by Alaina Forbes

Created on: October 27, 2009   Last Updated: October 28, 2009

Getting paid to test products for a company sounds like a great way to make a little extra money on the side and get some great free perks. The problem is that all the scam artists out there know how appealing it sounds to people and use that to their advantage. Make sure when you apply to a company that claims they will pay you to test products that you do NOT pay them. Any legitimate company will not ask for any money upfront from you, they will be the ones paying you or at the very least giving you free products. Even if they try to tell you that you only have to pay the shipping cost of the item, believe me it is a scam. These "shipping costs" usually are a lot more than it would actually cost to ship the item and you will never receive any item shipped to you.

The other common scam out there is that companies will claim they are a product testing panel and that they will send you a new refrigerator or something great but you just have to complete 5 other offers from sponsors first. They get you to sign up for programs and subscriptions that you don't want or need. You may receive a free product from them but you also may have spent as much on completing offers as the item would have cost to begin with. Before applying with a company please research the company online. If someone has been scammed by the company before chances are that they will have posted about it somewhere on the internet. As with most common scams out there, beneath all the scams there are legitimate companies that will either pay you to do product testing or product reviews or they will send you free products at least for your time.

To get paid to evaluate Hp products check out their website at HP Product Test. VOC-Online is a website that uses your profile to match you up with technical companies who will compensate you in some way for your time. Here are a couple of other companies that compensate you to test products for them.

Contract Testing

CPTC Labs

Here are some companies that will give you free products for testing them for the company. When they are products that you use on a regular basis anyways and it is saving you some money getting them for free then it really is like getting paid anyways.

In Home Product Testing

Bzz Agent

House Party

Trylogy

Some programs are specifically designed for Moms to test Mom based products. Here are a few.

All You Magazine

Kiwi Magazine

Mom Select

Parenting Magazine

She Speaks

Regardless of whether you get paid in money or free stuff, doing product testing or reviews is a lot of fun and you get to try out new products before everyone else. You get to voice your opinion about things you like or don't like about the products and hopefully have an impact on future items available to consumers.

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