Saturday, October 27, 2012

Online Survey Review: ESEARCH


A review of ESEARCH as an online survey site earns it a “C+”
By The Survey Sheriff


This is an ongoing review of popular online survey sites.  The sites offer cash, prizes, sweepstakes and other rewards for people interested in spending a few minutes or hours online taking surveys. As with all these reviews, a letter grade is given for each online survey site. The grade is based on my own experience, but also on the following criteria:
1. The rewards/prizes offered
2. The frequency of surveys available to be taken
3. How quickly payment is made for completed surveys
4. Responsiveness to customer complaints
5. Fewest glitches or other incidents that make taking a survey unpleasant.

ESEARCH - Grade: C+

The Good
ESEARCH isn’t great, it isn’t bad, it isn’t ugly – it’s just there.
That’s the best I can say about this survey site. It’s primary flaw – and hence my C+ rating – is that you rarely hear from them.
The California-based company has been around since 1995 and it is probably one of the least well-known survey sites around – at least from my perspective.
One of the good things, however about ESEARCH is that you get paid (via PayPal) directly after taking a survey. There’s no waiting to accumulate points; once you’ve successfully completed a survey (or very shortly thereafter) your PayPal account will be credited. Most of the surveys pay from $1 to $5. On occasion there are bonuses awarded for a survey, but you’ll have to wait to be notified by ESEARCH whether or not you have won a bonus.
Should this be one of your primary survey sites? Probably not. There’s just not enough surveys or rewards you can accumulate to make it worth your while. Then again, for the few times it pops up and offers you a survey to take, and you have the free time, what the heck?

The Bad
There isn’t a whole lot that is bad about e-Polls except for the fact that polls are few and far between.

The Ugly
I can’t say there are any “ugly” elements to ESEARCH. It’s just sort of there, popping up once in a while in my email box.

If you’d like to read my “Tips For Being A Successful Online Survey Taker - By Not Following The Rules” go to http://www.infobarrel.com/Tips_For_Being_A_Successful_Online_Survey_Taker__By_Not_Following_The_Rules#ixzz1mOLbG43K

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Survey Sites To Avoid


The process or hobby of taking surveys for enjoyment and some profit depends to a great extent on picking the right survey sites and the right surveys to become a member of and participate in.
The key is to maximize your time and effort. You don’t – unless you are a glutton for punishment – want to waste your time on non-productive survey sites, nor on surveys that take a lot of time and for which you receive little reward.
Over the years I’ve noticed several survey sites that offer you little and are best to avoid. These are split into two categories. The first are survey sites that don’t give you very many surveys to take. You hear from them rarely. For example, esearch.com isn’t going to offer you many surveys. There are others that you’ll come across as you peruse the world of survey sites. It’s not terrible to participate in these sites, but what you need to look out for is the prize/money requirements – that is, many of them don’t let you cash in until you have, say $30 or more dollars. With so few surveys offered that could take a very long time. If you don’t mind waiting, go ahead. I prefer to avoid these and concentrate my time on sites that offer minimum dollar limits and/or offer many surveys so I can get a cash equivalency very quickly.
Avoid These
The second category is comprised of actual surveys from survey companies that you might want to avoid. They either have long, long surveys for very little money; or they are duplicative – offering the same survey over and over again; or – and this is most maddening – they have you take a long survey only to deny you your compensation for some phony reason.
I’m going to mention several of these sites, but as you move through the survey world you’ll come across them and learn to avoid them.
1. Any URL that has “Opinionshere” in it is one that I try to avoid. They are typically very long and on too many occasions I’ve been denied my due credit because after taking the survey they say the “quota has been filled.” Telling me that once might be acceptable, but when I see it over and over again I know I’m being scammed.
2. Surveys from a survey company using the label “Phoenix,” is also one I avoid. It’s not that it denies credit or gives excuses like Opinionshere, but the surveys are always interminably long – too long to be worth the payment amounts they give.
3. Most surveys from “Hall & Partners” revert to a constantly reappearing insurance survey (it seems to focus mostly on Farmer’s Insurance, so that’s probably who is sponsoring the survey). The surveys are always long, frequently don’t give you the award promised and are inevitably bo-o-o-ring. I avoid Hall & Partners if possible (on some very rare occasions the company does present a survey other than insurance and you can quickly tell if it is one or the other).
4. Movie surveys are one of the worst. They are very enticing and are offered by multiple survey companies but they are mostly the same survey. I’ve gotten them several times a day on occasion. The worst thing about them is that they are very long and, at least in my experience, are most frequently surveys that will deny payment after completing the survey or find some excuse why you weren’t eligible to complete the survey (in some cases you are told the latter even though you’ve completed the survey).
There are several other survey sites and survey hosts to look out for. As you continuing doing surveys you’ll quickly see which ones offer you a credible reward for a survey of reasonable length. Avoid the others; they are not worth the time you’ll spend on them.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Alert: Focusline Is Watching Closely


Last week I observed that Focusline seemed to have stopped offering surveys. Now I’ve found the answer and it provides a cautionary tale.

After emailing Focusline I received a response that my account had been suspended for “inconsistencies.” I have no idea what that means, nor what I might have done or failed to do. And, Focusline offered no explanations other than to say the measures has been taken to maintain the quality of the data “we provide to our clients.” They also mentioned that I had “only 6 surveys marked as invalid.” Again, they offered no explanation and it seemed odd that they used the word “only” indicating I didn’t have many invalid surveys – so why the suspension? (I emailed again suggesting that some advance notice of a problem would have been nice).

After reviewing my data Focusline decided to “un-suspend” my account and I’m now able to take surveys again. However, Focusline gave me a stern warning that I “should provide a truthful and honest response to the surveys you complete like you always do so that any of the survey completed by you should not be marked invalid by our clients. Else, we will be forced to suspend your account permanently to ensure the quality of our panel and the data we provide to our clients.”
Not knowing what it was that may have been a problem in the first place it’s hard to know what I’m supposed to do differently.

I’m guessing that perhaps it was something to do with speeding through surveys to achieve the maximum benefit – something I’ve always preached and continue to preach. After all, slogging through some very long-winded surveys is not productive and is not going to get you a lot of points/prizes. If that’s the case my solution is simple. I take two surveys simultaneously from two different survey companies. That slows down the speed at any one site, but still allows me to speed along at a pretty good clip. It takes some time and concentration, but it’s easily doable and I encourage you to try it.

The bottom line here is that you should keep a close eye on what you do at Focusline. It is one of the better sites and pays well and quickly. So, I don’t want to tick them off and neither should you. 

Friday, October 5, 2012

The Disappearance of Focusline

Focusline has been one of my favorite online survey sites. But, recently (we're talking mid-October 2012), the site has all but disappeared. There have been no emails from Focusline inviting me to take surveys and going to the website shows "no surveys" to take for the past 10 days.
if you've had similar experiences with Focusline I'd like to hear from you.
Curiously, Focusline's sister site, "Surveyhead," is doing just fine. It's hard to tell if they've shut down one to concentrate on the other, or if they are consolidating or what.
Let's hear from you fans - share any news you may have.