PollBuzzer Review: a Legit Site that Pays $1 for Each Survey?

A lot of my readers email me asking me about cash only surveys. Although there aren’t many of them, most companies are moving towards cash payments.

PollBuzzer, on the other hand, has been paying its panelists cash for taking surveys since the beginning. It is one of the few sites that pays $1 for every single surveys (much like Pinecone Research that pays $3 per survey), and most of their surveys are just one question.

So, today’s review will revolve around PollBuzzer and whether or not it’s a legit paying survey site.

As always, we will begin with a quick company background and a look at its profile on the BBB.

Business Background of PollBuzzer

Noah Seton is the co-founder of PollBuzzer. While working in his capacity as a management consultant, he was familiar to the high costs associated to gather market intelligence and consumer data. The work related to finding what consumers’ need and want is often long and tedious, but there could be times when businesses are more concerned about a quick check about the general sentiment of the market.

The emergence of Wikipedia and Google has made instant search a reality; still there was no comprehensive means to pull public opinions online in an effective way, like the way Gallup poll does offline.

This had been a challenge during his earlier career. Then an idea struck upon him that he could take advantage of the potential of Internet crowd sourcing technology, in combination of text messaging. He realized that if the technology could be utilized in a more focused way, he possibly has a solution to address the challenge. The thinking was that if he has established a broad and deep panel of respondents, who are guaranteed to be the source of any instantaneous surveys, he could be right there to give businesses the real-time opinions that they desire.

That remained on the drawing board until Noah met Matt McLoughlin. The latter is a software architect providing IT solutions to real business issues. And the rest is history, as they said.

The company was born with the collaboration of Seton and McLoughlin, and they wasted no time for the introduction of this new, real-time consumer research tool.

Better Business Bureau’s Rating

I looked at PollBuzzer’s profile on the BBB. It is actually listed under the actual company’s name, Dandel Enterprises, Inc.

And although it is not a BBB accredited business (companies actually have to pay to become a BBB accredited business, so this is really not a major thing. There are tons of big companies that are not accredited by the BBB), it gets an A- rating from the BBB.

What was great to see was the number of complaints against the company in the past 3 years, according to the BBB. Usually, most companies I investigate have at least a dozen or so complaints against them, but there was only one complaints against PollBuzzer in the last 3 years, and that one complaint has been solved actually. So, that is a good sign of the company being a customer friendly company.

Signing Up

Going through the entire registration process is pretty easy and quick, much like with other similar sites, say like Opinion Outpost (reviewed here by me). What they would ask for you are: first name, last name, email, and PayPal email where they eventually could credit your payment.

During the sign up process, you’ll have to go through a series of questionnaire so as to establish your profile. That helps them to push more targeted jobs to appropriate candidates.

Those relevant surveys will be sent into your e-mail inbox directly. They would usually take the form of just one single question e-mail and you will be presented with multiple choices for your picking. There is no prior screening required.

From my experience, I did not get to see many e-mails of such nature. Considering the fact that I have been with them for close to 18 months, that could be some indication on the kind of frequency that members will receive survey. But that is just my own experience. It will be too simplistic to assume that all members share that same experience.

Surveys

The one piece of data that greatly interests businesses is the demographic information about you, the consumer. So don’t be surprised that the market tends to be defined by age group, income bracket and gender.

The questionnaire will be structured usually on brand loyalty and product satisfaction. They may also take an interest in your hobbies and day-to-day activities so that they can design products and services targeted towards your lifestyle.

Ultimately, this exercise of polls and surveys is to facilitate marketing activities. Companies want to find the right market so that they can project the right marketing message.

Think of it this way, if I happen to be an elderly with a deep interest on gardening, then I would not be considered the interested audience for a marketing campaign focusing on sexy lingerie. In a similar way, the marketing message would not be structured in a way that appeals to a demographic group that is similar to my profile.

You can read more about the importance of targeting the right demographics for market research studies here (a PDF published on the University of Michigan’s Population Studies Center website).

My first e-mail question was a no-brainer.

It was a lifestyle question and inside the questionnaire, I was asked this question:

“Where are you going to be watching the world cup final this weekend,

• A) Home
• B) At a friend’s
• C) At a family members house
• D) At work
• E) Not watching the game”

I duly picked my choice.

The point I’m trying to raise here is that it often takes just seconds to attend to the survey. And although you may not get a lot of surveys, the few you get can be completed very quickly and easily.

Since the choice can be completely subjective, there is no right answer to that question. Regardless of your choice, PollBuzzer will honor their end of the bargain and send you a dollar into your PayPal account!

The name of the game is fast! Since the business is focused on getting a quick representation of the market, such surveys would expect fast reactions from respondents, for this information to be useful. So, make a habit to check your e-mail on a daily basis and be sure to send out your response immediately!

Payment

At the expiry of the survey you attended, you will be credited one dollar.

There are two ways to cash out, and I describe both in details below:

• 1. PayPal

  Transfer all your balance to a PayPal account. You can keep accumulating your one dollar rewards with every assignment and at the end of every week, you can cash out all available balance into your PayPal account. Do take note that only one verified PayPal account is to be registered.

• 2. Donation

  PollBuzzer also allows you to make donation out of your earnings to a charity or a non-profit group. On their website, you should be able to see all not-for-profit organizations that are eligible to receive donations from you. Do pay attention to this payments page, as this is the same page where all terms and conditions are listed. Every dollar you choose to donate this week, the site will make a similar dollar-for-dollar donation to that same group.

You can only be paid via PayPal if you have a verified PayPal account (in any case, you can’t even register successfully if your PayPal account is not verified).

The practice makes sense as the company is primarily interested in the survey respondent’s demographic data, so naturally they would insist on a verified PayPal account, as this is one way to validate you as a real person.

Incidentally, my first payment came late. I was never offered an explanation but I guess it has something to do with the system thing. But my subsequent payments all came through on time.

Referral Program

I am glad to announce that PB does offer a referral program and you can make money out of it.

I think, the referral program works best when you like it and would like your family and friends to benefit from it as well.

Your reward is one dollar for every new member introduced by you. But the money will become yours only when the new referrals have answered four questions successfully.

There is this unique referral link from PollBuzzer, so embed it into your blog site, e-mails, etc… The link is to be found at the bottom of your dashboard (or the first screen that greets you right after you log in).

The Bottom Line

I am now an eighteen-month-old PollBuzzer member, and I am loving every minute of my experience. The questions will come just about anytime of the day. I will check through the multiple-choice options and decide on my answer!

This is as easy as it gets, and the great part is I get paid one dollar for every answer. Granted, you may get 1-2 such e-mails a week, and sometimes you may even go for a month or so without any surveys . But recently I was hit by 5 such e-mails in a single day. That is five cool dollars with just seconds of work.

That said, do not count on getting tons of surveys every day. As I said, if you are lucky you may get 1-2 invites weekly. Nonetheless, I think PollBuzzer is a great survey site to add to your list of extra income generating sites.