Survey Scout Review: Is Survey Scout a Scam?

Today’s review is about a paid survey site called SurveyScout which is quite popular among people using online paid surveys to earn a few tidy bucks during their free time.

However, there is also another section of people fearing that Survey Scout is scam and to be fair, you can’t totally blame these people either. Off late, there have been so many stories of so-called paid survey sites scamming people. As such, it’s never a bad idea to be apprehensive when any new survey site appears and asks you to join in.

Furthermore, SS is one of the sites that charges a membership fee unlike others like InboxDollars.com, something that I always warn against.

So, what should you make of SurveyScout.com? What is the site about? Is it genuine and more importantly, does it indeed pay?…

Let’s find out, shall we!

 

About the Company

Survey Scout, with Susan Smith as the marketing head, counts itself among the many firms that claim to pay people for their time in answering a number of online surveys. Most of these survey companies tend to advertise these surveys as a viable “business opportunity based out of home”.

However, the truth today is that many among these companies are not really honest and adopt fraudulent business practices with the aim of getting more and more people to register with their website.

SurveyScout.com provides money-making opportunities to only people registering with the site. The site claims that it generates for all its subscribers a number of high-paying online survey opportunities on behalf of large national companies/organizations.

 

What About the Better Business Bureau?

Through a quick glance at the BBB website, I learned that for a company so harping upon its legitimacy and longevity in the business, it surprisingly doesn’t have BBB accreditation. However, the latter does have quite a big file on Survey Scout, opened way back in 1994, courtesy of consumer complaints.

My Review

There is no dearth of reviews on Survey Scout on the web. However, in order to answer the question I had about the site in addition to some other doubts, I decided to do my own very own review of how the company conducts its business and whether you can trust it with your time and efforts.

My first tryst with this company was around 5 years ago when I was really prolific at earning money through online paid surveys. As many of you reading this, I too was hearing a lot about this site on the internet and also dug up a few reviews of it. Even then, I continued to be unsure if this was indeed a legitimate paid survey site or one that was out to scam people.

Now, my regular readers would be aware of my oft-repeated statement that no genuine marketing research company ever charges people for joining it, and that I would personally stay away from a site that asks for payments of any sort while also advising my readers to do the same.

However, I was taking baby steps into the world of making money online and since this company enjoyed so much attention, I decided to go against my belief and paid the upfront registration fee of $34.95, in spite of my instincts telling me otherwise. The following, as such, is a personal account of my experience as a member of Survey Scout.

On first visiting their site, I couldn’t help but notice the usual sales pitches all over the homepage that literally shouted about how people can earn money with it. However, there was nary a mention of the fact that people had to PAY to even sign-up with them.

In fact, this information itself is provided only after the member registers first, a fact which raised the red flag in my mind even before I visited the BBB website.

I can digest being asked to take a free tour before all information is given but asking you to register first to know more about the payment part was certainly too much!

Anyways, I did sign-up with the site and the 30-day money back guarantee certainly helped convince me with that. And guess what I got in return for that?…

A nice little list containing names of paid survey websites. This was no special list albeit it was quite big indeed!

Needles to say, I asked for a refund a few days latter, and surprisingly I got my money back without any hassle.

 

So, what is Survey Scout?…

Get ready for this!

Survey Scout, as of now, doesn’t qualify to be a real company that conducts research and surveys. It’s not a company like MySurvey (by the way here is my recent review of MySurvey.com) for example, where online surveys are actually conducted.

With SS, neither will you get to answer any online surveys nor will your inbox receive any invites to such surveys. This might compel you to wonder then as to what was the fee payment for?

Now, since it’s already clear that Survey Scout isn’t a normal survey company, it’s safe to say that the site is more of a directory containing the names of hundreds and thousands of legit survey sites. In short, a yellow book for paid survey websites.

You basically end paying that steep $34.95 fee in exchange for a list containing the names of legit paid survey sites, where you can sign-up for free before earning money by answering their surveys.

Now, here’s the party-pooper. With a simple search online, you can come up with most of the names offered by the site in its list of paid survey companies. Alternatively, you can also read my reviews of paid survey sites or you can check out my list of top 10 legitimate and real online survey websites.

Why Sign-Up Then?

This sure is a valid question in a scenario where you can find most of the sites mentioned in their list without paying any money. On second thoughts, however, if you were to take it upon yourself to find all the sites mentioned in their list without paying the site, then chances are you will end up locating only around 1/3rd of the names.

• You can avoid scams
  Also, you will end up spending a lot of your time and energy in trying to differentiate the good sites from the scam sites.
• You don’t waste time
  To most people, their time equates money. And if you are one of these people then surely the idea of spending many hours sifting through all those sites on the World Wide Web is not really that appealing.
• You access sites not found elsewhere
  There is also the fact that the other 2/3rd of the names on Survey Scout’s list are likely to be not found by you anywhere on the web; regardless of the time and energy you spend looking for them.
• You access international paid survey sites
  Their list contains lots of international survey companies. Most panels are catered for western consumers especially residents of certain countries like USA, UK, and Canada. So, by joining the site, you will gain access to survey companies that also entertain members from other countries like India, China, Pakistan, France, Japan, and many more.

 

Would I Recommend Joining This Site?

In my honest assessment, you should only take the plunge and pay to become a member if…

• You really are serious about making money online: And view paid online surveys as a decent option of doing so. In that case, there’s nothing wrong in paying that fee and registering with the site. This way, you can sign-up with more companies and increase the survey invitations you get, which eventually will help you earn more money.
• The idea of paying that one-time fee to is actually feasible for you: If, however, you are paying that fee with money meant for your utility or grocery bills, then please drop the idea. You are much better off using my list of paid survey websites as it’s completely free and has a good enough list of companies that you can join.

Do Not Join If…

Taking surveys to earn money is just a casual thing for you and you spend a handful of hours every week doing the same. I’d suggest you rather save the money by going through my free list of paid survey websites. Handling the survey invitations from the survey companies on my list will eat up all the time you can afford to give. Trust me on that. So, you won’t need hundreds of sites to sign up with anyway.

In other words, on paying the registration fee, the site does provide you with a massive list of paid survey websites; websites that you would otherwise have a hard time finding on the web. So yes, paying this fee does help you save significant amounts of time.

 

Final Verdict

In my final verdict, I’d say that Survey Scout is anything but a scam website. However, it is also not what many people think it is - A paid survey company, it most certainly isn’t.

This means you actually don’t earn money through it, contrary to the site’s claims. Which by the way is very deceptive and I hate it when companies and websites do that.

That said, I’d like to end this review by saying that Survey Scout certainly can help you indirectly to earn money by providing you with a comprehensive collection of legitimate and real paid survey websites, where people are actually paid money to voice their opinions.