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A pet peeve of mine with survey companies in general


mikedorb

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This has been bothering me for a long time and it seems to be getting worse. A lot of surveys are listed that they should take 10 minutes or less to complete and I find that in a lot of cases they are taking maybe twice as long.  How do they determine how long a survey should take to complete?  I know you can get kicked out of a survey for speeding but trust me there is no way you can complete some of these surveys in the amount of time they are saying no matter how fast you are going. Have other people noticed the same thing I have? And it seems overall surveys are longer and the companies are paying less but that is a whole other issue. Before you could actually find surveys that only took 5-10 minutes to complete but those at least from what I have seen recently and I belong to a lot of panels have almost become extinct.  And these surveys that they say should take 5-10 minutes to complete pay what you would expect a survey of that length to pay but the kicker is these surveys often take much longer than that. Sounds like we are being ripped off. The next time I try to complete a 10 minute survey and am able to successfully do so I should time it to see how long it takes me to do it. I would guess in a lot of cases we are talking 20 minutes or even a little longer. And in general I don't find the info they give as to how long it should take to complete a particular survey to be very accurate which makes me wonder if they are purposely misleading us so they can pay us less for completing the surveys. You would think the longer a survey takes to complete the more you should be paid or at least that is the way it should be.   

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9 hours ago, mikedorb said:

This has been bothering me for a long time and it seems to be getting worse. A lot of surveys are listed that they should take 10 minutes or less to complete and I find that in a lot of cases they are taking maybe twice as long.  How do they determine how long a survey should take to complete?  I know you can get kicked out of a survey for speeding but trust me there is no way you can complete some of these surveys in the amount of time they are saying no matter how fast you are going. Have other people noticed the same thing I have? And it seems overall surveys are longer and the companies are paying less but that is a whole other issue. Before you could actually find surveys that only took 5-10 minutes to complete but those at least from what I have seen recently and I belong to a lot of panels have almost become extinct.  And these surveys that they say should take 5-10 minutes to complete pay what you would expect a survey of that length to pay but the kicker is these surveys often take much longer than that. Sounds like we are being ripped off. The next time I try to complete a 10 minute survey and am able to successfully do so I should time it to see how long it takes me to do it. I would guess in a lot of cases we are talking 20 minutes or even a little longer. And in general I don't find the info they give as to how long it should take to complete a particular survey to be very accurate which makes me wonder if they are purposely misleading us so they can pay us less for completing the surveys. You would think the longer a survey takes to complete the more you should be paid or at least that is the way it should be.   

This has been going on for a while in my experience. The worst is when you take the survey, thinking it's going to be a quick one, then 10/15 minutes in you know you have been screwed, you have to then finish it otherwise you have completely wasted all your time, then at the end a useless low paid reward, so frustrating.

Another thing that bothers me, is when you get a reversal. I would like to know how these companies know what answers you have given in the survey, I thought the answers that you give are confidential between yourself and the client that you are doing the survey for. I know most of them are just scamming us and when you ask them to provide proof of the questions you failed, they can't and they stop the ticket and block you.

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You know what drives me crazy. Getting blocked from doing surveys because they are telling you the answers you are giving are either dishonest or inconsistent or whatever word they choose to use. I try to answer all of the surveys honestly so I don't know what the issue is. And they will not tell you which surveys you did that for which tells me there may be another reason like maybe completing a lot of surveys within a short period of time so they figure you must be cheating even though they have no proof. That happened to me about a year or so ago with both Swagbucks and My Points and I believe they are both owned by the same company. Swagbucks agreed to reinstate my access to surveys but My Points refused after much pleading. Isn't it strange that this happened and both are owned by the same company?  Now my ability to earn points on My Points is greatly diminished so meeting my daily goal is a huge challenge and a lot of days I just can't do it. What I have learned from doing surveys for many years is it is best not to try to do too many surveys for any one panel each day. I think if you do that it sends them a red flag and you risk either having your account frozen or losing your access to surveys. That has happened to me a few times in the past and has probably happened at one time or another to just about everybody who belongs to a lot of survey panels and is very active trying to complete surveys. 

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4 hours ago, mikedorb said:

You know what drives me crazy. Getting blocked from doing surveys because they are telling you the answers you are giving are either dishonest or inconsistent or whatever word they choose to use. I try to answer all of the surveys honestly so I don't know what the issue is. And they will not tell you which surveys you did that for which tells me there may be another reason like maybe completing a lot of surveys within a short period of time so they figure you must be cheating even though they have no proof. That happened to me about a year or so ago with both Swagbucks and My Points and I believe they are both owned by the same company. Swagbucks agreed to reinstate my access to surveys but My Points refused after much pleading. Isn't it strange that this happened and both are owned by the same company?  Now my ability to earn points on My Points is greatly diminished so meeting my daily goal is a huge challenge and a lot of days I just can't do it. What I have learned from doing surveys for many years is it is best not to try to do too many surveys for any one panel each day. I think if you do that it sends them a red flag and you risk either having your account frozen or losing your access to surveys. That has happened to me a few times in the past and has probably happened at one time or another to just about everybody who belongs to a lot of survey panels and is very active trying to complete surveys. 

What you said about not doing too many surveys for a specific panel really rings true. I’m careful, as I’ve heard things like this from others. Some days, I switch things up by working on surveys with certain companies one day, and then doing a whole different set of survey companies the next day. I try not to make a habit of logging in to a survey company and doing surveys every day on it because of this. So you’re not the only one. And yeah, I’ve run into the problem with a survey site stating a survey is 10 minutes, and 15 minutes later, I’m royally p———. Even worse, on many I do like that, it will get to the very end and thank me, and then I’m DQ’d and don’t get the money/points. I’m no shrinking violet, and I will loudly complain to the survey site if they do that too many times to me. On a handful, I’ve actually gotten at least partial credit after that. It really depends on the survey site. 

It sure can be frustrating. I’ve gotten to know which sites will consistently screw me over, and those are ones I’ve just downright dumped. That list for me at least is growing by the day. I will not waste my valuable time on getting screwed over.

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Here,  you can use my survey time calibration chart. 

5 minute surveys = 10-12 minutes
10 minute surveys = 15-20 minutes
20 minute surveys = 25-35 minutes
25 minute surveys = 35-45 minutes
30- minute survey = 45 minutes to and hour
Any thing advertised longer than 30 minutes,  pack a lunch. 

Side note:  I avoid any survey listed longer than 20 minutes,   that way when they kick you out half-way or all the way through,  you don't have as much time invested,  '
Sign up with several panels,  (I do 12 at the present time)  and go from  one to the other doing the shorter surveys. 
 

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12 minutes ago, Duck said:

Here,  you can use my survey time calibration chart. 

5 minute surveys = 10-12 minutes
10 minute surveys = 15-20 minutes
20 minute surveys = 25-35 minutes
25 minute surveys = 35-45 minutes
30- minute survey = 45 minutes to and hour
Any thing advertised longer than 30 minutes,  pack a lunch. 

Side note:  I avoid any survey listed longer than 20 minutes,   that way when they kick you out half-way or all the way through,  you don't have as much time invested,  '
Sign up with several panels,  (I do 12 at the present time)  and go from  one to the other doing the shorter surveys. 
 

I think you are pretty much right on with your survey time calibration chart. Almost all surveys seem to take longer than the listed time. 5 minute surveys meaning surveys that actually take only 5 minutes to complete are pretty much nonexistent. I belong to even more than the 12 panels you do and have learned through the years to spread the wealth meaning don't complete too many surveys for any one panel within too short of a period of time or else you risk getting flagged. That has happened to me several times in the past. If you complete lets say 2 surveys with one panel on a given day it may be best to not try to complete anymore with that panel and just move on to another one. Like you I try to stick with the shorter surveys but unfortunately as we have been discussing the shorter surveys these days are often not that short. And yes it is frustrating to invest 20 or more minutes on a survey then get kicked out for whatever reason. This unfortunately happens to all of us who are active doing online surveys. 

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I had one on mypoints that was worth 60 points and was 8 minutes long.  I thought okay, and so I tried to qualify, and finally I got into the actual survey after 4 minutes of questions, and surprise! it was worth 60 points for 30 minutes.  That isn't even 60 cents!  No thanks!  

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21 hours ago, rosiesmom said:

I had one on mypoints that was worth 60 points and was 8 minutes long.  I thought okay, and so I tried to qualify, and finally I got into the actual survey after 4 minutes of questions, and surprise! it was worth 60 points for 30 minutes.  That isn't even 60 cents!  No thanks!  

This is the kind of stuff I run into all the time and it seems to be getting worse. How do they figure out the time it is supposed to take to complete a survey? You expect to be paid much more for a 30 minute survey than a 8 minute one. If they said the survey was 30 minutes long and you were only getting the equivalent of 60 cents for completing it I think most people would pass. It sounds as though they are purposely deceiving us. They had to know that survey was going to take much longer than 8 minutes to complete. A lot of these surveys it would be impossible to complete them in the stated amount of time no matter how fast you are going. I know you can get kicked out of a survey by rushing or speeding but to me at least it is a non issue because most of the surveys seem to take longer and some much longer than the stated time. If a 8 minute survey took lets say 10 minutes to complete it wouldn't be an issue but 30 minutes is a bit much. 

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I just had one on mypoints, 8 minutes 60 points, sound familiar?  I just exited out of it after 10 minutes because I was given 8 pairs and I had to compare certain points.  6 minutes and I only had 2 done.  Nope, I am done with that.

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15 hours ago, rosiesmom said:

I just had one on mypoints, 8 minutes 60 points, sound familiar?  I just exited out of it after 10 minutes because I was given 8 pairs and I had to compare certain points.  6 minutes and I only had 2 done.  Nope, I am done with that.

I tend to be the same. If the survey progression is going so slow that it will take forever , I close out. Not worth it. Generally , that happens on mypoints it seems.

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On 2/4/2021 at 9:35 AM, mikedorb said:

You know what drives me crazy. Getting blocked from doing surveys because they are telling you the answers you are giving are either dishonest or inconsistent or whatever word they choose to use. I try to answer all of the surveys honestly so I don't know what the issue is. And they will not tell you which surveys you did that for which tells me there may be another reason like maybe completing a lot of surveys within a short period of time so they figure you must be cheating even though they have no proof. That happened to me about a year or so ago with both Swagbucks and My Points and I believe they are both owned by the same company. Swagbucks agreed to reinstate my access to surveys but My Points refused after much pleading. Isn't it strange that this happened and both are owned by the same company?  Now my ability to earn points on My Points is greatly diminished so meeting my daily goal is a huge challenge and a lot of days I just can't do it. What I have learned from doing surveys for many years is it is best not to try to do too many surveys for any one panel each day. I think if you do that it sends them a red flag and you risk either having your account frozen or losing your access to surveys. That has happened to me a few times in the past and has probably happened at one time or another to just about everybody who belongs to a lot of survey panels and is very active trying to complete surveys. 

THIS happened to me with Tellwut. I couldn't figure out why all of a sudden I couldn't take surveys from them so I wrote to customer support as my profile had not changed. They told me that their largest supplier ( I later figured out that it is samplicio.us) has blocked me.  I do believe you are right NOT to take too many surveys in a short period of time as this sends up a red flag. I do think that is why I was blocked.

I take all my surveys seriously so I have NOT BEEN HAPPY about this. I can take a few Tellwut surveys that are not samplicio.us  but they are few and far between.

In the meantime Tellwut says they are working on a fix for this, with this supplier as I am not alone with this problem. 

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I also hate it when any survey company says the survey will be a certain number of minutes and when DOUBLE that time passes I just give up and stop taking the survey. It is VERY frustrating.

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1 hour ago, Sandy21 said:

I also hate it when any survey company says the survey will be a certain number of minutes and when DOUBLE that time passes I just give up and stop taking the survey. It is VERY frustrating.

A 5 minute survey should not take 20 minutes to complete and a 10 minute survey should not take 30 minutes and this happens way too often for my liking. My original question which nobody has answered is how do the survey companies determine the amount of time it should take to complete a survey? They are usually way off. It sounds like they are purposely deceiving us Because these surveys pay like what you would expect 5 and 10 minute surveys to pay but the catch is these surveys very often take much longer than that to complete and if you are lucky enough to even complete them you are getting a very small payment for the amount of time invested. I have always tried to stick with the shorter surveys for the most part which sounds like a good strategy except a lot of the shorter surveys aren't so short.   

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1 minute ago, mikedorb said:

A 5 minute survey should not take 20 minutes to complete and a 10 minute survey should not take 30 minutes and this happens way too often for my liking. My original question which nobody has answered is how do the survey companies determine the amount of time it should take to complete a survey? They are usually way off. It sounds like they are purposely deceiving us Because these surveys pay like what you would expect 5 and 10 minute surveys to pay but the catch is these surveys very often take much longer than that to complete and if you are lucky enough to even complete them you are getting a very small payment for the amount of time invested. I have always tried to stick with the shorter surveys for the most part which sounds like a good strategy except a lot of the shorter surveys aren't so short.   

And if you go to fast you can be labeled as a Speeder

I was let go from one site for that very reason

Doesn't take long to put age,gender,occupation I guess I had to think longer for those answers

Wasn't a great site anyway

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11 minutes ago, mikedorb said:

A 5 minute survey should not take 20 minutes to complete and a 10 minute survey should not take 30 minutes and this happens way too often for my liking. My original question which nobody has answered is how do the survey companies determine the amount of time it should take to complete a survey? They are usually way off. It sounds like they are purposely deceiving us Because these surveys pay like what you would expect 5 and 10 minute surveys to pay but the catch is these surveys very often take much longer than that to complete and if you are lucky enough to even complete them you are getting a very small payment for the amount of time invested. I have always tried to stick with the shorter surveys for the most part which sounds like a good strategy except a lot of the shorter surveys aren't so short.   

I truly think survey sites just throw a dart while blindfolded. :P Okay, just kidding! Or am I? Hmmmm. Sometimes I wonder if the time they state may be the time it takes to do qualification questions. Just guessing on my part. Or maybe they consider that you may be rerouted/redirected multiple times through multiple routers and have to fill out the same questions 4-5 times. Naw, actually, it’s just another bait and switch tactic to con people into filling out mostly ridiculous surveys that will line their pockets. 

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