Don't like the rankings? Change them!

[schludermann]

Here's some other insights to why "Rankings" are meaningless and only the inexperienced panelists believe in them. Most "survey panels" are actuality administrative fielding services. Meaning they don't produce surveys, they manage just the panelists and presenting surveys for another company, anonymously. This yields a “untouchable” type status for the clients and as we’ve seen, some fairly prevalent unethical conduct of the survey clients can emerge. You can discern this by watching the URL changes during the progression of the survey. The survey will progress to domains companies that you didn’t see in the survey offer, TOS and privacy statements. Those individuals that install web connection monitoring, like the EFF Privacy Badger, will see even more activity. Some of these connection are a source of revenue for the panel. The survey panels manage the recruiting, accounts, rewards and other panelists concerns. They also provide a buffer against poorly authored surveys. For example surveys that abort spontaneously and stop responding. They do this by providing "deflection support” for the client. Deflection support are typically canned replies that say "not our problem" and the helpful ones will suggest tossing your cookies as a means to resolve the issue in the future. They don’t care. So, doing this installs a business layer between the actual survey company and the panelists. The ostensibly the survey companies and fielding services have used such practices, as a way to protect themselves from bots, charlatans and other types of abuse. They also use this obfuscation arrangement to deny serious panelist responses that don't fit the objectives of a survey, and not pay the pennies panelists would otherwise be entitled to, this is commonly referred to a "survey scrubbing", the client has a bias to pay for survey responses that bolster their objective. I experience this most frequently in financial oriented surveys. So instead of screening the panelists out during the survey, the client performs this on the back-end and the panelist expended a lot of time. I think this is a sign of novice, cheap survey design, and wanton, unethical conduct.  

 

So, if a survey panel declines because of a poor reputation, stale membership, too many survey cheats or just wants a long vacation, they shutdown. The panels finance the vacations with the panelist rewards that could not reclaimed because of the rewards thresholds or abrupt, unannounced closure. The survey client of the panel that ceased operations just finds another panel to continue their behavior.  

 

If you’re inclined, please elaborate your experiences. 

[dawn_b_adams]

@schludermann, I totally agree with your thoughts on this. I'm impressed by your knowledge of what's really behind the curtains of these survey sites. It's such a travesty that these survey sites are allowed to screw people over like this. There needs to be a lot more oversight of these sites, along with a total overhaul of how they are allowed to operate. I believe the majority are unethical to the point of being criminal. Many of the entities that run these sites should be in prison for egregious fraud and stealing. 

I've had so many experiences where when I complain to a site, they will either use the usual canned 'bots to reply, not reply at all, or worst of all, reply with something very snarky and insulting to me blaming me for the problems they caused. That last one is totally outrageous and downright criminal. If a regular company operated like some of these survey sites do, they would be out of business, and there would be criminal indictments against the people running the show. Most of us doing these surveys are perhaps on the lower economic side of the line, and the paltry amount we do receive really helps. The survey sites are uncaring of this, and will out and out brazenly steal your hard earned money. I think that is absolutely disgusting. 

I recall reading a review from someone (can't remember the survey site) who was homeless and doing surveys on a library computer to try and get enough to buy a sandwich for their only meal of the day. They had taken a lot of time on one particular survey, only to complete it and get disqualed at the very end of the survey. This person was just crushed, because they weren't going to be able to eat that day. When they tried to reach "support" of course there was none to be had. That review made me cry. How they can look at themselves in the mirror is beyond me. There needs to be someone high up to be a whistleblower and blow off the lid on what really is going on. That is the only there can be any change. All of us complaining in reviews is just pissing in the wind. It won't do a thing to change anything.

[Nuuriye]

we can dowd that

[fasten8ing]

On 1/15/2022 at 5:06 PM, Oxo123 said:

If rankings are based on user reviews then why is a garbage site like Branded Surveys at the top of your list? Your ranking s are based on who is paying you to shill first, user reviews second.

I have been doing surveys on Branded Surveys for over 2 years without any real issues . What problems are you having?