Palm Research has paid, fantastic communications and support

[Vipercat]

*UPDATE*

It took a couple of months to receive payment, but I finally did and even received a reply to all my emails and even a personal phone call from Gus himself . I am typically skeptical of new panels and companies, but this one has panned out good and earned itself a good track record with me.

I have been a member of Palm Research since February 27th 2009, currently have a balance of $40.50 owed to me. They say they pay on a net 30 basis, well it's been more than 30 days since February 27th and more than 30 days since March 1st. They have sent me no emails or word on anything, my balance remains $40.50 , they have no way to cash out on the site, and they have not responded to my emails in nearly 3 days. I hope this is resolved with them without the need to file complaints and take legal action.

[Vipercat]

To be fair he did reply back and he seemed like a reasonable guy. He said net 30 basis means 30 days after 30 days of minimum payout so for me "May 1st" this is 60 days not 30! He says they need 30 days to check the validity of the surveys... Sounds like they are going to pull what Mindfield once tried and cancel all of my surveys for fraudulent reasons. All of my surveys are 100% legit, I have proof of this, and I have proof of my original payout amount of $40.50 so if they try any nonsense they will have bigger problems in BBB, Survey Police, Ripoff Report, and possibly even Federal Court if they play games and never pay me, same deal with any other survey company. I don't play games, I put in lots of time for too little pay, put in 100% honest answers, and hard work. I expect to be treated with respect by ALL companies, and the ones that don't will do so at their own peril. It sounds like from the reply when May 1st comes around they will come up with another excuse such as a delay, I hope I am wrong though. He also said his contact was on the website and he was available 24/7 neither is true unless it was added sometime after my emails. He also said there was no need for a cash out form with options on the site since it is done automatically "gee that really reassures me... " His contact email can be found in the emails they send to you.

[Whatatay]

This is a scam website. They do not pay and they will not pay. As you can see, they tell you what their policy is ie, Net 30 days. When they don't pay by then they tell you "we are running behind". Why? It's the same old "the check is in the mail BS".

[Vipercat]

It is May 1st, the balance remains at $40.50 and no payment in either paypal or check. The last email said "you should receive a check in the first week of may" even though I requested a payment to my paypal. If they just send checks then why do they even mention paypal? If I do not get or see anything by the 7th I will start taking serious actions to force a honest and fair resolution.

[Vipercat]

I could have easily added another $40 to that total, but I don't want to waste my time or enrich someone else unless they have a proven track record and are known to pay. I'm still hopeful that something will occur by the 7th and I will get paid, but if not I have records, screenshots, and information saved. I don't like to jump to conclusions so I am not saying this is a scam or not, but I will keep everyone up to date so we can find out.

The address posted on the site seems to be a real office building and office suite and is not a mail dropoff front that brings up google results for other companies, so that is a positive sign. It is also a plus that emails are replied to.

They also seem to own http://eggressive.net/privacy-policy.html which seems to be the site for corporate clients. Their sites use a dated perl script that only allows a max password length of 5 characters. This seems to be a personally done small start up, whether they are legitimate or have paid anyone remains to be seen. If by some chance they do pay me I will make it known here. They have a good business model and probably make lots of profits, their surveys only pay $1 each, so there is no good reason for them to not pay except for greed and pocketting extra money ontop of their profits.

They use whoisprotector.com to hide their address in the whois info, which to be fair many companies do.

http://whois.domaintools.com/eggressive.net

http://whois.domaintools.com/palmresearch.com

Palm Research

501 W. Broadway, Suite A-381

San Diego, CA 92101

[Vipercat]

I found more information and reports from others.

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread ... p=18394101

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/4 ... 448096.htm

http://www.bzzagent.com/frog/FrogHome.d ... 7832774792

http://www.freesamplesite.com/ydf/showt ... ?p=1736250

It also seems that someone from Palm Research is getting upset we are talking about them. To him I invite him in this forum as well. I am willing to give them a chance and even wait awhile longer. Until then all I want to know is if there is anyone that has been paid so we can confirm if they are legitimate. This is fair and expected of any new panels here. If we can confirm they pay then that is good for Palm Research and will bring them good reviews and customers. To the owner of Palm Research, you make thousands of dollars a month off of this, it is not unreasonable to expect reviews and even criticism even if you are a paying company. We are not attacking you, but rather looking to see how you work. I want to see you be real and help make you and me money.

[factonista]

Vipercat -

You may want to check out this thread which features a reply from Palm regarding the delays:

http://mysurvey123.com/index.php?option ... mitstart=0

Palm says that they don't pay until they get paid.

You should note that one poster got paid last week(4/30/09) for January surveys.

[Vipercat]

Thanks for the response. First it's net 30, then it's 30 days after 30 days and they have to verify the payment, then it's their is no need for a cashout option as we send payment to check or paypal, but we will send you a check the first week after the 30 days after 30 days, then I hear a story about "we are behind on the checks" now I hear another excuse "we don't pay until we get paid" they don't say this on their website. I only did greenfield based surveys and I know they pay faster than that, I have received paypal payments from greenfield as quickly as two weeks, I see no reason why greenfield would pay a "corporate client" such as palm research any slower than they pay people who directly sign up for greenfield's surveys. I seem to believe this poster is legitimate. Also the guy says they have some sort of fee taken out for paypal payments, which they also do not point out on Palm Research's site and no other legitimate panel does this. The excuses, information not disclosed on the site about delays and paypal fees, and the amount of time beyond normal "net 30" it takes for just one poster to be paid and all for $1 paying surveys is not exacty encouraging.

[SurveyBang]

6.75% on paypal fees of 20$...ouch.

[palmresearch]

Okay. I own Palm Research. I have 1 partner. And yes, Vipercat, we own Eggressive. Actually, we own the parent company, Eggressive Media, and from there we run Palm Research and Eggressive, which is an affiliate network.

First, cause I take it personally ( ), we are not using an outdated perl script because the login has only 5 characters. Just so we're clear, I wrote both sites from scratch, by hand. You seemed to imply that I pieced the sites together from other sites. Not a big deal, but I just wanted to make it known that both sites were built from the ground up. From the tracking to the member and affiliate management.

Second, I'm not getting mad or angry because you guys are talking about my company. Not at all. This site, among others, as long as honesty is used, are great. They report on the current trends of the industry, and keep people apprised of different players in the game. Great. What I don't like is how quickly people refer to Palm Research as a scam, rip off, etc.

Palm Research was started because after years of promoting other panels, my partner and I realized that there were many sites out there that were bogus. Pretending to be true survey panels, when all they were doing was gathering emails and making a killing ($$) selling them.

We created Palm Research originally as a paid review panel, taking advantage of advertisers that pay for people to try their product or service. Even back then (June 2008), we would only use advertisers that we believed were reputable, such as Blockbuster Video and Netflix. We'd have our members sign up for the trial of an offer, and pay them (a portion of what the advertiser paid us) cash for writing a review after the trial period. This ran great for 6 months, but there were limited advertisers that we felt ran clean campaigns, so we decided to end that rather than partner with 'not so reputable' advertisers.

Then we got offered a partnership with a major player in the game, and we then decided to focus primarily on paid surveys. I mean, why not?!? We know the game backwards and forwards! So on January 1st 2009, we launched.

So there you have it. A little background about us.

Anyway, on to the main part of all this.

***

1. "Why has Palm Research never issued payment"

We originally had a payment processor that was going to handle all our payments to members and affiliates. The deal fell through, and we were left to figure out things on our own, which meant a delay in our January payments. Because we pay on a net 30 schedule, all qualifying activity for January (our first month of operation) was supposed to be processed during the first week of March, but because of our 'growing pains', we fell behind as we tried to figure out a fluid system of paying our members.

This delay then ran into April, where we should have been paying for all qualifying February activity, and it took until late April to get a good system down. Just so we're clear, all PayPal payments have been made (and recieved), and all checks have been mailed out for Jan/Feb 2009.

2. Why does Palm Research pay on a net 30?

This is a fair question. The clients that we partner with must audit all the leads that we send them. This usually happens between 20-30 days after the surveys have been taken by our members.

I don't know if it's well known, but there are high incidences of fraud - people that cheat the system just to get quick cash. These people will take repeated surveys in a day, or just breeze through the questions just to get a complete. Also, there are people that we consider 'paid survey masters' that know how to manipulate the prequalifying questions so they always get to take a survey, no matter what the demographic is.

If we didn't wait for the client to approve our leads and just paid out immediately, we'd have to eat whatever we paid out and didn't get paid for. As a matter of fact, we had an issue with a survey we ran recently. We offered the study to our members at the rate of $8.00 for a completed survey, but the qualifications were extremely specific. We had a group of people (a lot, in fact) that knew how to cheat the qualifier and got credit for taking the survey, even though they did not fit the demographic at all.

The client came and informed us about the cheating, and pulled all the money from that study, meaning we didn't get paid. Luckily, we caught it in time, and the only ones that actually took the survey were the cheaters, so none of our true members were affected.

3. Palm Research cancels accounts just to pocket the money!

This was not directly said, but a few other companies were mentioned to take part in this practice, and it was inferred that perhaps we would, too.

I can say, with absolute certainty, that we do not, have not, and will not ever do that. Ever. Period. First, it's not cool. Second, it's not legal. Third, it's not cool. I know I already said that, but I feel really strongly about that point.

We're trying to grow our business into an internet powerhouse, including our affiliate network, Eggressive. To do that would be counterproductive, and yes, not cool at all.

If there are companies out there that do that, or shave leads to increase their profit, well, I hope they get what they have coming.

That's all I want to say on that topic.

4. Palm Research members got charged for getting their PayPal money!

Yes, this seems to be true. But let me say this, we will be crediting our members that were affected the full amount of fee that PayPal charged.

Why? Because this was an oversight on our part. Again, more 'growing pains'.

Apparently, PayPal charges fees based on how the payment was sourced, meaning how the money passed from the Payer to the Payee. We did not realize this, but we used our company credit card to pay our members, instead of directly linking our company bank account. If the source is from a credit or debit card, PayPal charges a fee of 4.9% for personal PayPal accounts and 2.9% for business PayPal account, plus $0.30. So on a $20 payout, the member with a personal PayPal account was charged $1.28 to withdraw the money.

In that instance, we will credit the member $1.28 in their account.

There is one caveat; we will not credit a member that has a business account, because PayPal charges the 2.9% plus $0.30 regardless of how the payment was sourced. There is nothing we can do about that, it's just how PayPal does it. But we figure the member with a business account should know about the fee, so it should be of no surprise.

As an FYI, we have since cleared this issue up with PayPal, and payments for March will be sourced correctly, meaning no fees for our members, unless they have a business account.

5. Palm Research is impossible to contact!

Just to clear this up, here's some contact info:

AIM: gusatpalm

Email: [email protected]

I am the tech here, also, which requires me to be on or near the computer at all times. IM me and you'll see.

6. Palm Research only has OTX and Greenfield surveys!

Not true. While our daily surveys are routers of OTX (PR1407) and GF (PR1904), we have launched a new panel, PR6250. This panel serves more specific demographic surveys with higher payouts. These surveys are from different clients, and are given to us to fill certain quotas on a 'need to fill' basis. They can be found by logging into your member account and seeing what is available in your survey dashboard.

7. Palm Research creates fake 'survey error' glitches to pocket the money

Ok. I read the RipOffReport.com article from a lady that says we are generating fake error pages once the user is close to the end of the survey, in order for us to capture all that info and submit it later so we can get the full compensation.

That hurts my feelings. First, there's no way for me to respond to that on their site. Second, it's not true. Actually, it's impossible because we don't host the survey on our site. There are many factors, as I explained to her in an email, that can result in a glitch and survey timed out error.

But that's a tough one, because I can feel the pain of taking a survey and getting jipped in the end because of a glitch. But that happens...it's just the nature of the beast. Anyone that takes surveys knows that this situation happens. Anyone that has filled out a form and had the server time out knows that pain. But to assume that "...Palm is putting up the fake screens to avoid paying incentives..." and that we are "...complicit and/or WELL aware of the situation..." and that "...One or more people at Palm must know these rip offs are going on...", I mean really...come on. I hope someone that knows how this works can help me out on this one. We have no control over that. And it's extra hard for me because I know this lady firmly believes that.

***

So, there we are. I know that there will be people that say "ah, he's just talking again...blah blah blah!", but please understand, we want all our members to be happy and continue taking surveys.

We are a new company and while we have experienced some growing pains, we appreciate the people that stick by us. We know that our members' time is valuable, and important, and hope that we'll be given the chance to show that.

Like I've always said, together we can make this great!

Thanks for your time.

Gus Garcia

Owner, Palm Research

[SurveyBang]

IF some of this information was posted on your site I think a lot of the misconceptions would have cleared themselves up. In particular the payment information and problems therein. If people have the slightest notion there is a problem and things a little off schedule, the torches will get start to get warm and eventually lit. And its not entirely their fault as there are many instances where A LOT of people have been burned in the recent past. Not by palm research but until you have the track record, expect to be lump summed with the rest.

Is that your pic on the homepage? erm. more casual less serious

will re-try your site for awhile and report later.

[factonista]

Okay. I own Palm Research. I have 1 partner. And yes, Vipercat, we own Eggressive. Actually, we own the parent company, Eggressive Media, and from there we run Palm Research and Eggressive, which is an affiliate network.

My problem, Mr. Garcia, is that your Affiliate Manager, using the name Lilokster, posed as a satisfied Palm panelist and posted glowing reviews of Palm - here, and on other boards like mysurvey123. I'm going to concentrate on SurveyPolice for now.

Here's Lilokster on SurveyPolice, touting Palm:

https://www.surveypolice.com/forum/palm ... -t442.html

I'm sure this post generated a lot of signups, didn't it?

Then, here's Lilokster, elsewhere online, revealing his employment at Palm:

dated Feb. 11, 2009, - I'll bold the most pertinent information:

"Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I haven't visited the forum for awhile. I use 4 networks for most of my survey affiliate programs. I have also just became the affiliate manager for PalmResearch. We have two new survey panels that you can send to your members everyday. And your members are able to complete a survey a day."

Here's the link to the thread that contains the above passage:

http://www.work-at-home-forum.com/14_10268_0.html

I understand that you are just starting out , and trying to build a business, but there are other ways to advertise your site, Palm - Sock-puppeting is not one of them.

[Vipercat]

I got this email today and have discovered that either the admin made a mistake or I have been ripped off for $1.50 , I go in to my account and still see it as $40.50 and have screen shots. If I get even $39 it will be better than nothing, but I don't appreciate anyone trying to skim anything off the top of money I already made for myself. When I get paid and what I get paid will be posted here when it happens.

*edited to protect my identity*,

Your payment in the amount of $39.00 has been approved and is being processed.

Please login to your account and complete the new profile survey (the one with the gold star), where you can update your payment type (check or PayPal).

Thanks for participating on our survey panel. We really appreciate your time and

opinions, and hope you continue to take part in our studies.

Sincerely,

Gus Garcia

Palm Research

[email protected]

[factonista]

I had the minimum cashout amount - and still got a dollar skimmed off the top. Grrrrr.....

[Vipercat]

I got sent this email today. So I guess all that remains is to get the check, cash it, and make sure it does not bounce or anything like that, if that happens then I am good and I can mark this down as a legitimate panel. Although I do hate having even $1 or $2 skimmed off my hard earned payments for no stated reason even when the surveys are originally only $1 each. When I get the check I will let everyone here know about it, likewise if I end up waiting a month and get no check i'll probably get much angrier. Getting this money that I earned will be a big help to me and make me a little less bitter with the world in general.

*name removed*,

Your payment in the amount of $39.00 has been processed and sent.

Your payment was sent to the mailing address on file.

Thanks again, and keep up the good work!

Sincerely,

Gus Garcia

Palm Research

[email protected]