There are so many online rewards sites and paid survey sites nowadays that it’s hard to choose which one to take on. Many times, settling for what you want to try boils down to how much money the site actually promises. It’s no wonder sites like PanelPayday uses the words “Earn $25-$75 per survey” on its homepage, the same way the wicked witch in Hansel and Gretel used sweets and pastries to build her house in the middle of a forest (so kids will know what she’s all about).
Who doesn’t want to earn that much money for completing surveys, right?
The thing is, I’ve always been wary of outright promises like that, maybe because I’ve been doing surveys for some time now and no way have I ever completed a survey that cost that much...at least not yet. So erring on the side of caution, I decided to look up a couple of reviews first before signing up. I will tell you all about what I’ve read, but for the sake of fairness, I decided to write this Panel PayDay review by juxtaposing what the website promises with actual feedback from people who have tried it out themselves.
First things first - what is it?
The first thing I explored on Panel Payday was that very telling page called “Earnings Disclaimer”, with my mind fixed on feedback I’ve read from past users. It had several paragraphs worth of disclaimers to the tune of “we’re not guaranteeing that you will actually get paid here, much less make the kind of money we promised on our home page.”
So - if it doesn’t promise any sort of payment or earning (at least of the tangible kind we prefer), it’s surely not an online rewards site?
Next, I visited the site’s Terms and Conditions page. There are several lines in it that stood out to me:
“provides users with access to a rich collection of resources”
“these communications are considered part of PanelPayDay membership and you will not be able to opt out of receiving them” (referring to the site’s newsletters and other means of “communication”)
And to be honest those two phrases struck me as ominous. First, there’s a promise of resources, meaning an entire network of partner businesses can access your information, and secondly, it seems like there’s no way to shake off unwanted communication even if you don’t feel like receiving them anymore.
Is registration free?
Yes it’s free, BUT.
I found it very suspicious that they have a page dedicated to Unsubscribe, which gave me the inkling that you’re likely to get spammed when you sign up.
When I clicked on All Surveys, I was taken to a hodgepodge list of affiliate partners looking for members (complete with their own join buttons), which makes me think this is more of an “agent” site earning by way of your contact information. After that, it seems like anything goes, judging from complaints ranging from not getting paid at all for completed surveys, to getting non-stop phone calls and emails from different companies, all the way to getting fraudulent charges on their credit card (NOT something I would recommend you to share by the way, on here or on any other GPT site).
How do I start earning extra income from Panel Payday?
The site also mentions a $25 sign up bonus which sounds very attractive indeed. However, this amount won’t come directly from Panel Payday. Instead, you can maybe expect it from a third party survey site they’re affiliated with. So basically, nope, there’s no guarantee of a signup bonus.
If you want to give their list of surveys a try, you have to be ready for a slew of offers thrown at you first. You will go through plenty of pages of these so that Panel Payday can make a commission for any that you click Accept to. And then finally you can get to the surveys, which, as I mentioned above, aren’t hand-picked or screened for authenticity or quality. On that note, you can expect some legit surveys mixed with scammy ones, and it’s going to be up to you to find out which is which.
The verdict?
There are obviously too many negative reviews outweighing the positive ones for Panel Payday so far. But is it a scam site? I would say no, given that they did give a lot of disclaimers and actually spell out the circumstances of signing up with them (as illustrated by hand-picked phrases below):
“There is no guarantee that you will earn money using this website.”
“We do not provide any guarantees that you will ‘get rich quick’.”
“No express or implied guarantees of income are made by PanelPayDay.com.”
The bottom line is, it’s more of an affiliate marketing site (though they don’t outrightly say that) that entices users with survey sites they can refer you to (and thus earning from each referral as a middleman). As I said, there’s nothing explicitly wrong with that, really.
But at the end of the day, I think honesty and truth in advertising are bedrocks of a good business, and this site lacks both. It just serves to illustrate how, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn’t good nor true.
Panel Payday Screenshots
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Your turn!
Would you consider signing up for affiliate marketing sites like Panel Payday for surveys, or do you think it’s a waste of time and effort? Tell me your thoughts and feedback if you have any.
Link: http://panelpayday.com/
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