Online Survey Review: Life, Fun & Everything

A review of Life Fund & Everything as an online survey site earns it a “D-”

 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.

Life Fun & Everything

This site – let’s call it LFE for short – is a relatively new online survey site; at least it’s new to me. It’s a sub-site for an online survey organization called Phoenix International. Phoenix is a site I am familiar with. It’s been around for quite some time and is one of the sites I like least because its surveys are invariably very long and they have a penchant for not rewarding points after you’ve spent a long time participating in the survey and/or answering screener questions. I avoid it whenever possible.

But, does LFE mimic Phoenix or is it its own brand of survey site? It’s really hard to tell.

The Bad and the Ugly

LFE’s first problem is that it’s almost invisible. In the months that I’ve been a member of the site I’ve received fewer than five invitations to take surveys.

But, perhaps the worst of LFE is its paltry rewards. It’s one of the worst in the business. It says on its FAQ site that, “we are proud to offer a diverse reward program … from magazine subscriptions to Amazon gift codes.” Not much to be proud of here. Magazine subscriptions? Who in the world would bother with that for filling out surveys that generally take 15 to 20 minutes, according to LFE. And Amazon gift cards are nice, but with the few numbers of surveys offered – as well as the time it would take to reach their “redemption level” for even being able to request your reward payment – it will take you a lifetime to earn anything. And nothing you earn is really worth the time or the effort.

My advice – stay away from this one. It’s D- ranking is appropriate and I’m being generous.

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

Those Darn Movie Surveys

It seems the movie industry is getting more desperate ... and more annoying. If you are a regular survey taker you know what I mean. There's not a day goes by that any given survey site will have a movie survey to take, often many of them.
The problem with the movie related surveys is that they rarely pay off. You go through a plethora of screener questions - always the same and always very long, then you might get to an actual survey where they ask which, if any, of the listed movies you've seen or plan to see. Then, somewhere along the way you will usually get a "sorry, you screened out of this survey" message.
The survey companies and their clients know you are getting fed up with these surveys because they often title the survey differently. One may say "movies" while another may say "entertainment" or some such euphemism or synonym for a movie survey.
I've stopped taking the surveys entirely. If it even hints at being a movie survey I ignore it. I'm sure that's not what the movie companies want me to do. But, on the other hand, if they are going to be so annoying with their surveys, as well as so deceitful about not awarding points, then I have no compunctions about turning off their survey requests. You should too.

Mechanical Turk for Fun and Profit

Mechanical Turk for Fun and Profit

Taking Your Time With Surveys ... Or Else!

I'm a believer in the premise that taking surveys with racing speed is important if you are ever to realize any amount of serious money from surveys ... well, as serious as say one to two hundred dollars a month, as I do.
But, the survey companies don't like speeders and they continue to test ways to slow people like me down. They've become more serious recently it seems to me. Some even measure the time it takes someone to complete a survey. Take less time than they think is necessary to seriously complete a survey and you might find that you won't get the reward you were promised. Of course, once you become somewhat proficient at taking surveys it's quite likely you can diligently take the survey, complete all the questions and tasks and still not spend enough time on the survey in the eyes of the survey company.
That's not fair, but that's the way it is.
For me, I'm not giving in that easily and I've developed a method that works to satisfy the time requirements of the survey companies and my own desire to maximize my time. I'm multi-tasking. I open two windows on my computer (this might not work as well if you take surveys on your cell phone with its smaller screen) and log on to two of my favorite survey sites. I answer a couple of questions on one site before switching to the other and back, etc. etc. That way I'm able to maintain my pace and more often than not satisfy the survey companies.
This method has worked pretty well for me. Another variation is to start a survey - leave it for a few minutes to check email or do something else - and then return to the survey. However, the first method is my preferred one. It takes a little getting used to, but after a while you are really speeding down the survey highway at warp speed.

How Survey Companies Know Who You Are

Survey hosting companies’ real purpose is to gather information on people. It’s an effort for which these companies go to great lengths. Sure they offer great opportunities for you to make a few dollars or win a few prizes, but for the companies this is a serious business. How serious can be seen by way of the efforts they make to verify the information they gather about you.

There are several companies that help in this effort. One is called Imperium. You can read more about them at imperium.com. Like a number of other companies in this field, Imperium’s purpose is to help survey companies – as well as other businesses and organizations – “achieve high-level data integrity.” What that means is Imperium is charged to figure out how they can go about verifying the information you give about yourself in a survey – and, by extension, to bounce you out of a survey if you give false or misleading information.

Are You Who You Say You Are?

Imperium has been around since 1990. They have constructed databases for large Fortune 500 companies like Bank of America, Dun & Bradstreet, GE and many more. More recently they have come to specialize in what they call “data integrity and fraud prevention” matters. That includes management systems for online surveys, digital fingerprinting, and identity validation. They also specialize in online parental consent programs.

Among Imperium’s efforts that are particularly relevant to online survey taking are several services. One is called RelevantID. It’s a service designed to assure and certify data quality. Its use of “digital fingerprinting technology” has to do with preventing online fraud and insuring the quality of data retrieved through online surveys. So, for example, the program can detect if users are duplicating what they do by taking surveys more than once by using different email addresses, names, etc. It also tracks geographic locations to determine if surveys taken are coming from the same place.

Another Imperium service is called “Verity.” According to Imperium, “Verity is an identity validation service that helps reduce fraud by confirming the accuracy of an individual’s self-reported data against well known databases that specialize in consumer demographics. These databases seamlessly integrate billions of records across thousands of databases that cover more than 130 countries. Leveraging this information, Verity validates the accuracy of a person’s name, address and other demographics.” To accomplish this Verity’s market research clients (e.g. survey companies) are furnished with a unique global survey respondent ID for each validated respondent. This Verity ID, provides information into online survey participation and provides a better sense of individuals survey respondent behaviors, possible fraud, and more. It’s probably one of the reasons survey sites tell you you’ll have to wait before your points or cash is awarded after you’ve completed a survey. They are verifying the information you’ve given.

How Does This Affect You?

There are several other services Imperium offers, and it is by no means the only company doing this kind of work.

What does this mean for online survey takers? Not too much in terms of taking surveys. But, any notion that your online survey activities are a private thing and the information provided is kept that way is probably wrong. Survey companies say they insure that your data is secure and that most of the data they collect is used only in aggregate. That is probably true … maybe.

And, for those who try to game the system by trying to use multiple identities to take the same survey you are probably going to get caught at some point. But, the systems offered by Imperium and its look-a-likes isn’t fool proof either.

So, if you wonder if “big brother” is watching you as you plow through your daily quota of online surveys … it’s probably true.