How to tell if a survey website is scamming you?

I'm positive that a lot of you already heard of this new, trending "side hustle" kind of thing known as paid surveys. If not, have you been living under a piece of rock? But seriously, even if just from a pop-up advertisement, it surely rings a bell for everyone.

Jokes aside paid surveys are the most simple things ever. You get questions mostly from big companies who are trying to work out a new product and they're curious of people's interests and whether the product is worth to be launched and put on the market. Or they're just want to make a friendlier, better atmosphere to shop at. But these surveys are mostly for making a company economically, technologically and socially more developed. (Or that's what I imagine the situation looks like.)

Maybe some of y'all here already tried a few of these paid surveys too or at least heard of them from a loved relative or a wanna-be-a-millionaire friend. And in most cases it didn't end well, am I right? Well that's because we live in a world where internet and opportunities like this are used by selfish and ambitious people to scam and mislead the others. But let me help you decide once and for all which of these websites are likely to be fake and are not worth your time and risk of information theft.

1. Unrealistic tasks

Websites that are asking you to complete unrealistic tasks and setting goals that can normally take you days, even weeks to achieve are likely to be deceiving you. Let me explain.

Let's say there's a website that pays you for clicking and watching articles, so-called ads and pays you 30-50 cents per article. There are plenty of links to click on (the site updates every day with new links) and each link takes you to a different website, but when you stayed for at least half a minute, you can close the window, and you get the money. Sounds pretty simple until you find out that the withdrawal limit is 500 dollars. This is the first sign to question the site's validity and leave before wasting any more time for nonsense like that.

But let's say you stay and complete this task in about a month. The total amount of time that you spent on clicking on links is about 8-10 hours. You try to click on the withdraw button, but it gives you an even more difficult task, for example inviting 50 people to the website. This is the point where it's obvious: you're being scammed and the probability of this process to be repeated is very likely and it surely won't end with you getting your money.

Moral of the story: if you see a website that looks very promising, favorable or tempting about the amount of money they're "willing to pay" you, don't get your hopes up! Most of the time they're just scamming you.

2. Promising huge amount of money

I think no explanation is really needed for this point. Many websites will make you click just by telling you that you could leave your job and live off just by completing surveys, but we all know that's too good to be true. You'll never gonna get rich by a "side-hustle" like this. Usually the realistic amount of money that you can earn is a few dollars per day and considering the amount of screentime it isn't worth damaging your eyes by sitting in front of the computer all day.

Again, please note that none of these sites will make you a millionaire just by answering questions, it's just a way of showing appreciation for your work and feedback.

3. Insolently many ads

Again, no words needed, same as the previous. If you ever come across with this sign, leave the site immeditely, it's probably a waste of your valuable time that you could be spending on doing something more productive (which could be literally anything else).

If you haven't guessed it already, I've been there and tried these out, yes. And this is the reason I'm telling you not to do the same thing, because it's a waste of your precious time.

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Thank you for reading! If you have any questions or suggestions, leave a comment and stay tuned, because in a few days I'll be posting an article about valid apps that pay you for completing tasks and surveys!