Almost Pure Exploitation (Ciao Surveys)

Member Name: MagdaDH

Product:	Ciao Surveys
Date:	16/06/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: pay in real money, low payment threshold, occasional better paid survey for which you might qualify

Disadvantages: normally very low payments, very long and uncompensated for screeners

**Boring Intro & Rationale (same for all survey site reviews from now on)**

I have "subscriptions" to quite a few online survey companies (pared
down from many more) and have already written reviews for some of
them. I contemplated detailed reviews of the others but then thought
about the main criteria that matter when choosing an online survey
company and decided to concentrate just on those. I will thus review
all of them in a similar, hopefully concise and useful format, rating
relevant factors on a following scale: poor, not very good, average,
good, excellent.


**Review Proper**

1. Company:

Ciao surveys.

2. Registration and paid surveys available to:

You need a UK bank account to get paid.

3. Pay in:

Excellent. Real money straight to your bank account.

4. Site currency:

Excellent. Real money clearly stated on the invitations.

5. Payout threshold:

Excellent. £5, combined with payments for Ciao reviews.


6. Payment per survey:

Poor. In fact, astonishingly poor, with most surveys blatantly offering about 10p for 20-30 minutes. SOME offer higher payments, but see below in point 8.

They do offer entries into prize draws, but I don't consider these to be a payment until I win at least one.

7. Frequency of surveys:

Good: quite a few every week.

8. How likely you are to get screened out and how long are the "screener" parts?

Poor. In fact, at least for me, worse than poor - absolutely terrible.
I have re-subscribed to Ciao surveys recently, led in by a new interface and system and already stopped event trying to fill them because the screeners are very long and almost invariably end in not qualifying. Considering that the likes of Global Test Market pay 25 cents (around 15p) for much shorter screeners, the complete lack of compensation here is appalling.

9. How long does it take to get to payout:

Poor. Due to all of the above, a person not posting reviews on Ciao would probably need months to get to £5.

10. Length, subject and mind-numbing character of the surveys:

Poor. A lot of the screeners (never mind the surveys themselves) surveys are long and boring with questions to which I either don't remember answers or have absolutely no opinion or don't care about.

11. Payment in relation to effort:

Poor. Hopeless, in fact, in the light of 8-10 above.


12. How quickly is the payment made after claiming?

Average. Payments are made monthly, so depending on the day you claim, it can take from few days to over a month.


13. Bottom line:

Possibly worth trying for the occasional better survey, especially if you do Ciao reviews anyway. Otherwise, hopeless.

Summary: better write a review or two