Great for Magazine and Newspaper Subscriptions; Not Many Tangible Rewards
Written: Jan 25 '08
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By now e-Rewards, the online "paid" survey website, has gotten quite a few reviews here at Epinions, many of which aren't all too positive. I figured I should probably throw my two cents in anyway, as I've been a member of that site for over two years now.
Enrollment
e-Rewards, unlike many other paid survey websites, is by invitation only. Usually a retailer such as Borders will connect a member of their online service with e-Rewards. However, one can also make a request to be granted
"permission" to participate. Once you are a member, you fill in your profile as much as you can, request the number of surveys that you would like to receive, and wait for the survey invitations to be emailed to you. The service also has an "Earn Now" feature that allows you to earn survey credits right away. When you first sign up, almost always you will find a lot of "Earn Now" offers, probably as a teaser to stay on with the service. You might be asked to sign up for free to a site in exchange for credits. It's not a big deal, as long as you don't mind getting occasional emails from the services you sign up with (you can always "unsubscribe" later on).
Completing Surveys
While you can theoretically receive upwards of ten or more surveys per week, you must always qualify for them to receive full credit (the only exception is the "Quick Survey", which is sent by e-Rewards in regards to a specific topic or as a request for you to expound upon background information that you provided already. These quick surveys only pay you 50 cents, but they are worth completing because the more information you give the more likely you will receive specific surveys with higher reward amounts later on).
When you begin a survey, you are first asked some standard "filter" questions. All surveys other than Quick Surveys will weed out people who fall outside their desired respondent pool. For example, say you are given a survey about beverages and you happen to work for Budweiser. You might be asked, inititally, if you "Work for any of the following companies or services". Usually this will include survey companies, and also a few companies that provide the product or service that is being surveyed- such as a beverage company in this case. If you say you work for any of these companies, you will be weeded out (the survey will terminate and you will receive a paltry 50 cent to $1 partial credit). I am not saying you should lie here about anything you fill in- all of this is based on an honors system, and in providing false information you are really skewing the data. But be aware that oftentimes- even a majority of the time- you will simply not qualify for a survey. So just because you get a lot of surveys by email does not guarantee that you will earn full credit for each of them. Expect that you will qualify and fully complete only about 25% of the surveys you receive. You might even start a survey and spend 5-10 minutes on it only to find out, halfway through, that you do not qualify. Those are the most annoying surveys, understandably.
Bear in mind, the surveys often fill up quickly, especially if the amount is high. Some surveys I have seen were over $40 dollars (though more frequently they are under $10). These fill up (i.e. the desired quota is met) within a few hours, and so you should check your email regularly. Normally, the more credits you receive, the more amount of time you spend on the survey. A typical survey should last from 5 minutes to as much as half an hour (an average, I'd say, is about 15 minutes).
Most surveys use a scale system, where you give a product or service a rating like "great, good, average, fair, poor". You are asked about various features of the product or service, and many surveys interactively cater questions based on what your responses are. Sometimes you are asked to elaborate on a given answer, even to write down your own opinions. Some surveys use Flash content, especially if you are shown videos. Although you do not need a high speed Internet connection, it helps when viewing this content.
When you fully qualify and complete a survey (you can sometimes return to where you left off, or restart a survey), you receive full credit. This might take a few minutes, or even a few days. I simply refresh the main e-Rewards page and the new credit tally pops up at the top right or left side of the screen.
Rewards
Rewards range from $5 to $100. Most of the lower end rewards are magazines or newspapers. At about the $25 or higher mark, you can receive discounts on electronics (usually 10%), frequent flier miles; discounts on restaurants, jewelry, ski tickets, and both online and brick and mortar retailers. e-Rewards claims it is always expanding the reward variety, but don't expect to trade in your credits for any tangible products outside of magazines and newspapers, and the aforementioned discounts, which come as a percentage coupon or dollar amount discount. Unless you are opting to receive a magazine or newspaper subscription, you will receive an email with your coupon or discount amount, which has a set expiration date. Also, most of the coupons require you to spend a set amount before you can get the discount.
Bottom Line
The bottom line on the rewards is this: if you are looking to trade in your reward amount for a lot of tangible goods, you should probably look elsewhere. The coupon amounts are decent, but you can probably get a better deal on any given major retailer's sale or with amazon.com or buy.com without the coupons. If you don't mind spending a few minutes on a survey and you like the possibility of getting "free" magazines and newspapers, then e-Rewards is a good bet. I mostly use the service to get subscriptions to magazines. I look for coupons and savings elsewhere.
The major downside for me is that it is hard to qualify for many surveys and when I do, it is time-consuming. But you can always opt to receive fewer survey invitations, or simply let the survey offer expire.
e-Rewards isn't a major money-making opportunity, but neither are most survey sites.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
af40
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Reviews written: 39
Trusted by: 0 members
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