Online Survey Review: PSB Internet Surveys Group

A review of PSB Internet Surveys Group

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.

PSB Internet Surveys Group

This review is a little different from my other reviews in that the PSB Internet Surveys Group is not actually a survey site where you sign up and take surveys. Rather it is a survey generator. That means it is a company that creates surveys for clients and places them on any number of actual survey taking sites where you can take their survey. There are literally dozens if not more such sites.

PSB stands for Penn, Schoen, Berland. Like many similar companies, PSB is a market research and consulting firm that “specializes in bringing the lessons from the political campaign trail into the corporate boardroom to give our clients the strategic insights they need to beat the competition.” That means it is trying to “market” or sell its clients products, ideas, services to people like you and they use the ruse of real surveys to get you interested in what they are selling. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does mean you should be disabuses of the notion that the survey you are taking is in any way real research.

What I’ve found with the PSB-sponsored surveys that they are quite limited, which can be annoying. For example, many if not most of their surveys are repetitive surveys having to do with movies. When I see one of them I usually quit the survey because they are long, boring and have a high frequency of having you bounced for the survey even after you’ve completed it. Occasionally, a decent PSB survey will come along. Your own experience will give you the insight as to whether one of their surveys is worth doing or not, and most importantly, if you want to spend the time on it versus proceeding to another survey.

If you’d like to read my “Tips For Being A Successful Online Survey Taker - By Not Following The Rules” click here.

Online Survey Review: Data Intelligence

A review of Data Intelligence as an online survey site earns it a “D-”

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.

Data Intelligence

Data Intelligence also goes by the name Elite Opinions at times. It is a site operated by CRG Global Company based in Florida.

The Good

DI is a typical online survey site. You take surveys, you get points and you are able to cash in the points for prizes and cash. (They also provide numerous online sweepstakes with prizes such as Apple iPods). Typically they offer only one to two surveys a month that are generally about 20 minutes in length. The points you earn can be converted into cash or redeemed for prizes in their “catalogue.”

The Bad and the Ugly

DI is one of several survey sites that only offer surveys once or twice a month – which hardly seems worth the effort. Worse, they require you to earn 1,000 points before you can cash in or redeem a prize. And while they say you can earn cash, going to their rewards section shows only a $10 Amazon gift card available for your 1,000 points. I don’t know if other gifts show up once you’ve earned 1,000 points or more, but the 1,000 points is daunting to say the least. It’s certainly not a site I would spend time with unless you have a lot of spare time on your hands. It sort of makes you wonder why CRG Global Company even bothers with it.

As for that sweepstakes it offers on its home page? I’ve never, ever seen evidence that the sweepstakes actually happens. There’s no mention of “winners” on its website and if there is anyone out there that has won a sweepstakes from DI I certainly would like to hear from them.

It richly deserves its “D-” rating if not worse.

If you’d like to read my “Tips For Being A Successful Online Survey Taker - By Not Following The Rules” click here.

Surveys Latest Attention Test

Survey sites are desperate to make sure you are paying attention and they are increasing their efforts to make sure you do.
There's the old "captcha" method (see my previous posts on this). There's the add 2+2 method to try and make sure you are not a machine (yes, there are people who try to get their automatic survey taking programs to replace human effort in order to gain an advantage and more prizes and/or money). And there are a host of other methods the survey companies are using to try and make sure you are really reading and filling out the surveys legitimately. Of course there's their basic method - that of kicking you off their site if they perceive (even wrongly) that you are not spending enough time completing their surveys.
Recently, I've noticed a new method being used to test you -  one that shows, at least, that the survey companies have a slight sense of humor.
The test is to have you answer some questions that include a ringer designed to trip you up if you are not reading carefully. But included in the series of questions is one that is kind of funny. Here's what it looks like:

As you can see, the last question asks if you've ever flown a spaceship - that's the ringer. For an automated survey answering program it's likely that it will fill in the boxes randomly thereby tripping up the person using the program. For you, just keep a watchful eye out for these and similar tests. Then, just keep speeding carefully along. Remember, in the survey game speed is key. Just don't get lost in a spaceship.