Avoid encounters that could lead to your being bumped off survey site
As an avid online survey taker I am very aware of the pitfalls that sometimes open up – often unexpectedly (and unjustifiably) – when you take online surveys. Here’s a cautionary tale that occurred to me recently.
Focusline is one of the better online survey sites. It offers a plethora of surveys to take almost every day and you can accumulate rewards (which you can transfer to cash or get prizes) fairly quickly. I’ve highly recommended it in the past and continue to do so.
However, like other survey sites, Focusline can get quite sneaky. Recently, I’d accumulated enough reward points, $50, to take a cash payout. But, when I proceeded to the reward site I was unable to complete my cash out transaction. Repeated emails to the company proved fruitless. I was getting pretty upset about this when I finally received a response that said my account had been suspended because I had been tagged for taking surveys to rapidly.
Speed Kills
Now, being dinged for speeding through surveys is not a new experience. I’ve often preached that moving rapidly through surveys is the only way you’ll every make a decent amount of money doing online surveys – although never enough to make it anywhere near your sole source of income. Accordingly, I’m fairly careful about this and I’ve taken several precautions – such as opening two windows simultaneously and doing surveys from two sites at the same time – something you should do as well.
I’m pretty sure my speeding through surveys was not something I’d been doing on Focusline, but whether I had or not is not the issue as far as I’m concerned.
Survey companies, I’ve found, do a number of things that are annoying and border on unfair (e.g. not rewarding you for surveys you complete, taking a percentage out of your rewards for their “expenses” and more). But, in this case what was particularly annoying is that 1) there was no warning that there was a problem, 2) the money I was legitimately due was taken, and 3) the confiscation and the closing of my account only came when I was near cashing out my accumulated rewards (if I was truly speeding along, why no cut-off when I had only a few cents or dollars accumulated instead of being at my cash out threshold?).
Be Cautious, But Fast
So, the lesson here is to be cautious. Fortunately, in pleading my case I was reinstated. Does that mean I’m going to slow down or do anything differently? Not a chance. I’m not wedded to any one survey site and there are plenty out there that I could spend my time on and get rewarded for. Well, perhaps I’ll take a half second longer, but that’s the limit of the changes I’ll make.
The online survey businesses would love to hold your attention for long periods of time in order to market their wares to you. If you’ve got oodles of time on your hand, great. But, if you value your time and you realize that the rewards are meager anyway, I’d say follow my advice and proceed with all due haste through your survey experiences. I’ve got other tips on survey taking and you can read more at http://surveysheriff.blogspot.com/.