PaidViewpoint - Answer Surveys for Cash

In my ongoing quest to earn a living online I became aware that it is possible to earn money by participating in surveys. I've read a lot of negative views of this online "job". But like everything in life, while some people hate it, others love it. I decided the only solution was to find out for myself.

My first assignment was to choose a suitable site. As I live in South Africa, a lot of online money making opportunities aren't available to me. Fortunately I had read a positive review of PaidViewpoint by someone living in Turkey. I decided to sign up. After all, I had nothing to lose but a little of my time.

After reading through the rules, terms of service and privacy policy, I opened my account. The sign-up process is quick and easy.

The first step is to verify your email address. I like this approach a lot better than filling in a long registration form first, then finding that the confirmation email doesn't arrive and feeling like you've wasted your time.

Once your email has been verified, it's quickly down to business. PaidViewpoint pays your for every step of the registration process right from the basic job of choosing a username. Questions include whether you are married, how many children live in your home and your employment status. I was relieved to discover that revealing your household income was optional as I don't know how much my family earn and have no intention of asking.

Before you get started you need to give your Paypal address. Be careful to get this correct as failure to do so can be costly. You can change your Paypal address at any time, but when you do so your unpaid earnings will be reset to zero.

According to the terms of service you may be required to verify your account telephonically, though I wasn't asked for a phone number. This may be different in other countries however, so be prepared for the possibility.

When my sign-up was complete there was a notification of a survey waiting for me. This was a trait survey which asked me a few questions about my lifestyle - things like whether I've moved home recently or whether I buy deodorants. Nothing terribly complicated. I understand these surveys are offered regularly with two aims in mind.

1. to gain the information required to determine what surveys to send you.
2. to build a TraitScore ^SM. This score is an indication of whether you are a reliable survey taker who answers questions truthfully or just someone providing random answers to earn a quick buck. The higher your trait score the more you will be paid for the surveys you take.

And then I was done. The little time I had spent had netted me $0.70, most of which came from the sign-up process. There was nothing more I could do but wait for an email telling me that there was another survey waiting for me.

The payout mark of $15.00 seems a long way off, but time will tell how long it takes me to get there.

It's early days, but I'm starting to suspect that PaidViewpoint isn't the place for South Africans.

I receive my trait survey, regular as clockwork, twenty-four hours after completing the previous one, but I've been receiving no 'real' surveys.

I've been earning $0.03 per trait survey, though I understand that people in the United States earn more for these. A lot of the survey questions seem to be directed to Americans, as I'm constantly being asked if I shop at places that don't even exist here. However today I finally got a survey where one of the questions had options which referred to parts of South Africa, so maybe my concerns are premature.

I'll keep on answering the trait surveys and see what happens. However if I don't get anything else then I won't reach payout until late in 2014.

I've now been a member of PaidViewpoint for nearly 8 months and all I've ever received is trait surveys.

The surveys seem to take a little longer than 24 hours to arrive, so I'm only managing to complete about four surveys per week. My balance is currently just under $6.00, so it seems unlikely that I'll reach payout in 2014. However I've put too much time into the surveys to give up now. Who knows, something suitable for South Africans may still come up before I reach the $15.00 mark.

On 11 August 2014 I finally decided that I was wasting my time at PaidViewPoint. I'd been a member of the site for nearly 15 months and had managed to accumulate only $8.53 in my account. By then I was only receiving trait surveys every 3-4 days and I never once received a survey that paid more than $0.03.

As I didn't have enough money in my account to receive a payment, I was forced to forfeit the little money I had "earned" for my time.

Although my experience with PaidViewPoint was a negative one, I used to believe that I was unlucky and that my failure was due to a combination of my lifestyle and the country in which I live. However I've just come across a forum discussion which indicates that many people have had bad experiences with this site.