Unfortunately, there are quite a number of online survey scams all over the Internet. Know how you can best avoid them by reading this article.

Online surveys are one of the most popular work at home jobs today. In fact, if you have not signed up yet, you may be missing out on a lot of possible easy, extra income. Yes, getting paid for surveys sounds too good to be true. But in this case, it actually can happen.

Problems on online survey usually start to come up when some sites ask you to pay them about $35 for an online survey database. You must be very careful about sites like these. The industry of paid surveys has been growing in the recent years, and along with this came fraudsters and scammers who would like to greedily earn as well.

Note though that there are good sites which will sell you real databases which are not scams. There are sites out there that have good, well-updated databases with accurate information to get you started with online survey easily. They will save you lots of time as you do not need to spend time looking through hundreds to even thousands of sites to get a good deal. Some sites even have money back guarantees to prove that they are serious about helping you.

Unless you actually go for paid survey database, you do not have to spend anything to take online survey. If anything, you should be paid for the time and effort you exert in answering them. However, note that it may take time before you actually start earning. It is not a get rich quick scheme that will earn you hundreds of dollars overnight. So, for now, stop looking around for sites which will promise to pay you hundreds for a single survey, as they are most likely the sites you may want to avoid. No matter what the hype, online survey usually offer just enough for your time and effort.

The online service industry has not been spared of scams. To protect yourself from scam sites, you can try checking out the Better Business Bureau, the FTC, or visit anti-fraud sites such as Scam.com, RipOffReport.com or GPTBoycot.com to make sure that the sites you want to sign up with do not have bad records or past histories of scam.

The choice of whether you should go for paid survey databases or search for survey sites yourself is entirely up to you. The best advice to follow in this case is to exercise due diligence and to choose your site very carefully before shelling out some of your hard-earned cash. Note though that aside from this database, you should not expect to pay for anything more.

There are certainly as much scams related to online survey as there are genuine and legitimate ones. Despite the occurrences of scams, online surveys are still excellent ways to earn extra income. As long as you keep a watchful eye, use your intuition and do your own research before joining, there is no reason for you not to actually earn through paid surveys and avoid scams.