InboxPounds, found at www.InboxPounds.co.uk, is the new version of Inbox Dollars, a rewards website that allows members to earn money for doing their regular activities online, which is available in the United Kingdom.
Rewards websites allow members to sign up for free, and then pay them in either cash or prizes for doing the things they would normally do online anyway. At InboxPounds, you earn cash for the activities you perform, and you can cash out when you reach 20 pounds.
Rewards websites are able to pay their users because they partner with other companies who will use you for market research and feedback. This allows them a wide audience for study, and better enables them to make choices about their products, services, and marketing in the future.
How You Earn Money
InboxPounds says that you can earn money by reading emails, searching the web, taking surveys, playing games, and much more. And while it may seem hard to believe, it’s true. And you can sign up for free.
What they don’t say up front, however, is that the amount of money you will earn for doing is just a couple cents per activity you perform. This means that it will take quite awhile to earn 20 pounds.
This doesn’t mean that rewards websites aren’t worth it, however. Since the theory is that you are just supposed to be doing things you would be doing anyway, any money you earn is a bonus. This is not intended to replace your normal income.
The Concerns
With rewards websites like InboxPounds, however, there are a couple things to look out for. Since they will be paying you to read emails, you may want to sign up for a separate email account just for this purpose.
These emails may also give you opportunities to earn even more cash by signing up for special offers, products, or service trials. However, you must be very careful. Often these offers will cost you money in the end, because the trial subscriptions will often roll over into monthly fees, so it’s important to read the fine print.
It is not money for nothing, there is a CONSIDERABLE outlay in time involved. Surveys pay the rate of about 1 penny [£0.01] per minute.
This is about 60 pence [£0.60] per hour.
In comparison the current hourly National Minimum Wage rates are:
- 25 & over: £7.20
- 21 to 24: £6.70
- 18 to 20: £5.30
- under 18: £3.87
- Apprentice: £3.30.
The majority of the estimated times quoted for the surveys to be completed are inaccurate. Surveys can take more than twice the estimated time to complete.
In addition there are other issues with the surveys. There is usually a series of questions to complete, before the survey, to establish whether your demographics are appropriate for the survey.
These questions can sometimes take a number of minutes to complete, and often are not logically configured leading to unnecessary questions prior to rejection.
There is no reward paid regardless of the amount of time expended.
Rejections are common.
It is not unusual to be rejected from a number of surveys in turn. This can lead to 10 to 15 minutes of wasted time with no reward.
It is not unusual to be expelled from a survey, even when the responses have been appropriate, even after more than 50% of a survey has been completed.
This again means 10 to 15 minutes of wasted time with no reward received.
I have also found that there are unscrupulous survey companies that will avoid payment by use of devices such as:
'your session has timed out',
'you are not a good fit for this survey'.
These messages being generated AFTER the survey has been completed and registered.
Contacting the companies directly is a waste of time.
Contacting In Box Pounds via their chat line is also a waste of time as they do not resolve the issues or compensate for the loss.
The membership base of In Box Pounds is either very small, or otherwise 'Gold' membership rewards are not paid as promised.
The principal advantage of 'Gold' membership is quicker processing of payments.
Gold membership generated, for me, only 3 additional surveys for an additional reward of less than 50 pence. I received no payments from new members signing up to In Box Pounds.
This site is not a secured savings account. If the rules are changed or the site is closed you will receive none of the £106 that you have accumulated.
Take the money and put it in a proper bank account, or have it transferred to a Paypal account where there is protection from loss.