One surprisingly easy method to earn extra cash online is with paid surveys. Organizations pay money for people to share their opinions and experiences about products and services. All you need to do is to register and spend some time sharing your honest opinion.

 

It’s all really great until you need to receive a payout. The process then might get quite complicated and even include taxes if you earn enough to raise suspicions from the government. That’s why, to avoid scams and ensure an effortless side income, you should choose platforms with lots of payout options.

How to avoid paid survey scams?

As with most ways to earn online, online surveys are full of bad actors trying to trick people into spending time with no compensation. There are quite a few red flags you should look for before starting to participate.

 

Screening process. No screening process is definitely a bad sign. Organizations pay money for opinions from specific demographics – age, country, gender, and similar questions are standard in registrations. It is normal if you aren’t eligible for all surveys. However, some shady platforms play with this and limit the number of surveys later to avoid paying you. Read reviews before starting.

 

Don’t provide too much of your personal information. Your full name, bank account number, or other sensitive information shouldn’t be given to platforms you don’t trust. 

 

Compensation size. Getting paid a dollar for a 30-minute survey is normal. Being offered 100 dollars is definitely a red flag. This is just an unrealistic compensation, which is unlikely to ever be paid out.

 

Don’t pay for registration. Some platforms require you to pay them before you can earn. They frequently justify as a requirement for verification or some other formalities. This is a strong red flag that you won’t be making much money with such a platform.

 

Payout methods. The more payout methods the platform has, the more legitimate it is. It’s also a red flag if a platform only pays with its own virtual currency or some sort of cryptocurrency. It isn’t inherently bad, but you should look for a platform with as many options as possible.

 

Below, I have gathered some of the payment methods that reputable platforms use. Not all of them are valid for all situations and countries, but it’s a good sign that you are going to be paid for your work.

Bank transfers

 

While online banking is a standard way to get paid online, it gets more difficult with things like paid online surveys. For one, bank transfers can get expensive if you are not in the country of the company providing surveys. The more countries the platform supports for this payout method, the more legitimate they are.

 

However, even if they can pay straight to your bank account, you might be charged from your bank, which will lower your income. Even worse is that bank transfers from a foreign company you don’t have formal employment with might raise suspicions. Depending on the payout size, you might only need to explain to them the income.

 

In more difficult cases, you might need to declare the income formally and then pay taxes. It’s not just that you earn less, but the bureaucracy isn’t liked by anyone who has ever tried it. That’s why people rarely choose direct bank transfers and look for alternative options instead.

PayPal

PayPal is the largest and best-known online payment provider. It enables money to be sent to most countries quite affordably, which is why many survey sites use it for payouts. But it’s also beneficial for users too, as it allows them to keep money in digital wallets, convert currencies, and more.

 

You can avoid expensive bank charges, terrible exchange rates, and even some taxes with PayPal. The best strategy is to receive money from your PayPal account and then spend it on purchases without transferring it to your bank account. PayPal charges you a bit for this, but it’s way less than what your bank would charge you.

 

Unfortunately, PayPal can also require some documents for banking compliance reasons. It might get messy if your platform doesn’t help. Depending on your country, income to PayPal might also be visible to the government and get taxed.

Cryptocurrency

While I do not generally recommend using cryptocurrencies for survey payouts, it must be mentioned as a popular option. Most survey platforms use them because it’s cheap for them to make payments. It’s also easy to confuse the participants as the exact value of cryptocurrencies in dollars fluctuates.

 

This wouldn’t be a problem if survey platforms used known cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum or Bitcoin. The problem is that most of them use some unknown crypto that is unlikely to hold value.

 

If you are well-versed in crypto and know how to invest and exchange it, then go for it. It’s a great option for saving on taxes and bank fees. However, If you barely know what it is, don’t bother and choose the next best option instead – gift cards.

Gift cards

Gift cards are digital codes that can be used to purchase or get a discount at a certain store. It’s hands down the best way to receive your survey earnings. There are no taxes, no banking fees, and no country restrictions.

 

The only downside is that gift cards have an expiration date (usually half a year or a year), but if you choose a product you use often, this won’t be a problem. Survey sites support these options most frequently – Amazon, Google Play, McDonald’s, Walmart, iTunes, and Spotify.

Conclusion

Once You look into all the red flags and payment options available, it becomes clear what survey site you should look for. One that has a low payout threshold, a quick screening process, and realistic compensation should do the trick. My recommendation is to try Pawns.app. It checks all the boxes and has all of the mentioned payout methods to choose from.