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Can you Really Make Money Taking Surveys and Mystery Shopping?

Can you Really Make Money Taking Surveys and Mystery

Shopping?

by Michelle Hansen

If you're like me, you get them everyday; emails about taking

surveys and getting cash. I'm sure you've heard that there are

people out there who earn a good living taking surveys too,

right? Well, our curiosity got the best of us so we set out to

find the truth about surveys! We were very curious and thought

it would be a great resource article to share with all our

visitors. Here's what happened on our SURVEY ADVENTURE!

We simply started at Google and typed in "surveys" then poof and

viola, there you go, over 160,000,000 links were found! Wow,

this is really going to be an adventure. But for our visitors

and all of you who have been asking about surveys and their

legitimacy, we decided to plunge forward in this scavenger hunt!

After milling through many of the links, we discovered that most

were sites that offered survey directories and promised other

tools for a small price. One that continued to surface and was

recommended by many work at home sites and mom sites promised a

$25 paid survey immediately after joining. The site was Survey Scout

and we decided to take the plunge with them since they

seemed legitimate and highly recommended.

We joined Survey Scout and were given immediate access to pages

upon pages of survey companies that they claimed were

legitimate. I must say, the lists were easily navigable and

showed us which sites paid cash and which ones offered rewards

in points and prizes. Some offered both. They also gave us tons

of information that we found to be worthwhile in getting started

with survey companies. It tells you how many companies you can

expect to join to earn what you want to from home and how many

hours per day or week you may expect to devote to taking

surveys. I was impressed to say the least.

Ok, so I jumped in and started following the directions the

company gave. I created a separate email (a real must) for this

type of thing as you will get all sorts of email and lots of it.

Then I started signing up for survey companies. After going

through 5 or so, I began to notice that a few seemed to be a

lower quality company than the others. One tip I learned quick

and will share with you is, if they ask you to "complete offers"

or join this or that in order to receive some bonus, don't

bother with those companies. You'll notice them when you start

to join the companies and then you can unsubscribe to those as I

haven't noticed any worthwhile real surveys from those types. So

tip #1..forget the companies that say you need to

complete some special offers that are going to cost you money in

order to get some product or gift card, etc for free. I've found

those not to be legitimate

So, after weeding through those, I did find many, many companies

in the lists that were legitimate. Tip #2 is, complete

the non-paid surveys or the ones with points offered or some

entry into a contest for completing them. Most of the companies

will send you these types of surveys to complete before ever

offering you the paid surveys. So I think it's much like a

screening process. So, take the time to do the unpaid surveys or

the ones that offer points in order to increase your chances of

getting paid surveys. Once I completed the points and contest

entry surveys, then I started getting paid surveys from some of

those companies. I found this to be really neat. Some were a

couple of dollars and others $10 or more. So..yes I can see

where people could make decent money at surveys if you invest

this time in being organized and treating it like a business.

Also with Survey Scout when you register you get a bonus area of

"get paid to read emails" which didn't interest me too much, but

for some of you it may. What did interest me was the list of

Mystery & Secret Shopping Companies that I got with my

membership. This was something that always interested me and

made me wonder. Can people really make money shopping and is

mystery shopping real? Yes you can! I went through the list and

went through the application process with several of the

companies and actually got sent on a secret shop within 2 wks of

doing so. The application process was detailed. They really want

to know that you are thorough and detail oriented. The testing

process included several multiple choice tests as well as an

essay portion. Once I was notified that I passed and was

accepted though, I was able to log into their site and view

mystery shops in my area and assign myself to them! Very cool! I

went on one shop and made $50 ! It took a few hours of my time

to actually do the shop, it was for a new home builder which was

neat. Then writing up the evaluation took about another hour at

home on my computer. I was notified the next day that everything

was submitted properly and that I earned the maximum amount for

the shop!

I plan to write more in the future on succeeding at Mystery

Shopping as I do more shops. I get tons of requests for

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information on mystery and secret shopping, so I will write a

follow-up on this in the future including tips on mystery

shopping. The article will also detail getting started in this

arena of working at home. In our search for and evaluation of

taking surveys, we gained some great insight on the process of

making money with surveys as well as stumbled upon an unexpected

bonus way to make money...Mystery Shopping. From what we learned

in our research and actually taking surveys and doing mystery

shops, we have found that you really can make money with both of

these work at home venues. These are certainly not "get rich

quick" schemes but you can start small and depending on the time

you want to invest, you can really grow an income at one or both

of these. I certainly recommend it to moms who want to try this

out and make some extra money or eventually grow this into a

good income. I believe it can be done if you're willing to

devote the time to it. And, you have to admit both are fun ways

of making extra cash. If you like to give you opinion and you

like to shop, you can't beat taking surveys and mystery

shopping. I do recommend Survey Scout

since we researched several avenues and found this website

to be a worthwhile membership. I can't speak for the other

sites, but we did plenty of research before choosing Survey Scout

and haven't been disappointed at all.

I hope this has offered some insight to you and been enjoyable

for you to read. We had fun doing the research and were excited

to actually make money with this. With the little effort we put

forth, we made money so with more effort you could probably do

well with this. It will depend on the time you devote, of

course.

Oh, and the $25 paid survey they promise for joining..it was

legitimate also. I believe that one was paid in a restaurant

gift certificate, so we enjoyed a nice steak dinner courtesy of

Survey

Scout ! What fun!

About the author:

Michelle Hansen is a home business entrepreneur and consultant

who helps families succeed in their home businesses. She lives

in TX with her husband and two children. She and her husband,

Shane are the owners and publishers of www.mommybizmatchmaker.c

om and www.cybermomz.com

providing multiple resources for work at home families.