Problem with Swagbucks

[mikedorb]

I tried to log into my account tonight and was asked to enter my email and my country and was told they need more info about my account. It appears my account has been deactivated. I think things got triggered by me yesterday requesting a 25.00 PayPal payment which was denied. After trying to log in I got the following email from them. 

My account needs more information - Please review ASAP.

Hello Michael,

This auto-reply is to let you know we have received your email and will get back to you with a response as soon as possible. Generally, you’ll hear from us no later than 10 business days. Weekends and holidays may delay the response time to 30 business days.

What is going on? I have had issues with them before. Once somebody set up an account in my name and cashed out with a 15.00 Amazon card and told them it wasn't me. They told me I had two accounts and never set the second one up and told them that. It took months to get that straightened out. Then more recently maybe a year or so ago I was banned from doing surveys but they agreed to remove the ban after corresponding with them. 

I was later able to get back into my account tonight but cannot earn any points. And the points for the denied PayPal payment never were put back into my account.  

 

I am thinking this company is crooked and a scam. Yes I can earn a lot of points very quickly but there are always going to be issues. I broke one of my rules by waiting to get to 2500 points before cashing out. Part of the reason was I am owed 2000 points for completing a survey last month where I had to document all of my payments for the month whether I used cash, check, credit card, debit card or whatever other method I used. I had maybe about 70 entries for the month. I had done this a couple of other times and always received my points although it took a while. I had been doing 5.00 cash outs but this time I was waiting for the 2000 points and then do everything together. But I hit 2500 points even without the 2000 so I decided to cash out and look what happened. 

Even if I get my account straightened out not sure I want to continue with them. There are just too many hassles to deal with. And I have been with them a long time. Maybe if I just continued with the 5.00 cash outs I would have been OK. Have no clue what I did to make this happen.

I cannot recommend Swagbucks to anybody. It looks great at the beginning when you sign up because it is very easy to earn points quickly. But I will almost guarantee that anybody who has been with them for any length of time is going to eventually run into some kind of an issue. As it is now I am potentially out 45.00. The 2500 points I tried to cash out for a PayPal payment and the 2000 points I have yet to receive for completing that survey. I think this company is run by a bunch of crooks who are scam artists. I would advise everybody to stay clear of them.   

Plus I have earned a lot of bonus points this month for meeting my goal every day through today. Obviously that streak is going to end. But I may wind up losing those points as well. With the 136 points I have in my account now plus the bonus points I would get next month I would maybe have enough for another 5.00 cash out. So in total I could lose 50.00. 

And if someone asked me now what is the best survey company or my favorite not sure what I would say. There seems to be something with all of them I don't like. Either low payouts, too high of a threshold to cash out or having to wait too long to get paid. And the ones where you actually can earn money and have low threshold amounts to cash out like Swagbucks the negatives outweigh the positives and not sure it is worth it trying to deal with them. 

Latest update for Swagbucks today Sunday. Got points for Daily Poll and Daily Search. But nothing else works .I completed Daily Watch and never got the points I earned. Daily Discover the pickings were very slim a lot less than usual and I tried two 1 point activities and never received credit for either one so obviously I am blocked there. And when I click on any Gold Survey I get the message Not every survey can be a winner but keep trying. So I can't do surveys either. This thing is one big mess and I have no clue what is going on. 

But everything seems OK with My Points which surprises me because it is the same company that owns it. But I am not taking any chances. I was going to let my points accumulate so I could get a 10.00 PayPal payment but since I had enough for a 5.00 Amazon I went for that. I am almost expecting the same thing to happen with My Points that happened with Swagbucks and didn't want to risk losing money.  

Edited March 28, 2021 by mikedorb
additional comment

[ksedwar]

Over the last several weeks something has happened at SB and many people have had their account deactivated. If your account is actually legitimate and not breaking TOS you should get it back but it might take some time.

I have no idea what's going on but from the aggressive way they are deactivating accounts it must be serious. Here are some examples of people complaining.

 

[rosiesmom]

The format on their site has changed as well, like overnight. 

[VickiPom]

I've belonged to Swagbucks for about 9 years. I stopped working on there because they were too much trouble. I recently started working on their site again and after a few months I started having trouble again. I've been kicked out of Peanuts Lab with no explanation and get dropped from 90% of all surveys.  They just stop allowing you to do certain operations without reason. I've sent 2 Emails and received no answers. I guess they have enough members so they don't have to care about we old timers.

[pansyrhonda]

Swagbucks is a very dishonest company.  They are having a lot of trouble with many accounts.  You should go to Facebook and read all the negative comments.  I have been with them forever and am constantly denied points.  They also have a bad BBB rating.  If they can, they will cheat you out of your points.  Their contact info for help is never answered.

[rosiesmom]

I can't get a survey completed no matter how many I try. 

[ksedwar]

It's been almost two weeks now and yesterday was the first day I could not get to my minimum goal in a LONG time. Something has changed with the surveys on all of their websites (Inboxdollars, MyPoints). It's like 99.5% of them are not actually available.

The good news is since I finally missed my daily goal I decided to take a few days off of surveys altogether and clear my head a little. The bad news is I need the money I will miss over the next few days. 

[mnleona]

I am using them again and so far, no problems.