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Online surveys

Make money while surfing the Net

Find out how to fill in surveys online to make some extra cash.
Check out some of our recommended survey sites.

If you're stuck at home and you like surfing the net of an evening, why not make some cash while you're at it? There are a few websites where you can fill in online surveys for cash. Just write what you think and make a few quid.

What's involved?

Online surveys are getting easier and more popular, so it's definitely worth signing up for some of the good ones now and keeping your eye out for more coming on board.

You can make regular pocket money and you have the possibility of winning cash prizes every now and then. But there are a lot of sharks in the business and you have to be careful what you sign up for. Some even have the cheek to try to get you to pay to join - ignore them.

Don't let this put you off though, we've found some of the best quality sites around, so read on to see how you can make some easy money.

How do you do it?

Simple - sit at your computer and answer questions about various subjects!

Step 1: Look over the sites.

We have a range of online survey sites here for you to choose from:

Pick of the month

We've been alerted that Panelbase is the best site in the UK and ranked 5th globally! They have expanded their reach to include telephone surveys, mystery shopping and focus groups.

They have a monthly prize draw of £50 cash for all respondents who are screened out of surveys (turning a survey drawback into a positive), and have launched survey opportunities through mobiles (SMS and WAP) where members are paid a 50p reward to answer a handful of questions via their mobiles, not costing them a cent.

Best recommended sites:

Do be careful with online survey sites. As a rule of thumb, the more lucrative or tempting it sounds, the more likely it is to be a waste of time.

You also have to be careful because this is one of the many areas on the net where con-men can operate, making you fill in tedious questionnaires and then 'forgetting' to pay, or passing your name onto spammers. So don't fall for every offer you see.

Also, generally speaking, the American sites are not worth bothering with. For a start, the dollar is so low that the amounts you are going to make are too small to bother with on the whole. Not only that but there are SO many more dodgy ones and it's harder to work out which are genuine and which are not.

Step 2: Register with the ones you choose.

Fill in your details. An address is needed for the site to send you a cheque when you reach a specified earning amount, and remember to record your password and username. Some sites just use your email address, and some offer a separate username.

If they ask for a few more details, like marital status and gender, these are to organise you within the results to gauge how the answers affect different sub-categories.

Step 3: Remember to check your Inbox.

Most surveys are sent to you via email, so keep a look out, because some will close by a specified date or when enough people have taken part.

Surveys can take anywhere from 10-45 minutes. Usually the email will tell you roughly how long it will take.

How much can you make?

It's pocket money really - probably between £20-30 a month plus some vouchers, gifts and maybe a big cash prize if you're lucky.

Toluna has things you can test for free as well as surveys. It also has prize draws and other competitions so there is a lot there to keep you busy. You can wait for high points surveys or go onto the homepage and do lots of mini polls at 15 points a pop. Toluna is definitely one of the better sites to use - check the latest messageboard post to find out more.

Lightspeed Panel gives you points for surveys that can you turn into vouchers, and you get entered into cash prizes for the smaller surveys that they conduct.

IPSOS gives you credits which you can use to spend on a range of brand name websites like Amazon.

Ciao pays smaller amounts on the whole but you can make reasonable pocket money if you do them regularly. Also, you can make £10 a go by being one of the first 500 people to make and upload a video review of any product on the site.

GreatUKSurvey offers the chance to win a large cash prize (currently they have one for £5,000) but of course there is no guarantee that you will win. This is the kind of site to join if you have some time to spare and you're feeling lucky!

GMI says they really only need people from Scotland and Northern Ireland at the moment. They already have a lot from England.

Valued Opinions pays you in vouchers for shops like Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Boots. Or you can choose vouchers for charities like the World Wildlife Fund and World Vision.

Pickthem.co.uk is another prizes site. Again, there is no guarantee that you will win prizes so only do this one if you have time to spare and you like to have the chance to win prizes regularly.

Panelbase pays cash, and some include entry in to one of their many prize draws where you could win anything from a box of wine to a flashy new wide-screen TV. Each survey pays between 50p-£3.

Redeeming points/vouchers

Some of the survey companies are also better at redeeming points and vouchers than others. For example, Ciao will send out bulk payents at the beginning of each month. So if you redeem your cash between August 1 and August 30th, Ciao will pay you by mid-September. The maximum time is usually 30 days, but you should keep a look out in your email Inbox for vouchers. One of mine was sent with the subject line cut off and came out as "*** has sent you..." which I almost deleted - so be careful as they won't send it out again!

Also, remember you can make money online through cashback sites. We particularly like the charity shopping website Giveortake.com where you can get money back on purchases and then you have the difficult question of whether to keep the money or give it to charity.