While searching online you probably have come across an ad or two promoting surveys as a way to make some extra money. Maybe your curiosity was aroused. After all, the promise of working from home and making some extra money sounds pretty appealing, right?

Maybe there was something inside of you that figured it can’t be that easy. You don’t want to be a sucker and fall for a paid survey scam. That’s good that you’re looking for more information about whether or not surveys are legitimate or not.

We live in a capitalist consumer driven society. Companies desperately want and even need feedback from their current or potential customers. The feedback they get from surveys can literally mean them gaining or losing millions or even billions of dollars a year. They have to take feedback about their products or marketing very seriously. This is why they are so willing to hand out money to people who take the surveys. These surveys are not a paid survey scam, they are legitimate.

You do have to be careful; there are ways that you could fall for a paid survey scam. The companies that need these surveys for their data often hire other companies to take care of the complete survey process for them. Unfortunately, sometimes these companies aren’t scrupulous.

You know you are probably dealing with a paid survey scam if the company that is conducting the survey wants you to pay for the survey form. These surveys should be provided free of charge. They may say you need to pay $5 for the form but when it’s completed you will get $10. In all likelihood the companies are paying $10 per survey but the survey company is skimming $5 of each survey to keep.

It should be made clear that sometimes the survey will require you to actually use a product and you have to give your feedback on the survey about the product. The survey company will ask you for a small amount of money for shipping the product to you. This is not a paid survey scam.

Once you pay for the shipping you get the product, which will be yours to keep, and when you fill out the survey and return it you will make the specified amount of money. These types of surveys generally pay pretty well. You’ll recoup the shipping cost easily.

You may also notice that some survey companies will offer you points instead of money for taking surveys. They may even offer vouchers for food or movie tickets. If they offer points you can exchange the points for merchandise. This is not a paid survey scam either. While you may rather do surveys for cash, the merchandise can easily be converted to cash. All you have to do is sell the merchandise. It’s an extra step, but one worth taking.

You may also notice sites that ask you for money in order to gain access to a database of surveys that is updated regularly. This is not a paid survey scam either. These sites built up a relationship with the companies that handle surveys. When they have a new survey they need filled out they tell the company that runs the survey database. By joining one of these types of sites, you’ll be able to find a lot of surveys in one convenient location.