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Loyalty means nothing to survey companies


dawn_b_adams

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Usually the first thing I do when I come to Survey Police is read the reviews. I find many of them entertaining, and it gives me ideas as to which survey companies I may be interested in signing up for; and which survey companies to avoid like the plague.

I’m already signed up for the top five survey survey sites for 2020. Plus I have a couple of additional companies I am doing okay with. When I read reviews from others on many sites, there seems to be a recurring theme. Many of them have been with the survey site for at least a year, some for many more years than that. I am seeing people that have been loyal to a particular survey site 15-20 years, getting royally screwed. Unlike most businesses, survey companies do not appreciate your loyalty. It means jack squat to them. I find this appalling and very disappointing. 

People that have been with a site a long time are getting arbitrarily removed for no apparent reason, and being accused of cheating, rushing, or even being a bot. These survey companies are absolutely disgusting parasites. There needs to be a lot more regulation by the government of these survey sites. I know, nobody likes big government, me included. But what these survey sites are pulling is criminal. And it seems like the majority of them are doing these sketchy shoddy practices. Complaining does nothing. They go right back to being terrible. Make no mistake - these sites are raking in huge amounts of money off the backs of all of us taking surveys. There should be some type of minimum wage for survey takers. Oh, but we’re not employees, just “independent contractors”, so we have absolutely no rights or recourse. 

I spend on average of 4-6 hours a day, seven days a week doing surveys. It is actually something I consider a hobby, that I enjoy despite my constant complaining. I get pretty passionate about all my hobbies, and start noticing patterns and such. Yep, life ain’t fair, but I think we survey takers deserve a lot more respect and compensation than we are getting. Just me venting, which I believe I can do on this thread. Thanks for listening to me rant. 

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Not going to argue with anything you said.  Survey sites need to take a tip from insurance companies and give some sort of incentive for being a good driver or in this case, loyal survey taker.  Only one I've encountered like this is Point Club.  They have the whole 'streak' thing, that if you check in at least once a day, you get more bonus points per survey, up to level 10.  Only catch is you do have to maintain it. 

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Well said. What I find with a lot of the support on 90% of the survey sites, are they are absolutely completely useless. 

You show them a screenshot and some still don't reward you. Also I think most of them don't even read your email as they ask you a question that you have already answered in your first email/ticket.

Another classic that they use is "we don't get paid if you don't" they love that one. They take no responsibility either. I mean we are using their site, we don't get rewarded and they fob us off. Some are really rude as well.

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I was just going to start a topic about rushing answers.  Tonight Branded Surveys is accusing me of rushing my answers.  But how long do they think I should take answering the standard questions about my age, gender, race, etc.?  I haven't changed the way I've been doing their surveys.  I've been with them forever & I don't ever recall having had a problem with them before.  Also the "proving you're not a bot" thing is ridiculous.  I had one survey that required me to write an essay about my favorite childhood experience, then a Recapcha (& the pics weren't clear), then they rerouted me to another survey company just to do it all over again.  But I'm not supposed to provide snarky answers to voice my frustration.  I waste most of my time jumping through hoops.  For what?  A few pennies?!  Maybe they need to fix things on their side to prevent bots.  GRRR.

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I agree with what was said above.  I have been doing surveys on-line since 2007.  I have also been tracking my income from panels since then as well.  As time goes on I have dropped certain panels and signed up for others.  I recently dropped Branded because the income I was making from the panel dropped by over 50% last year.  I was also getting accused of rushing, etc.  Overall though my income has dropped over time, which I primarily attribute to greed by the market research companies.

The reason I stick with it is I like the extra income.  I know the panels don't care about us.  We are just "data" to them.  They need data to sell their product (market research), so because they can't get it for free, they are forced to pay us to get it.  But they are constantly trying to minimize payments to us because we are just a business expense.  So I expect to get treated poorly because they just don't care.  I don't like it, but that is the reality.

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Honestly why should any of these companies care how fast we complete a survey as long as we don't just "straightline answers"..I type fast & finish surveys fast...it's just their way of you getting a "dq" & or an "error screen" at the end of a survey since you finish too fast..If we give them honest & legit answers they shouldn't care how fast we do any of their surveys

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I agree 100% about the lack of loyalty. After years of never having an issue, I had a missing credit from Pinecone a few weeks back. Had a hell of a time getting my little $3 credit, but finally got it after back and forth emails. Well, lo and behold, suddenly my log-in info is invalid.

One issue in about 10 years of being with them and they kick me to the curb. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Doesn't that just make you mad enough to spit?  I agree that giving shoddy service or no customer service at all seems to be catching like an epidemic even among sites that formerly were of high standards.  Seems that the habits of a couple bad apples have infected the other good sites and all to our detriment.

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I used to get points from a couple of the survey companies on my birthday.  That has been a few years back and I am sure I am no longer with them at this point. But it was nice to be recognized by them. 

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I agree, most of the survey companies don't really care about respondents. When it comes to consumer studies, respondents are expendable. It sounds harsh, but this is the reality. So companies don't really have a reason to care about respondents, as long as there's a good enough supply of them. Also, having a decent respondent support department costs a pretty penny. Why should they spend all this money if they don't have to? What's more, recently more and more companies have been automating their processes in an attempt to minimize costs and be more competitive. The end clients don't want to pay as much for survey data and this is what survey companies have to do if they want to survive. What used to be done by people is now just an API running on a server somewhere. Or a bot that's supposed to provide support to respondents. I'm usually an optimistic person, but in this case I don't think that things will improve for respondents.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Great comments. When I write (email) to them about not getting points, I say "most of us are honest and not fair not to give points". I am sure they do not care, but I have started doing it anyway.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I stopped paying attention to those reviews yrs ago bcoz most are based on how fast the panel pays or if the surveys are "fun"(rolleyes). Neither of those matter to me and I don't care if it takes 8weeks to get paid as long as I get paid. Higher incentives offered are most important to me bcoz that says the panel values your time like Pinecone, ACOP, hatch. The frequency of survey invites doesn't mean squat if they only pay pennies per min, example, the lowest incentive I'll accept is $1 for a 15min(6.6cents pr min) survey. I will not do $1 for 20min(5cents pr min), $1.50 for 20min(7.5cents pr min) I will do. Plus over the yrs I've noticed the same survey from a panel that sends a lot of invites pays less for that same survey than a panel that sends few invites.

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