Kicked out of Opinion Outpost

[Duck]

Just a few days ago I listed Opinion Outpost as one of my top three most productive panels,  then today  I get frozen out of my account, I  received this e-mail from them.

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately, the accuracy and attentiveness of your account activity has been flagged, and upon review of your account, we have been forced to suspend your account.

As a member of our program you may only have one account, provide accurate profile information and survey responses. You must also be thoughtful and attentive in responding to our surveys. When we have concerns about any of these program rules we are obligated to take steps to investigate and unfortunately suspend accounts.

We do not take account suspension lightly and do so only when account issues have been identified. At this time your account has been indefinitely suspended and you will no longer be able to participate in surveys or claim rewards from our website.

Thank you for your understanding.
 

Thank you for your patience.

Kind regards,

Princess

Opinion Outpost

That is the second panel I have been ejected from  in less than a year.  If this trend continues I may be out of the survey taking business before long.  Oh btw,  they stuck me for 22 dollars. Another lesson to not let your reward amounts build up very much because you are likely to get screwed at any time.  I really do get sick of this B.S. 

[cjsenour]

The same thing happened to me abut a year ago.  I had surgery and did not take any surveys  for about a month.  When I tired Opinion Outpost, they  also kicked me out for the same reason.  I had been a member for a number  of years.  

[peach6]

6 hours ago, cjsenour said:

The same thing happened to me abut a year ago.  I had surgery and did not take any surveys  for about a month.  When I tired Opinion Outpost, they  also kicked me out for the same reason.  I had been a member for a number  of years.  

They just kicked me out was with them foe 10 years or more

[LinuxPowered]

21 hours ago, Duck said:

Just a few days ago I listed Opinion Outpost as one of my top three most productive panels,  then today  I get frozen out of my account, I  received this e-mail from them.

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately, the accuracy and attentiveness of your account activity has been flagged, and upon review of your account, we have been forced to suspend your account.

As a member of our program you may only have one account, provide accurate profile information and survey responses. You must also be thoughtful and attentive in responding to our surveys. When we have concerns about any of these program rules we are obligated to take steps to investigate and unfortunately suspend accounts.

We do not take account suspension lightly and do so only when account issues have been identified. At this time your account has been indefinitely suspended and you will no longer be able to participate in surveys or claim rewards from our website.

Thank you for your understanding.
 

Thank you for your patience.

Kind regards,

Princess

Opinion Outpost

That is the second panel I have been ejected from  in less than a year.  If this trend continues I may be out of the survey taking business before long.  Oh btw,  they stuck me for 22 dollars. Another lesson to not let your reward amounts build up very much because you are likely to get screwed at any time.  I really do get sick of this B.S. 

Well, what do you know? I *JUST* got the exact same e-mail. No explanation, no example of what I did wrong or what information was not accurate, NOTHING, just bam! you're out of here!

They've not only stuck me for the points sitting in my account right now, but they have also failed to credit me the $30 promised for a survey that spanned the whole month of October. It was a financial diary, and I recorded every single payment I made during the month (excluding certain things they didn't want, like credit card payments). Day after day I added info, and finished it on 11/01/21. Other than the original 3 points I got for taking the screening survey (to get accepted for the diary), I have not received the promised $30 upon completion.

I am NOT happy.

[Duck]

7 hours ago, LinuxPowered said:

Well, what do you know? I *JUST* got the exact same e-mail. No explanation, no example of what I did wrong or what information was not accurate, NOTHING, just bam! you're out of here!

They've not only stuck me for the points sitting in my account right now, but they have also failed to credit me the $30 promised for a survey that spanned the whole month of October. It was a financial diary, and I recorded every single payment I made during the month (excluding certain things they didn't want, like credit card payments). Day after day I added info, and finished it on 11/01/21. Other than the original 3 points I got for taking the screening survey (to get accepted for the diary), I have not received the promised $30 upon completion.

I am NOT happy.

Ouch,  you even got hit worse than I did. Apparently  they decided to get rid of a whole bunch of us at once.   I don't know of any recourse other than to go on  Survey Police and tell the world what they are doing.   At least we can advise the newcomers to stay away from dishonest panel.  I would advise anyone still with them to cash out at the minimum they allow to keep from getting hit too hard. 

[greeneyeddevils]

I have been with them a long time...but I'm with another company called Web Perspectives & what I've noticed is that they give out the exact same surveys as Opinion Outpost does...

As for getting kicked out of the panel I'm guessing it's their way of taking some money off the books it's a shitty thing to think of but some people tend to hold onto points for a long time & cash out around Christmas..I'm guessing Opinion Outpost goes in & looks at alot of their survey takers to see what the balances are & when people cash out & if most have alot of money in the account & they see that these people cash out once a year at Christmas they give them the boot ..I'm guessing the way to maybe get the money back that they've taken from you is to go to the BBB to try & fight for it...

[LinuxPowered]

1 hour ago, greeneyeddevils said:

I have been with them a long time...but I'm with another company called Web Perspectives & what I've noticed is that they give out the exact same surveys as Opinion Outpost does...

As for getting kicked out of the panel I'm guessing it's their way of taking some money off the books it's a shitty thing to think of but some people tend to hold onto points for a long time & cash out around Christmas..I'm guessing Opinion Outpost goes in & looks at alot of their survey takers to see what the balances are & when people cash out & if most have alot of money in the account & they see that these people cash out once a year at Christmas they give them the boot ..I'm guessing the way to maybe get the money back that they've taken from you is to go to the BBB to try & fight for it...

That's an interesting theory, but it doesn't apply to me. Ever since I first found out that OO caps your withdrawals at $10 each, with a limit of 2 transactions per 24 hours, I've ALWAYS cashed out as soon as I hit $10. So as I left it, I had 62 points in my account, and would've cashed out at 100. As for the missing $30... who knows?

Believe me I'm not going to sit back and be quiet about this. If I have to, I'll contact everyone from the BBB to the appropriate state Attorney General offices. Something I think will help immensely is that I documented EVERY SINGLE survey I took with OO. In other words, I have screenshots of every question asked and every answer I provided. (Yeah, I know the surveys generally tell you not to reproduce/screenshot/share them, but I wasn't sharing them or making them public, no one but me ever saw them; I was just keeping them for my own reference in case of something just like this!)

[greeneyeddevils]

Web Perspectives is exactly the same way with cashouts..only 2 allowed in a 24 hr period..like I said they're a mirror image of Opinion Outpost...so if anyone out there is with both companies & you take one survey with OO & try to do the same one a Web Perspectives it's more than likely that you're going to get that error message that you've already completed say survey 

[LinuxPowered]

5 minutes ago, greeneyeddevils said:

Web Perspectives is exactly the same way with cashouts..only 2 allowed in a 24 hr period..like I said they're a mirror image of Opinion Outpost...so if anyone out there is with both companies & you take one survey with OO & try to do the same one a Web Perspectives it's more than likely that you're going to get that error message that you've already completed say survey 

I'd never heard of Web Perspectives until reading your post; a quick glance at its site shows that it doesn't offer payment via PayPal. Is that correct? I'm limiting my sites to only those who redeem via PP (or check, as with Survey Savvy). I don't want random gift cards!

[greeneyeddevils]

18 hours ago, LinuxPowered said:

I'd never heard of Web Perspectives until reading your post; a quick glance at its site shows that it doesn't offer payment via PayPal. Is that correct? I'm limiting my sites to only those who redeem via PP (or check, as with Survey Savvy). I don't want random gift cards!

No PayPal...but many different gift cards...amazon is on there & Visa along with Tim Hortons & many more cards...

[peach6]

On 11/4/2021 at 2:06 AM, Duck said:

Ouch,  you even got hit worse than I did. Apparently  they decided to get rid of a whole bunch of us at once.   I don't know of any recourse other than to go on  Survey Police and tell the world what they are doing.   At least we can advise the newcomers to stay away from dishonest panel.  I would advise anyone still with them to cash out at the minimum they allow to keep from getting hit too hard. 

I didn't have much money in there I was given the boot on Opinion Outpost & One Opinion on the same day I think there was some kind of connection there

[jberri12]

Last year I was booted out of QuickThoughts with the normal excuses of not paying attention, finishing too quickly, etc.  I'm also a member of Opinion Outpost, and was a member of One Opinion, which I quit voluntarily as I wasn't qualifying for surveys and the pay was pathetic.  The real reason they kicked me out of QuickThoughts is all of the panels are owned by Dynata, and they only want respondents to be a member of one of their panels.  So if you are a member of multiple Dynata owned panels, eventually they will kick you off of all but one of them.

I don't doubt that they also do house cleaning on long-term members to bring in fresh opinions.  I've been a member of Opinion Outpost since 2008, so I'm expecting eventually to be kicked off.  For now I still make money with that panel so I'm sticking with it until they force me out.

 

[LinuxPowered]

1 hour ago, jberri12 said:

Last year I was booted out of QuickThoughts with the normal excuses of not paying attention, finishing too quickly, etc.  I'm also a member of Opinion Outpost, and was a member of One Opinion, which I quit voluntarily as I wasn't qualifying for surveys and the pay was pathetic.  The real reason they kicked me out of QuickThoughts is all of the panels are owned by Dynata, and they only want respondents to be a member of one of their panels.  So if you are a member of multiple Dynata owned panels, eventually they will kick you off of all but one of them.

I don't doubt that they also do house cleaning on long-term members to bring in fresh opinions.  I've been a member of Opinion Outpost since 2008, so I'm expecting eventually to be kicked off.  For now I still make money with that panel so I'm sticking with it until they force me out.

 

OO is the only Dynata site I'm on. Er, WAS on.

I had signed up in May, and was doing great. Not a single complaint or warning or anything. Consistently cashing out $10 every 2-3 days. On the few occasions I needed to contact them, like when a survey failed AFTER I had completed it, they were very nice and awarded me the points I should've received. Then, boom! You're out of here!

[jberri12]

22 hours ago, LinuxPowered said:

OO is the only Dynata site I'm on. Er, WAS on.

I had signed up in May, and was doing great. Not a single complaint or warning or anything. Consistently cashing out $10 every 2-3 days. On the few occasions I needed to contact them, like when a survey failed AFTER I had completed it, they were very nice and awarded me the points I should've received. Then, boom! You're out of here!

Wow, $10 every 2 or 3 days? That's like $100+ a month.  When I was doing better with them earlier this year, I was cashing out around $20 a month. . Maybe that raised a red flag with them, I don't know.

For most of us on this site, the market research companies refer to us as "professional respondents".  I.e. our main purpose for being respondents is to make money off of them.  They don't really like us because it implies we are trying to maximize the money we get (which most of us are) and more likely to speed or take short-cuts through surveys.  The reality is most of us do not do that, but these companies are all about making money off their clients, so they have to get good quality data (or at least say they do).  This is why they have software traps and respondent quality reviews (automated or manual) to ensure the quality of the data they get.  However I think they will also make subjective calls on certain respondents if they don't meet some arbitrary quality level and will close their accounts.

Anyway, that's my two cents.  Doesn't make it better, but we should all have the mind set that we are just data to survey companies.  Something they are forced to pay for to get what they need for their customers.

[LinuxPowered]

1 hour ago, jberri12 said:

Wow, $10 every 2 or 3 days? That's like $100+ a month.  When I was doing better with them earlier this year, I was cashing out around $20 a month. . Maybe that raised a red flag with them, I don't know.

For most of us on this site, the market research companies refer to us as "professional respondents".  I.e. our main purpose for being respondents is to make money off of them.  They don't really like us because it implies we are trying to maximize the money we get (which most of us are) and more likely to speed or take short-cuts through surveys.  The reality is most of us do not do that, but these companies are all about making money off their clients, so they have to get good quality data (or at least say they do).  This is why they have software traps and respondent quality reviews (automated or manual) to ensure the quality of the data they get.  However I think they will also make subjective calls on certain respondents if they don't meet some arbitrary quality level and will close their accounts.

Anyway, that's my two cents.  Doesn't make it better, but we should all have the mind set that we are just data to survey companies.  Something they are forced to pay for to get what they need for their customers.

You're making some very good points. Thanks.

The thing is--in my case--I absolutely, unequivocally stand by the quality of my work. There simply was no speeding through surveys, no nonsensical open-ended answers, no lack of consistency, etc. In fact, I routinely took MUCH longer than a survey's stated time--not just with OO, but with all of them. When the time was outrageously longer than its stated time, I'd complain--and as I wrote recently about Branded, sometimes that resulted in an actual response, like shutting down a survey for having egregiously misstated its time, and awarding me extra points for the time I'd put into it. My point being that SPEEDING through surveys is absolutely not an issue for me!

I take my time, I read each question carefully, I'm very aware of 'trap' questions and always make sure I answer those correctly. I write long, detailed open-ended answers when appropriate. I would put my surveys up against anyone's and bet that mine would come through with flying colors. I'm not bragging, just stating the truth.

And considering that OO *never* warned me or gave me any kind of indication that there was a problem with my data, I was completely blindsided by their decision to suspend me. It was as out of the blue as possible!

As for the $10 I was cashing out every 2 or so days, I was working on OO for about two hours a day, picking and choosing surveys that would add up to 100 points so I could cash out. That might be 2, that might be 4, but never 10, 20, or 30--in other words, NO WAY was I speeding. I'd get surveys worth 35 points or 55 points, and taking 2 or 3 of those gave me the 100 points needed to cash out every other day.

I would love OO to actually respond to my question of WHY they took this action. I got the same, exact canned e-mail that others have pasted in here, and it looks like this was a mass-deletion of numerous accounts. I don't believe for ONE SECOND that I truly did anything to justify being suspended. I simply did not do it.