Greenfield Online Surveys costs you a lot of time and nearly nothing in terms of financial compensation. Both Greenfield and Ciao online survey programs are owned and managed by Greenfield Online, Inc. The website seems to be user friendly with lots of pretty graphics, but if can be difficult to find what you really need to know.

Greenfield is free to join. It works on a points system. If you qualify and complete a survey, you earn so many points. You can only cash in these points after completing around 1000 points. You also get an entry into a cash giveaway sweepstakes.

The Big Problem

There are several major problems with Greenfield. First off, it is extremely rare that anyone ever qualifies for a survey - even after spending 20 - 30 minutes answering questions. For example, this writer was a member of Greenfield for one year. I would get four or five survey requests per day.

After a year, I decided that I better check on how many points I had earned. I had answered hundreds of surveys. But unlike some other online survey programs such as IPSOS or Zoom Points, it was very difficult to find out how many points I had. First, my password no longer worked - even though it did for surveys. So, I went through the process to get another password. Finally, I managed to view my member page.

Despite thinking that I had answered hundreds of surveys and a dozen personal profiling surveys, I had managed to earn zero points. I decided to drop them right away, after kicking myself for not checking sooner. Greenfield had cleverly managed to be sure I would never get paid for my time.

Duplicate Surveys

If you are a member of more than one online survey program, then you will be familiar with having the exact same survey pop up on all survey programs that you are a member of. It's inexpensive for companies to hires two or more survey firms, so they send the exact same survey to each.

I recognised a lot of Greenfield surveys being the same as from IPSOS, Survey Spot, Your 2 Cents, Zoom Points and MySurvey.com. This is how I know that I had successfully completed hundreds of surveys for Greenfield - but still wound up with zero compensation for my time and effort.

Other Problems

Anytime I emailed Greenfield, I never received a response. The only times I did were when I contacted automated services such as renewing your password or cancelling your account.

Another problem was that I received an incredible amount of spam, including many that bypassed my spam filter. I had not equated my Greenfield membership to the spam, but they suddenly stopped when I cancelled my Greenfield account.

Learn more about this author, Rena Sherwood.
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