really only one program I can truly recommend to beginners. It’ll teach you how to build a website around your passions, interests or hobbies and actually earn real money doing it.

Check Out My Top Recommendation Here

Product:

Rating: 3/5 stars

Introduction – Is Survey Junkie legit or will they scam you?

If you’ve heard that online survey taking is a scam, it’s probably because there are a lot of scams that claim to be survey taking sites (see: Get Cash for Surveys). Programs like these will make you pay a fee for access to survey site lists, but are basically just portals to endless upsells for services that are entirely unrelated to online survey taking. However, Survey Junkie is completely legitimate, unrelated to any such scummy products and is 100% free (you should never pay to access survey sites). The only thing you are giving up is your time and personal information, so if you don’t mind the trade off then you don’t have much to worry about.

Will you earn the big bucks with Survey Junkie?

Survey Junkie claims to be “the most popular spot online to earn cash and rewards for sharing your thoughts”, but is that really true?  Well if you don’t mind lots of junk mail you can actually earn rewards for filling out surveys provided by Survey Junkie and its partnered networks. Each survey you complete earns you a certain number of points which you’ll be able to cash out for prizes, like gift cards or prepaid visa cards, once you reach the cash out threshold.

But no matter what anyone tells you, this is not your ticket to riches. In the past, I’d spend weeks filling out surveys online and getting excited every time a new survey opportunity popped up in my email. But no matter how many I completed, I only ever earned enough points to redeem silly $5 gift cards to Wal-mart or Target.

Dont get me wrong, I have nothing against gift cards… but it just doesn’t seem like a very practical way to spend your time. I can think of a lot easier ways to earn $5 (and ones that would take a heck of a lot less time)!

You can spend weeks, months and even years dabbling in online surveys but not matter how long dedicate to it, you’ll find yourself getting very little in return.

So what sort of rewards are possible?

Generally you won’t get checks in the mail for suveys, instead the points you earn can be redeemed for prizes. These prizes vary depending on the survey company. Some offer t-shirts, gift card to itunes, restaurants, and various stores like Walmart, Kmart or Target while others will give you Amazon gift cards, PayPal funds or a Visa prepaid card.

The Amazon and Visa cards are more heavily weighted than other gift cards – for example the same amount of points that would get you a $15 Amazon card would also redeem a $25 Kmart gift card at YouGov.

Other companies such as Ipsos I-Say will let you reedem your points to donate to charities like Unicef or Habitat for Humanity.

How does it work?

Once you sign up with Survey Junkie you’ll be redirected to sign up for additional survey taking sites, and told to pick up to 5 (but you can sign up for them all if you want). All of these survey sites are all completely free to join, so the only thing you are actually investing into this is your time.

Important: You’ll want to create a new email account to give to these survey companies. You can create a gmail account free, and trust me it’ll save you a lot of headache later on. Once you start signing up for surveys, you’ll soon see your inbox flooding with junk as you’re required to give your email to many different companies who in turn will sell your email (and information) to other companies.

SJ will send survey alerts straight to your inbox, but in order to get the most opportunities you’ll need to create accounts at the additional suggested survey sites.

Here’s a few survey companies you can choose to sign up from within Survey Junkie:

Ipsos I-Say
MySurvey
Harris Poll Online
YouGov
SurveySpot
Mintvine
Clearvoice Surveys

These sites are actually independent companies so you can sign up for any one of them directly if you wish (without even joining SJ).

But even if you sign up for every one single one of these companies, you won’t find it to be an endless buffet of all you can take surveys. For every survey they are looking for a very specific demographic to take it, and they’ll first select you based on the information you filled out when you created your account.

Even the surveys you seemingly qualify for will throw a bunch of screening questions at you before you’re allowed to take it. You’ll start answering questions, thinking you’re taking a real survey but before you know it you’re alerted with the message “sorry, you do not qualify for this survey!” when all you can think is, “wait, wasn’t I already taking it?”

Unless you’re incredibly lucky you’ll find yourself disqualified for most of the surveys. It’s really annoying because you waste a bunch of time answering screening questions just to be told you don’t qualifty. Although, normally they’ll give you bonus points for at least taking the screening portion that you can use to redeem rewards.

The endless pry for information

One of the problems I ran into when taking online surveys is they never stop asking for your information. For every new survey company you sign up for, you’ll need to provide all your personal details all over again, including full name, email, phone number, birthdate, address, as well as questions about your household income.

It makes me a little uncomfortable providing this information to companies who I know will turn around and sell my contact details (like phone number and email address) to others.

I didn’t really give it a second though when I first started, but soon my email was overflowing with 100’s of junk mail on a daily basis and my cell phone would ring several times per day with sales calls… (which only started after I gave my number out to these survey sites). Coincidence? I think not!

It got so bad I actually had to change my phone number.

This is why it’s important to open up a new email account specifically for your survey accounts. That way you don’t have to deal with the mass amounts of junk that’ll get sent your way.

As for the phone number issue, not all of the sites ask for it so I’d recommend shying away from the ones who do. As for the address, if you’re really concerned about privacy, you can always open up a P.O. box. But I haven’t had any issues with them sending junk mail to my house address.

Final Opinion

Survey Junkie isn’t a scam, it’s 100% free and you can actually cash out prizes for taking surveys. However, the time you put into it probably won’t be worth the rewards you recieve so it’s really up to whether or not you want to waste your time.

While you can protect yourself by creating a new email, giving out a P.O. box and avoiding signing up with companies that ask for a phone number, you’re still wasting a lot of valuable time you could be spending doing something more productive.

If you like to do this sort of thing for fun, then there is nothing wrong with that. But if your intentions in joining Survey Junkie are to replace a full time job, that is just never going to happen. No matter how many hours you put into it your efforts will only end up paying you pennies in the end.

A much more fun, productive and lucrative opportunity awaits for you on the internet…

Check out my #1 recommendation for making money online

(it’s 100% free to join)