by Akuseru

Created on: December 05, 2009

Are you interested in getting paid for giving your opinion on products and services you use every day? Becoming a member of an incentive-based consumer opinion panel can be a great opportunity to do just that. Unfortunately, it can often be difficult to separate the legitimate panels run by reputable market research companies from the scams.

One of the easiest ways to tell if a paid survey site is a scam is to take a look at the incentives it offers its panel members. Legitimate paid survey sites offer reasonable incentives to their panelists for the time it takes them to complete surveys. An average survey from a reputable consumer opinion panel will take between fifteen minutes to half an hour to complete, and panel members will usually receive anywhere from $0.50 to $5 after completing the survey.

Some legitimate paid survey sites do offer much higher rewards for certain surveys. These are usually follow-ups to screening surveys that panelists have completed. They usually require more time from the panelist, and often require participation in an interactive chat session. While the rewards for this type of follow-up can be extremely high compared to typical paid surveys-Greenfield Online occasionally offers its panelists up to $50 for participating in interactive sessions-opportunities to take them are generally very few and far between. High-paying surveys are the exception, not the rule.

Legitimate paid survey sites will never make claims about the amount their panel members can earn from them. They are operated by market research companies that are paid to collect information from various demographic groups for manufacturers of products and providers of services. Because they offer surveys targeted at a wide demographic range, their panelists' earning potential is extremely varied. Legitimate paid survey sites may disclose the average number of survey invitations their panelists receive in a specified time period, but they will never even hint that there is a possibility of their members earning an hourly wage completing paid surveys for them.

Something that a legitimate paid survey site will never, ever do is require its members to input credit card information of any kind. They will require panelists' addresses if they issue payments for surveys by check, or a valid PayPal email address if they offer payment by that method. Aside from this, legitimate paid survey sites have no need for a member's financial information.

Consumer opinion panels will occasionally

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