Did You Ever Take a Break from Surveys?

[Sandy21]

I think I'm burned out from taking surveys and not getting credit for them. It happens more and more lately and I get so very frustrated. I was thinking of quitting all the panels and just totally forgetting about taking surveys anymore but maybe that is too drastic. (I can always resign at a later date)

Think I'll take a step back and take a breather from taking surveys for a month or so or until I feel I am ready to go back and try without getting upset every time I take a survey and am then told I don't qualify after the fact.

Has anyone every taken a break like this? 

[dawn_b_adams]

I took a break for a few years actually. I had been working full time, and I just didn't like wasting my nights and weekends on surveys that paid pennies on the dollar. Once I retired, I started back up, since it's nice to have a little extra money. 

I'm actually to the point that the only surveys I've been doing for about a month now are Prolific. I'm making money hand over fist on there. I work on them 20-30 minutes a day and wind up making $5-$10 a day. No need for me to do any other survey panels at this point. This has really freed up my time. I have more time to do other things now, as I was getting tired and annoyed with the crap most of the survey sites are pulling on their panelists. 

If Prolific dries up, I'll probably try again donating plasma. I just don't have the patience anymore with the games most of these survey sites play. I've had enough, and nothing will ever change unless there is a massive class action lawsuit against the whole lot of them.

[Sandy21]

57 minutes ago, dawn_b_adams said:

I took a break for a few years actually. I had been working full time, and I just didn't like wasting my nights and weekends on surveys that paid pennies on the dollar. Once I retired, I started back up, since it's nice to have a little extra money. 

I'm actually to the point that the only surveys I've been doing for about a month now are Prolific. I'm making money hand over fist on there. I work on them 20-30 minutes a day and wind up making $5-$10 a day. No need for me to do any other survey panels at this point. This has really freed up my time. I have more time to do other things now, as I was getting tired and annoyed with the crap most of the survey sites are pulling on their panelists. 

If Prolific dries up, I'll probably try again donating plasma. I just don't have the patience anymore with the games most of these survey sites play. I've had enough, and nothing will ever change unless there is a massive class action lawsuit against the whole lot of them.

Thanks for sharing! I may actually try Prolific! 

[Sandy21]

1 hour ago, dawn_b_adams said:

I took a break for a few years actually. I had been working full time, and I just didn't like wasting my nights and weekends on surveys that paid pennies on the dollar. Once I retired, I started back up, since it's nice to have a little extra money. 

I'm actually to the point that the only surveys I've been doing for about a month now are Prolific. I'm making money hand over fist on there. I work on them 20-30 minutes a day and wind up making $5-$10 a day. No need for me to do any other survey panels at this point. This has really freed up my time. I have more time to do other things now, as I was getting tired and annoyed with the crap most of the survey sites are pulling on their panelists. 

If Prolific dries up, I'll probably try again donating plasma. I just don't have the patience anymore with the games most of these survey sites play. I've had enough, and nothing will ever change unless there is a massive class action lawsuit against the whole lot of them.

I tried joining Prolific and get the following message:

"We've got lots of interest in Prolific right now, so participant registration is currently paused. Join our waitlist and we'll let you know as soon as we're taking new participants!"

I joined the waitlist and had to confirm my email address. So Now I guess I sit back and wait. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[episemion]

Haven't taken a break in 20 years. 

[dawn_b_adams]

20 hours ago, Sandy21 said:

I tried joining Prolific and get the following message:

"We've got lots of interest in Prolific right now, so participant registration is currently paused. Join our waitlist and we'll let you know as soon as we're taking new participants!"

I joined the waitlist and had to confirm my email address. So Now I guess I sit back and wait. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

Yeah, several months ago, some stupid broad on TikTok made a video about making money through Prolific. Then they got a slew of young women who joined the panel and clogged up everything, so those of us who had been with them for years got slim pickings for surveys. Things have settled down since, and now I'm getting lots of surveys again. They had so many sign up, that now they do have a waiting list. I've been of the opinion that they should have just gotten rid of all of the joins right after the TikTok video. But some were legit. Hopefully you won't have to wait too long.

[Sandy21]

5 hours ago, dawn_b_adams said:

Yeah, several months ago, some stupid broad on TikTok made a video about making money through Prolific. Then they got a slew of young women who joined the panel and clogged up everything, so those of us who had been with them for years got slim pickings for surveys. Things have settled down since, and now I'm getting lots of surveys again. They had so many sign up, that now they do have a waiting list. I've been of the opinion that they should have just gotten rid of all of the joins right after the TikTok video. But some were legit. Hopefully you won't have to wait too long.

Thank you for the explanation. I just thought that they might be a breath of fresh air after all the aggravation I've been experiencing with other sites.

[Sandy21]

That's amazing! All the more power to ya!

[NevadaJones]

I take a break when I'm out of town, but otherwise haven't taken any long breaks. But I've only been doing surveys for a few years. Guess I'm not as battered yet as the real veterans. 

[schludermann]

I will take breaks or discontinue participation for stress reasons. I usually just drop the panel. Some panels it's mutual, like Toluna and Pointless Clubing. I stopped Paidviewpoint for two years because a particular client was scrubbing survey responses and thought my asymmetric responses were glib. Paidviewpoint tuned off the survey feed and only sent me ten cent "trait' surveys over fifty times in a row before admitting I was throttled.

The way I throttle the survey panels myself is using the email application.  Email applications can be configured to sort existing and incoming mail to destination mailboxes. I have an email folder for interning probelmatic in a "Junk surveys" folder. The Apple Mail app has a preference pane called "Rules" and I identify anything the  from address(s) of a panel and route it to the junk folder. I check the junk folder occasionally and sample of the interned panels have corrected themselves. if there is improvement I modify the rules to allow the panels to be routed to the active survey folder. in the several years I've been doing this, I've about one hundred rules.  If the panel is particularly bad and I no longer want anything to do, I add the panel to the "direct to trash", do not pass go or collect $100. The use of mail rules is part of the email specification, so most mail apps will do this. While Gmail web is not very good at this mail sorting, most mail apps are. 

 

I use mail rules for everything and have hundreds of folders from the last twenty years for other pursuits. I occasional conduct research of my mail activity, when I'm making a support complaint and I want to get my dates and quotes correct.

 

[Sandy21]

2 hours ago, schludermann said:

I will take breaks or discontinue participation for stress reasons. I usually just drop the panel. Some panels it's mutual, like Toluna and Pointless Clubing. I stopped Paidviewpoint for two years because a particular client was scrubbing survey responses and thought my asymmetric responses were glib. Paidviewpoint tuned off the survey feed and only sent me ten cent "trait' surveys over fifty times in a row before admitting I was throttled.

The way I throttle the survey panels myself is using the email application.  Email applications can be configured to sort existing and incoming mail to destination mailboxes. I have an email folder for interning probelmatic in a "Junk surveys" folder. The Apple Mail app has a preference pane called "Rules" and I identify anything the  from address(s) of a panel and route it to the junk folder. I check the junk folder occasionally and sample of the interned panels have corrected themselves. if there is improvement I modify the rules to allow the panels to be routed to the active survey folder. in the several years I've been doing this, I've about one hundred rules.  If the panel is particularly bad and I no longer want anything to do, I add the panel to the "direct to trash", do not pass go or collect $100. The use of mail rules is part of the email specification, so most mail apps will do this. While Gmail web is not very good at this mail sorting, most mail apps are. 

 

I use mail rules for everything and have hundreds of folders from the last twenty years for other pursuits. I occasional conduct research of my mail activity, when I'm making a support complaint and I want to get my dates and quotes correct.

 

WOW! You put so much into it! That I truly admire!  Kudos to you!

[Sandy21]

18 hours ago, NevadaJones said:

I take a break when I'm out of town, but otherwise haven't taken any long breaks. But I've only been doing surveys for a few years. Guess I'm not as battered yet as the real veterans. 

Thanks for your input! 

[schludermann]

3 hours ago, Sandy21 said:

WOW! You put so much into it! That I truly admire!  Kudos to you!

I did support for apple for almost twenty years. The first rule of support club is knowing what you can do, even the broken ways. the second rule of support club is figuring out what you don't know. Quite often, in real-time with the customer on the call. If you have trouble figuring out how stuff works, hire a younger college student to be a back seat driver while you bobble and graze the internet. they should make an effort to explain, clarify and make sure you have the right mindset and expectations.

[Sandy21]

4 hours ago, schludermann said:

I did support for apple for almost twenty years. The first rule of support club is knowing what you can do, even the broken ways. the second rule of support club is figuring out what you don't know. Quite often, in real-time with the customer on the call. If you have trouble figuring out how stuff works, hire a younger college student to be a back seat driver while you bobble and graze the internet. they should make an effort to explain, clarify and make sure you have the right mindset and expectations.

Thanks for your explanation. No wonder you are so very tech savvy.

[jessmac78]

Yeah, I took a break from Survey Junkie for a couple of months. It was getting annoying having to get through their grinds trying to qualify for and complete at least 3 surveys daily for at least a week or more to earn an extra $5.. It got more frustrating and I realized I was cashing out a bit too much as they made me fill out a W9 form and all that. I like doing it but it's not something I want to be doing on a very regular basis. I'll do a grind and maybe take a break for 2 or 3 months before attempting it again.