There seem to be quite a lot of online survey sites around these days. Onepoll is one of the ones that I signed up with last summer, because I had seen it recommended on the Martin Lewis MoneySavingExpert website.

As soon as you register with them, your account is automatically credited with £2.50, and this tends to give you a nice warm feeling and makes you feel inspired to continue with the surveys. Another way to boost your total is by inviting 5 friends. They don't actually have to join Onepoll, which is useful - you just enter 5 email addresses onto the system, and then your friends each get an invitation email. Then you get £1 added to your account regardless of whether your friends sign up or not.

So, inspired by this great start, you will no doubt be religiously logging in every day to look for new surveys. Each survey you complete will earn you a few pence, usually ranging from 5p to 20p, but I would say the vast majority pay 10p each. If you can manage to get a few done every day then the funds steadily mount up (you'll note I didn't say 'quickly'!). They also have some surveys for which there is no payment at all, where you just get added into a prize draw. Needless to say, I've never won a prize, but I keep filling them in anyway. Hope springs eternal, and all that!

You can see immediately if you are eligible to complete the surveys, as they specify only women to answer, or only people in London etc. This is better than some survey sites, where you can find yourself answering pages and pages of questions and then (after about 10 minutes) get told that you are not in the right category and get screened out. That is really frustrating when it happens, so the fact that Onepoll doesn't work in this way is a real plus point.

One of the reasons I signed up to Onepoll was that I had seen reports from other people saying they had made £40 in six months and that seemed pretty good to me, when you consider it just takes a few minutes a day. However, I've been doing these surveys for about 9 - 10 months now and my total is still less than £30. You can't actually get your hands on the cash until your total reaches £40, so I can't comment on the speed of payment. It will obviously take me a while to reach that amount, but my guess is about a year in total. For some people clearly it is a good way to make money, but it's not right for everyone. At first I thought a few minutes a day would be easy, but after a few months I'm afraid I really have lost interest. I now have to push myself to log on every day, and it's such a chore. In fact, sometimes I do forget to log in, but now that I'm almost at the £30 mark I'm determined to continue until I get enough to get paid!

I think a lot of the problem, for me at any rate is that they ask such idiotic questions! They are usually simple enough, but sometimes they can be so frustrating. For example they will ask a question like:

"Are you miserable because of the recession, or are you enjoying life more than ever?"
And then have a tick box for a simple yes/no answer! Clearly you can't answer this yes or no because it's actually two questions and the answers are mutually exclusive!

Also, over recent months I've felt that they have been trying to skew the results by asking more and more loaded questions about whether we are secretly enjoying the recession, and don't we all secretly love having to stay in and eat in front of the telly because we can't afford to go to restaurants anymore, etc. Makes me wonder who they are trying to sell this 'research' to!

I really find the surveys irritating - in addition to the complaints I've just listed, sometimes they even assume your answers. They asked one question about which season you like best. I ticked winter, and then found all the following questions were based on why do you NOT like winter, is it the dark nights, etc. So they pre-supposed that no-one would pick winter as their favourite season.

Also, the spelling skills of the people who compile the surveys is appalling! Often they can't even get the spellings of celebrities names right! It really infuriates me!

This 'review' seems to have developed into more of a rant, doesn't it?! I'm afraid that just mirrors the way my feelings for Onepoll have changed over the months I've been with them. I started off enjoying the surveys and being generally happy. Now I detest them with a passion! I have to say, despite the ease of registering and the ease of completing the surveys, this one really isn't for me. In conclusion, it's an easy enough way to make a few quid... but not in the short term! For some people clearly it is a good way to make money - for me it's far too slow and I find this, and the dreadful spellings just make me angry and I can't wait to reach £40 so I can get my money and stop doing them!!!