Harris Poll Online Review: an in Depth Look at This Survey Panel

Wondering if Harris Poll Online is a survey panel worth your time and energy? Is the site even legit or is just another scam?…

To get answer to these and many more questions, read my unbiased and in dept review.

Who is Harris Poll?

HPOL is operated by Harris Interactive, a market research firm headquartered in New York that was founded in 1975 by Dr. Gordon S. Black. who was at the time a professor of political science at the University of Rochester in New York.

Harris Interactive was originally called the Gordon S. Black Corporation. However, after acquiring Louis Harris & Associates from the Gannett Corporation in 1996, the company’s name was changed to Harris Black International Ltd.

HP conducts market research studies in a wide range of industries, across the globe from North America to Europe, Asia and beyond.

As you would expect from such a big firm, the company is a member of some of the biggest and most well known marketing research organizations such as the British Polling Council, US National Council of Public Polls, the US Council for Marketing and Opinion Research, the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (also known as Casro), and the UK Market Research Society.

As for its profile withe The BBB, unfortunately the company doesn’t have an A+ rating, nor is it a BBB accredited business. Although, that doesn’t mean the company is not reputable, there are many hundreds of legitimate businesses that are not BBB accredited. It just means the company hasn’t filed to become an accredited business with them.

I should I also mention that while Harris Poll is not a scam, there has been a few instances where unsuspecting people were scammed by those running scams for things like “free gift cash” or secret shoppers pretending to be HP. Don’t allow yourself to be taken in by such ploys, but make certain you’re dealing with the actual site before following a link.

When you put all of this together, it is obvious that not only is this a legitimate company, it is actually one of the leaders in the research industry.

Panel Participation

Registration with Harris Poll is just like any other survey site. Anyone with a valid mailing and email address at or over the age of 13 can join for free. Should you ever wish to un-enroll you can do that at any time.

Of course, there is the sign up possess where you supply your personal information such as name, user name, email, password etc, and then there is the boring part where you have to tell them about yourself in detail (profile survey).

Although these profile surveys are boring, they are very practical and beneficial when it comes to getting invited to surveys you actually qualify for. They use this information to match available surveys to you.

So, at the end of the day, spending 10-15 minutes filling out your profile saves you hours of wasted time from not having to go through a survey half way just to find out you don’t qualify for it.

When you sign up you’ll be automatically included in the sites “appreciation program.” Through this program you can earn reward points known as “HIpoints” that can be exchanged for rewards just for doing surveys.

What I really liked about the site was that as soon as I registered, there was a survey available for me. And what I noticed was that before I started the survey, it told me approximately how long it would take me to complete it, the exact number of points I could earn (50 points), and also how much points I could expect if I didn’t qualify (15 points).

I should mention that not only you get few points for surveys you don’t qualify for, you will also be entered into HIstakes quarterly drawing

On average members will receive invitations to a few (3-4) surveys every month that can take between 5 and 25 minutes to complete and rewarding the user with varying amounts of reward points.

It is possible that you’ll occasionally get a survey that doesn’t include reward points, but the site assures that these will be rare.

While the site doesn’t offer cash, just like many other survey panels such as ZoomPanel they will give you rewards points for participation (which are called “Harris Points” or “HI” points for short) that can be redeemed for prizes like gift cards.

Typically gift card amounts don’t go any higher than $10. Alternatively you could donate your points to one of the charities they make available.

A number of the surveys offered are on various intriguing subjects like religion and politics. Most surveys however fall into the category of your typical research survey. Still the site tends to attempt to keep surveys short and of an interesting nature.

Other Reviews of Harris Poll

I also looked around to see what other people have to say about the site.

Interestingly enough, while the majority of reviews I read seem to indicate that people have no doubt about the legitimacy of the site, most people aren’t fund of the site because of its low earning opportunities.

Here is a quick run down of pros and cons of HP I gathered from reading personal accounts of current and former panelists:

Pros

• No sign up cost.

• They are legit.

• Nice variety of prizes and rewards.

• Non-US residents may be able to participate.

• Surveys are usually short.

• No spam emails or advertising crap.

Cons

• For the most part earnings will tend to be low (between $0.15 and $1.50).

• Unlike most sites they don’t allow you to establish a custom password, but rather issue one to you for use. This occasionally results in issues logging-in. Just make a few attempts. If you have no success contact their customer service department.

• No cash payout and the majority of redeemable rewards are magazine subscriptions and gift cards.

• In recent years invitations to take surveys have become less frequent resulting in long waits to redeem reward points.

• Takes a while to earn enough points for rewards.

• Gift cards can take weeks to arrive.

• No referral program.

• When you can finally redeem your points gift cards can’t be redeemed for more than $10 including postage (a cost they no longer pay for you).

• The site has also removed its links to online shopping sites forcing you to go to the sites manually to redeem your points and offer up some credit card information as verification.

Conclusion

Because of the low earning potential and the slim number and slow delivery of surveys of late, I cannot in good conscience recommend Harris Poll Online as a legitimate means of earning an income from home.