Points2shop Prize Proof

Finally edited together my 'proof' for Points2shop - here is the prize I received in the mail. Note that it actually came directly from the Amazon seller to me.

Unfortunately, I have been having some difficulty with OTX surveys not loading in Firefox. I don't like IE and can't always remember to switch to IE for doing OTX surveys, and once you have attempted a survey for the day it won't let you attempt another one, even if the survey didn't load correctly. So it has been costing me. I finally got around to installing the IE Tab addon for Firefox. Hopefully, this addon will solve problems with some other survey sites that insist on Internet Explorer. If you're having trouble with this in Firefox, go to Tools --> Add-ons and run a plugin search for IE Tab.

Today, I actually got SIX ads to click on Neobux, instead of the regular four. Exciting. I still have no referrals, but the money seems to accumulate a little bit faster, possibly because I'm staying on top of it a little bit better, possibly because they seem to be feeding me more ads to click lately.
Waiting for the ads to load and verify has started to take quite a long time. If you're having trouble with it hanging on 'loading advertisement', just let it sit. Eventually, it will load and verify, but it can take quite a while. It's not like it's hard work to just let it sit and load, though.

I Received My Points2shop Prize

Today, I received my prize from Points2shop. I'd ordered a music CD (Good Apollo I'm Burning Star Vol. IV by Coheed & Cambria, if you're curious). I'll post photos of the package and prize in a little while

To recap: I received confirmation that my prize had been ordered the third day after I requested it. I never received a tracking number for the prize, even though the message told me I would receive one. I was a little bit worried about that. A tracking number would have been comforting.

I just now visited their website and, unfortunately, it seems to be down. d'oh. They'd been talking about an update, I guess maybe their update hasn't gone as planned? I'm not sure. All I know is that it only occasionally loads properly, and if I try to visit another page, I get an Internal Server Error. I hope that my point balance hasn't been wiped out - that would be a shame, considering the fact that I've just confirmed that they pay out.

Edit: I just visited the website again, and it appears to be working properly. Nevermind.

Points2Shop Has Shipped My Prize...

I received this email from Points2Shop today:

"Your order is approved and ordered at Amazon.com. As soon as we receive the tracking number we will update the status of your order. You will receive notification of this by email."

This means I should get my CD soon. I haven't received a tracking number yet.

Unfortunately, many of the offers and surveys I've taken on Points2shop recently seem to be stuck in "approval limbo". I hope that it doesn't turn out to be the same situation as GamingLagoon all over again. From the announcements, though, it looks as if they are doing a major site overhaul. Hopefully, the 'approval limbo' is linked to this, and things will get better once they're done updating the website.

Anyway, Points2Shop is also linked to something called Cashle. Instead of Amazon points, you earn cash. Cash can be converted to Amazon points on Points2shop, but Amazon points cannot be converted to cash. I mainly ignored Cashle since many of the offers only give you a few cents, but some of the Daily Surveys look like they have a decent payout, so I may switch over to Cashle for a little while and see what my experience with that is.

As for Reviewstream, I got burnt out on review writing and let it rest for a little while. Part of the problem is that they only want to pay the full rate for certain kinds of reviews. I'm not sure about some categories, but I know that makeup and electronics reviews are in demand. And I was sort of sick of reviewing makeup and shampoo. Right now, my opinion is to only review things such as food if you're willing to accept the bulk rate. Nonetheless, I'll be writing a few more reviews over the next few days while picking my brain for more ideas for Associated Content articles.

List O' Survey Sites Continues, July 1st - Plus Other Updates

NOT WORTH MY TIME:
http://consumer-opinions.com/ - looks very amateurish and the 'Contest rules' section is very out of date.
forummodalis.com - portal page
http://www.survey550.com/ - 404
http://marketprofiles.net/ - looks amateurish. Also, you can only be entered in a drawing to win prizes. Why bother when you can take surveys elsewhere and be paid every time?
allpaidsurveys.com - not an actual survey site. Worth exploring for its links to other survey sites but they are not well-organized. Also has links to very annoying I WILL SELL U MY SEACRET METHOD!!1 type websites.
survey904.com - Looks legitimate and professional but I can't see anywhere for survey-takers to sign up
webmysteryshoppers.com - parked portal page
survey552.com - 404
zoomerang.com - 404
survey087.com - useless link list
foodquiz.com - no longer offering surveys through the foodquiz.com website
consumercorner.com - site is closed
onlineval.com - link list
survey233.com - 404
surveypayday.com - link list
isay.com - parked/portal page
preres.com - in order to participate, you must go to the opinionwizard.com website
firstlook.com - does not appear to be a survey site any longer
survey446.com - 404
survey889.com - portal page
survey767.com - portal page
survey153.com - portal page
survey199.com - link list/portal page
survey327.com - portal page
surveysignup.com - parked/portal page
surveychoice.com - 404
researchhouse.ca - no longer appears to be a survey site
focusgroups.com - lists focus group locations, etc. but does not appear to be a survey site
surfbuzz.com - parked/portal page
quesionmarket.com - portal site
questionmarket.com - no longer accepting new registrants
gmrnet.com - offers "a chance to win prizes", looks amateurish


WORTH LOOKING AT FURTHER:
consumerlink.com
http://www.gmi-mr.com/
mysurvey.com - I believe this may be affiliated with Mypoints.com somehow
https://www.surveysavvy.com
http://focusline.com/ - has been around since 1996. Most of the page refers to 2008 dates, so I'm a bit worried it may be outdated.
gozing.com - Clicking on the BBB Accredited link on the bottom leads to a page indicating that its accredition has lapsed (as of this date, in any case). It's apparently run by Greenfield Online. I don't know how good/bad it is, its BBB rating looks like it's B- right now, and indicates that "This company's business is providing the sales of cellular phones, accessories and survey programs" - paid surveys aren't mentioned. It looks interesting but I would be wary.
product-testing.com
songpeople.com - looks interesting. Not surveys, but interesting.
pickthehits.com - I don't know what to make of this one, you have to contact them via email - I probably will.
userworks.com
opinionwizard.com
ithinkinc.com
executiveadvisoryboard.com
cobbey.com
buzzback.com
jurytest.com - this one looks odd, but interesting
surveysavvy.com
busreslab.com

Other Updates:
Thanks to Reviewstream, I can pay my student loan payment. Combined with money I made from Associated Content, money from doing some odd jobs for other people and some money I received as a birthday gift, I am also able to pay my phone bill. I've been worried that all of this was a huge waste of time, but if I was able to pay 2 bills, it wasn't. I will also be able to buy my cousin a birthday gift with the gift cards I earned through Swagbucks, which is nice and would otherwise be impossible (as I am essentially flat broke after paying bills).

DollarSurveys.net still hasn't deposited anything in my Paypal account. Well, guys, it's been a week and I'm close to calling that one a bust. Edit: DollarSurveys actually paid me today - $3.25. I'll post images tomorrow

At Points2Shop, I'm close to the 1000 point mark just through taking stupid easy Daily Surveys. I'd like to save up a decent number of points before ordering something and possibly being able to vouch for the site once my prize arrives. I probably could order something now (10 bucks is about where money starts getting 'useful' on Amazon) but I'd rather just wait.

A relative sent me an email with a link to this Yahoo! User Experience Panel. It's Yahoo! so I feel pretty safe assuming it's legit. I don't know if it'll help anyone - I'm guessing the odds of being selected are pretty low.

When I went into this, I expected to find a fistful of scams. I've definitely found my fair share of scams, but Internet, you surprise me.

Up To Speed

Sites I Have Hit Payout On, And Have Paid Me:

Associated Content - Another article awaiting review.

Swagbucks - Roughly 10 points away from another gift card.

Sites I Am Close To Payout On, But Have Not Yet Gotten Payment:

MyPoints - I have nearly accumulated enough points to request my first gift card. That only took a few months, eh?


Sites I Am Not Close To Payout On, But Are Good Prospects:

I have not personally cashed out on any of these sites yet, and therefore cannot vouch for them in good faith. You are still welcome to join them if you want, but I won't give them my endorsement yet (so to speak).

Survey Spot - Still haven't qualified for any paid surveys.

NeoBux - Surprisingly, one of the best "get paid to click ads" websites I have encountered. I started out with only 4 ads to click per day, at 1 cent each, but am now up to 6 ads, and one of them counts for a cent and a half (which hardly makes sense, but ok).

SendEarnings - Yep, it's still slow as slow gets. I don't waste much effort on SendEarnings, lately. In any case, NeoBux is looking much more promising.

Points2Shop - The daily surveys are the only real way I get points. Honestly, I don't feel like giving away all of my personal information or signing up for stupid "free trials". That's about 50 points (50 cents' equivalent, I guess) per day, when I qualify at all. So it's going to take me a while. Assuming I only qualify half the time, that's roughly 150 points a week. But I guess it's not bad if you're saving up points for something special.

ReviewStream - I'm not a big fan of ReviewStream for regular reviews, they'll gyp you out of the full review rate and give you the Bulk Rate whenever possible. Nonetheless, I get the sense that it's fairly legit. I have recently submitted several ReviewStream reviews for the full rate, and one has gotten approved so far. You can find links to them here.

Scour - 183 points so far. I don't focus on Scour, but run my searches in it when I remember to.

Sites I Have Looked At But Haven't Really Touched:

Textbroker


Sites I Have Doubts About:

GamingLagoon - My Completed Offers are still pending. Big surprise.

Hits4Pay - Yep, they still want my SSN. A reader recently commented in defense of Hits4Pay's request for a Social Security number. I already understood that this was for tax purposes, but I'm not comfortable giving my SSN out to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. I've been poking around PTC sites for a while and honestly, since I am not an aggressive recruiter, it is highly unlikely that I will be making more than $600.00 from them.

Hits4Pay's BBB report can be found here. It's an A-, actually not a bad report. However, it is ultimately up to individuals whether or not they wish to divulge such information.

Progress

Alrighty.

So far, I am up to 157 points in Scour. Still a few thousand to go, but getting points is easier than I thought it would be. I was using the Scour engine to run phrases through (checking for plagiarism on Ciao) but realized that when they reviewed my account for payout, it might look suspicious to them. So I stopped doing that (Scour wasn't pulling up much in that area that was useful for me, anyway).

I am around 100 points away from cashing out on MyPoints. I was frustrated with MyPoints - I get disqualified for every single one of their surveys, and accumulating points has been very, VERY slow. However, they recently introduced something called the "Frogpond", where you can visit and write short reviews about websites to get points. 25 points per website! And on MyPoints, that's a pretty good amount of points. I don't get anything for referring you (their referral system works off of email only) but now that points are easier to get on MyPoints, it may be more worthwhile to look into it.

I have also joined SurveySpot. I have been taking free surveys - not making money yet. I guess before you get a chance at paid surveys, they want to make sure you're trustworthy/serious. That's the impression I get. SurveySpot is a member of the BBB Online Reliability Program, so I trust them right now. They don't use referral links, but if you want to maximize how much you benefit from this and make the most out of joining, your best bet is to find a link to it and join through somewhere like Points2Shop, where you get points for joining.

And as for Points2Shop, accumulating points there isn't as rough as GamingLagoon. Unlike GamingLagoon, they seem to actually approve offers you complete! It's hard for me to find offers - I'm choosy and loathe giving away any of my contact information unless I think a website is trustworthy - but their daily surveys really aren't bad (when you can qualify, anyway, and you won't always qualify). I'm nearly up to 500 points there, which I guess is like 5 bucks on Amazon.com, which really isn't all that bad when you think about it.

Just Joined Two More Sites

...shall we see how they pan out?

I joined EasyHits4U in order to try to get some traffic. Not that many people know about this blog. I think it's a shame since I really do try to be genuinely helpful, and I try to update regularly. If you arrived here via EasyHits4U, please spend a moment to read this blog. Even if you think ppc/paid survey/review for money/get free stuff search engines are a load of crap, I hope that my enthusiasm and wit will make this blog worth reading.
For those interested in EasyHits4U, you can't have Adsense ads up. It's against the program policies! That's why I have taken my ads down for now, until I get a decent flow of traffic. You can actually make money directly off of EasyHits4U, but honestly, it's not going to be a lot even if you sit there and click madly all day long. I like to keep it running in the background and click when I remember to. While some of the sites are just Internet crappy crap, I have actually found some neat sites and fellow bloggers through it.

I have joined Points2Shop. I don't yet know how it will pan out. Unfortunately, it is one of those "COMPLETE FREE OFFERS" sites, which I loathe. Yes, you can play games for points, but the games are limited and you have to spend points in order to compete - no guarantee that you will win more points. Still, it has daily surveys, and you get a point just for logging in every day. That's 365 free points per year (which comes out to about $3.65, so don't get too excited).
The interesting thing about this one is that there's no dinking around with gift cards. You buy things directly from Amazon with your points, and they seem to have a 1 point: 1 US dollar ratio.

And, of course, the well-known Neobux. I've held off on joining because I've heard good and bad things about it. You only get 1 cent per ad you click. On the other hand, clicking ads isn't much work, is it? It's one of those things you can just do for 2 minutes a day. You get about 4 ads. That's, uh, $1.00 a month. Minimum payout - I'm not sure, I think it's 2 bucks. I'll check later. I guess Neobux is another one of those "get referrals to make anything worthwhile" websites.

But I'd have to say that one of the websites with the best payoff-to-effort ratio is still Swagbucks. That's why I have some advice for you: