As someone who looks for ways to earn a passive income online, you always have your eyes peeled for legitimate paid survey sites. You know, the kind that actually pays on time, compensates you well for completing surveys, doesn’t screen you out in the middle or at the tail-end of a survey, and other reasonable and realistic expectations that entail paid survey-taking? Yep, those issues.
Unfortunately, based on personal experience coupled with those of serious survey-takers I know, these legitimate surveys aren’t exactly a dime a dozen. This is the main reason why we turn to forums, social media platforms, and review pages we think are trustworthy, to help us get an idea of the survey panels to go for.
Survey Police is one of the more popular sites people go to if you want to check out if a survey site is legit or a scam. It’s pretty well known, boasting of thousands of survey site reviews from users themselves. But the question I want to pursue here is – is Survey Police really a good way to gauge if surveys are legit or scams?
Let’s take a closer look, shall we?
So What is SurveyPolice All About?
Calling itself “The Web’s Trusted Source of Online Survey Taking Information”, Survey Police is basically a survey review site that focuses on user reviews. Reading these reviews is free, with no membership fees required. The site offers two options for their members: new survey-takers can read through the thousands of reviews to learn about legit survey sites, while seasoned survey-takers can leave reviews to help others make up their minds.
Through the years, Survey Police has had several noteworthy mentions in such website and media segments as AOL Daily Finance, MSN Money, Fox 35 News, and other blogs and forums. In fact, it has gotten quite the reputation of reviewing most, if not all, of existing survey panels whether they’ve been around for over a decade now, or are still just a couple of weeks old. I guess if there is anything that Survey Police can lay genuine claim to, it’s longevity.
How Long Has It Been Around?
Survey Police was established in 2005, making it one of the pioneers of survey site reviews. Today, it also has a forum and blog for members to interact and give feedback about the different survey panels and routers currently in existence.
It’s still pretty active today. A quick look at the list of online surveys that have been reviewed thus far reveals pages and pages of links to survey sites, how many stars they’ve been rated, the points they’ve gotten out of a hundred, and how many users have reviewed them.
Is Membership to SurveyPolice Beneficial?
Because, as previously mentioned, joining the site is free and you can learn about the general information on different survey sites without paying a fee – I personally don’t see any reason to sign up in order to reap its benefits. In fact, you can actually get to know the top-rated survey sites in one click, which shows a list according to the rewards you will get. Plus, you can always check out the ones with the most star ratings or those with the most points (Survey Police automatically shows top-survey lists according to your country or IP).
However, Survey Police encourages signing up to be a member because of the following reasons:
You can get to interact with other survey-takers
Being a member means having access to the Survey Police forum. This, in turn, means you can have conversations with others about what makes a survey site legit or a scam. Plus, you can have a network of people who may know the intricacies of certain sites that you aren’t too familiar with, and who can give you advice and tips about them.
My personal take? This could be beneficial. A lot of the free-access reviews I see on Survey Police from its users are mere one-liners along with star ratings. Once in a while, a representative from the reviewed survey site gives feedback and explanations to the user who left the review. But more often than not, there’s not much to glean from a couple of stars or words strung together describing the user’s experience with the site.
You can use their Panel Finder
The Panel Finder is something Survey Police members use to make a customized list of survey panels. They can put new survey sites in it that they want to try out in the future, and also the past sites they’ve tried out to kind of compare and contrast their own membership experiences with them.
My personal take? The forum already makes this a possibility, though I can see why people would find a tool that motivates them to try out new panels attractive.
You can keep track of all the surveys you take
Aside from the Panel Finder, Survey Police also allows members to keep a detailed record of all the surveys they’ve taken from different sites. This could include the earnings, rewards, number of times you’ve gotten screened out, the number of referrals and corresponding earnings from them, etc.
My personal take? I don’t see how this would be especially beneficial. I keep track of my earnings and other details from survey panels in a personal record, and call me paranoid, but putting those details in a site is not only unnecessary, but potentially unsafe, too.
You can leave reviews for other survey-takers
Though Survey Police isn’t in itself a paid survey site, the fact that you can help people decide which survey panels are legitimate and which ones are scams eerily mirrors what most survey sites are all about. Being a member gives you that power, and also the noble purpose of imparting your knowledge and experience about particular survey panels.
My personal take? I’m sitting on the fence about this one. Survey Police reviews already give detailed general information on each site they feature, along with checklists for rewards offered, member opportunities, redemption information, and other survey panels sharing similar features with it. But I do get that if a survey site is truly a scam or truly a legit one, that you would want to tell others about it.
Does Survey Police Actually "Police" Survey Sites?
No it doesn’t. Despite having an authoritative-sounding name, Survey Police doesn’t actually blow the whistle at survey sites that are scammy, and thus pave the way for these to be banned from fooling more users. What it does is create a platform for other users to use their own common sense and decide if a site is something they want to take on.
My personal solution for this would be to also create a “lowest-rated online surveys” list aside from the top-rated ones. I mean, if the objective is to let people know what to steer clear of, why not make it easy for them to find, right? (In fairness, they do give a reason why they don’t review some survey sites, but it’s a list that I still think would be extremely helpful.)
But Who Will Police Survey Police?
The thing about free review sites like Survey Police is, it usually relies a lot on ads for revenue. You can easily glean this from banner ads and featured survey sites that supposedly have gotten top ratings from their users. So who will police them if their intentions aren’t as pure as they want to appear?
The answer, in a nutshell, is you and me. This is why blogs by survey takers exist: to thoroughly investigate what the supposed authorities of survey panels offer us. Another option would be to share honest feedback in forums and social media platforms so that people can have more informed choices on available survey panels.
The Verdict?
I like that Survey Police already gives a detailed “general information” on every survey site they feature. The summary of ratings (both numerical and five-star) can be helpful at one glance, but the nitty gritty is always in lengthier and more detailed reviews, often left by other users.
One glaring thing they have neglected to do is to make a list of sites that are available to different countries – an issue often brought up by non-American, Canadian, European, Australian or other “tier-1 country” survey-takers. With all the information being brought by users to the site, you would think Survey Police would have the capacity for this kind of feature.
The forum and blog are perks of being a member, but many other forums also offer the same kind of benefits that Survey Police claim to exclusively have here, anyway. You just need to sign in to a trusted forum and you can get your answers straight away.
There is no denying that Survey Police is extremely helpful in presenting reviews of different survey panels. They have been doing it for over a decade, after all. But even with a “complex” ranking algorithm to help them determine which sites merit a try, I don’t believe that all the reviews here are completely unbiased. Survey reviews can be manipulated for whatever reason, so I would greatly advise anyone who uses Survey Police as a reference to still practice logical decision-making.
Unfortunately, based on personal experience coupled with those of serious survey-takers I know, these legitimate surveys aren’t exactly a dime a dozen. This is the main reason why we turn to forums, social media platforms, and review pages we think are trustworthy, to help us get an idea of the survey panels to go for.
Survey Police is one of the more popular sites people go to if you want to check out if a survey site is legit or a scam. It’s pretty well known, boasting of thousands of survey site reviews from users themselves. But the question I want to pursue here is – is Survey Police really a good way to gauge if surveys are legit or scams?
Let’s take a closer look, shall we?
So What is SurveyPolice All About?
Calling itself “The Web’s Trusted Source of Online Survey Taking Information”, Survey Police is basically a survey review site that focuses on user reviews. Reading these reviews is free, with no membership fees required. The site offers two options for their members: new survey-takers can read through the thousands of reviews to learn about legit survey sites, while seasoned survey-takers can leave reviews to help others make up their minds.
Through the years, Survey Police has had several noteworthy mentions in such website and media segments as AOL Daily Finance, MSN Money, Fox 35 News, and other blogs and forums. In fact, it has gotten quite the reputation of reviewing most, if not all, of existing survey panels whether they’ve been around for over a decade now, or are still just a couple of weeks old. I guess if there is anything that Survey Police can lay genuine claim to, it’s longevity.
How Long Has It Been Around?
Survey Police was established in 2005, making it one of the pioneers of survey site reviews. Today, it also has a forum and blog for members to interact and give feedback about the different survey panels and routers currently in existence.
It’s still pretty active today. A quick look at the list of online surveys that have been reviewed thus far reveals pages and pages of links to survey sites, how many stars they’ve been rated, the points they’ve gotten out of a hundred, and how many users have reviewed them.
Is Membership to SurveyPolice Beneficial?
Because, as previously mentioned, joining the site is free and you can learn about the general information on different survey sites without paying a fee – I personally don’t see any reason to sign up in order to reap its benefits. In fact, you can actually get to know the top-rated survey sites in one click, which shows a list according to the rewards you will get. Plus, you can always check out the ones with the most star ratings or those with the most points (Survey Police automatically shows top-survey lists according to your country or IP).
However, Survey Police encourages signing up to be a member because of the following reasons:
You can get to interact with other survey-takers
Being a member means having access to the Survey Police forum. This, in turn, means you can have conversations with others about what makes a survey site legit or a scam. Plus, you can have a network of people who may know the intricacies of certain sites that you aren’t too familiar with, and who can give you advice and tips about them.
My personal take? This could be beneficial. A lot of the free-access reviews I see on Survey Police from its users are mere one-liners along with star ratings. Once in a while, a representative from the reviewed survey site gives feedback and explanations to the user who left the review. But more often than not, there’s not much to glean from a couple of stars or words strung together describing the user’s experience with the site.
You can use their Panel Finder
The Panel Finder is something Survey Police members use to make a customized list of survey panels. They can put new survey sites in it that they want to try out in the future, and also the past sites they’ve tried out to kind of compare and contrast their own membership experiences with them.
My personal take? The forum already makes this a possibility, though I can see why people would find a tool that motivates them to try out new panels attractive.
You can keep track of all the surveys you take
Aside from the Panel Finder, Survey Police also allows members to keep a detailed record of all the surveys they’ve taken from different sites. This could include the earnings, rewards, number of times you’ve gotten screened out, the number of referrals and corresponding earnings from them, etc.
My personal take? I don’t see how this would be especially beneficial. I keep track of my earnings and other details from survey panels in a personal record, and call me paranoid, but putting those details in a site is not only unnecessary, but potentially unsafe, too.
You can leave reviews for other survey-takers
Though Survey Police isn’t in itself a paid survey site, the fact that you can help people decide which survey panels are legitimate and which ones are scams eerily mirrors what most survey sites are all about. Being a member gives you that power, and also the noble purpose of imparting your knowledge and experience about particular survey panels.
My personal take? I’m sitting on the fence about this one. Survey Police reviews already give detailed general information on each site they feature, along with checklists for rewards offered, member opportunities, redemption information, and other survey panels sharing similar features with it. But I do get that if a survey site is truly a scam or truly a legit one, that you would want to tell others about it.
Does Survey Police Actually "Police" Survey Sites?
No it doesn’t. Despite having an authoritative-sounding name, Survey Police doesn’t actually blow the whistle at survey sites that are scammy, and thus pave the way for these to be banned from fooling more users. What it does is create a platform for other users to use their own common sense and decide if a site is something they want to take on.
My personal solution for this would be to also create a “lowest-rated online surveys” list aside from the top-rated ones. I mean, if the objective is to let people know what to steer clear of, why not make it easy for them to find, right? (In fairness, they do give a reason why they don’t review some survey sites, but it’s a list that I still think would be extremely helpful.)
But Who Will Police Survey Police?
The thing about free review sites like Survey Police is, it usually relies a lot on ads for revenue. You can easily glean this from banner ads and featured survey sites that supposedly have gotten top ratings from their users. So who will police them if their intentions aren’t as pure as they want to appear?
The answer, in a nutshell, is you and me. This is why blogs by survey takers exist: to thoroughly investigate what the supposed authorities of survey panels offer us. Another option would be to share honest feedback in forums and social media platforms so that people can have more informed choices on available survey panels.
The Verdict?
I like that Survey Police already gives a detailed “general information” on every survey site they feature. The summary of ratings (both numerical and five-star) can be helpful at one glance, but the nitty gritty is always in lengthier and more detailed reviews, often left by other users.
One glaring thing they have neglected to do is to make a list of sites that are available to different countries – an issue often brought up by non-American, Canadian, European, Australian or other “tier-1 country” survey-takers. With all the information being brought by users to the site, you would think Survey Police would have the capacity for this kind of feature.
The forum and blog are perks of being a member, but many other forums also offer the same kind of benefits that Survey Police claim to exclusively have here, anyway. You just need to sign in to a trusted forum and you can get your answers straight away.
There is no denying that Survey Police is extremely helpful in presenting reviews of different survey panels. They have been doing it for over a decade, after all. But even with a “complex” ranking algorithm to help them determine which sites merit a try, I don’t believe that all the reviews here are completely unbiased. Survey reviews can be manipulated for whatever reason, so I would greatly advise anyone who uses Survey Police as a reference to still practice logical decision-making.
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