Most of the survey companies I’ve tried are fairly straightforward about how their rewards systems work. Every time I receive an email invitation to take a survey, I know exactly how many points it is worth before I even click the link. Also, most sites have a page that tells you what your points can be redeemed for.

A few weeks ago, I signed up with a company called Big Idea Group (BIG). You qualify for “clubs” based on your demographic information. Each club has a series of activities where you answer questions about features and usability of a particular class of products, including making suggestions for what features you would like to see on a new product.

BIG uses a points system called BIG Bucks. Each activity awards a number of Bucks. I started completing activities right away, and was pretty impressed with myself when I earned 15 BIG Bucks in about 20 minutes. I wanted to know what they were worth, so I began searching for the site’s Rewards page.

Upon further investigation, I learned that BIG Bucks have no actual value and cannot be redeemed. They are just a way of keeping track of your participation in order to qualify you for their sweepstakes. In other words, Big Idea Group doesn’t actually reward you for completing surveys – they just create the illusion of rewards by giving you points that have no value. I’m usually pretty careful about reading terms of service and FAQ’s, but I guess I missed the memo on that one.

Needless to say, I will not waste any more time on Big Idea Group. Hopefully this post will save my readers a little bit of time. Opinion Outpost is still the only survey company I’ve made money with. I just received a check for $6.40 from them, and have another $10.00 on the way.

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When I started trying to make money online, getting scammed and losing money were major concerns for me. As a result, I took some steps to minimize my risk. Here are a few tips based on my experience:

1. I do not ever pay money to join a paid survey site or mystery shopping provider. Legitimate companies can be easily found with a Google search, and there is no reason for them to charge a fee. They get paid by the companies whose surveys you take.
2. Before I sign up with any site, I type their name, plus the word “scam,” or “fraud,” into a search engine (such as Google) to see what comes up. I decided not to join a couple of sites based on what I found out about them through a quick Google search.
3. I avoid Get Paid To sites. These sites offer incentives for signing up for various trial offers. The problem is, most offers require you to give out your credit card number, which is billed if you don’t cancel within the trial period. Some people have reported problems trying to cancel before the trial period runs out, or being billed for other offers that were hidden in the fine print. In my opinion, the hassle and risk is not worth the little bit of money to be made that way.
4. I set up a free web-based email account solely for the purpose of mystery shopping and surveys. I call this my junk account. I did not set this secondary account to forward to my main email, even though I had the option. I assumed I’d receive a lot of spam, and I didn’t want it cluttering up my main mailbox. I log into it once or twice per day to see if I’ve been offered any new surveys, and that’s it. When I stop doing surveys, I can just abandon the email account and forget it ever existed. I recommend Gmail for this purpose.

If your online activities require to to share your email address or phone number with companies you don’t trust, there are free services for getting around that problem:

1. I set up an account with SpamGourmet.com. SpamGourmet.com is a free service which automatically sets up temporary disposable email addresses that forward to the account of your choice. I don’t recommend using this service for surveys or mystery shopping (you want to hear from those companies), but it could be useful if you are into the GPT sites. I’ve used SpamGourmet.com several times to sign up for mailing lists in exchange for an incentive.
2. Along the same lines, there are a number of net-based voicemail providers. I have an account with k7.net. When you sign up, you give them your name and email address, and they give you a phone number with a 206 (Seattle) area code. Setup is very similar to regular voicemail. When someone calls the number, they go straight to your outgoing message. You can sign in to check your messages, or you can have them sent to your email inbox as audio attachments. The only catch is you have to use the service at least once a month, or your account is deleted. I call my number and leave a message about once every two weeks just to be safe.

That’s all for now. If you think something should be added this list, feel free to post it in a comment.

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