We’re all familiar with the concept of taking online surveys in order to make money. Toluna.com is a market research company offering you the chance to do exactly that, with a couple of twists.
First, Toluna.com does not give you direct payouts for every survey you complete like other companies. Instead, they work on a point system. You are given 500 points simply for signing up and at least 1,000 points for every survey you complete. Once you reach 60,000 points, you can redeem these points for cash payouts.
Secondly, they also reward you with being a part of their social network, where you can create polls and opinion forums. The more people respond to your polls, the more points you receive.
Finally, in addition to survey completion, Toluna.com also enters you into a drawing each month for the chance to win up to $2,500 just for being a member. If you choose to, you can exchange 500 of your earned points for an extra entry into the monthly drawing.
So is Toluna.com a Scam?
The rule for determining if a survey company is a scam is whether or not you are charged for participating in surveys. Toluna.com doesn’t charge their members for anything. Your membership and participation are completely free.
Also, Toluna doesn’t make any outright earnings promises. They don’t claim you can quit your day job, they just say you can make extra money.
But there are a couple things to keep in mind for being successful making money for taking surveys online. First, make sure to sign up for multiple companies. Surveys will only be given to you if you fit a very specific demographic. Each survey company may only get a couple of surveys each month for your particular demographic. If you sign up for multiple free survey sites you will be far more likely to get the number of surveys needed to actually make a couple extra hundred dollars a month.
Second, you need to do the research to see exactly how that survey company handles payouts. With Toluna.com, you need to earn points before you can get your payout. With other companies, you need to complete a certain number of surveys before you can be paid out, and with still other companies you need to reach a specific dollar amount before you can be paid out. This is information you should have before you begin spending you can make money taking surveys.
Would you like to add your review for
Boycot this company guys. Refuse their crappy surveys ! Stay Away !
It takes between 2 to 3 months to receive vouchers, in addition to having to wait up to 6 weeks for you points to be registered following the completion of a survey. This means that whenever you complete a survey, you have to wait a minimum of 3 months before you get 'paid'. They also have issues with common Freedom of Speech regulations. You are not allowed to criticize Toluna, or you will be silenced by either having your comments removed, or being suspended.
Coming back to your main issue: Is Toluna a scam. Yes, so absolutely. Like other scam companies, they do not have any transparency (do they actually have monthly prize draws?) in their dealings with their members, their customer service is close to non-existent, and they openly cheat in certain circumstances where they let people do surveys for up to half an hour before they tell them that they are not suitable (the surveys, however, are probably used in their marketing purposes). Their 'pay' is below the minimum wage of most 3rd world countries, and paid out at a time range that is regarded as unacceptable in the business world. Respectable companies do not operate like this.
My last two redemption requests were rejected due to "multiple accounts", which is a ridiculous excuse since I only have one account with Toluna using the same email address as my Paypal account.
The Toluna support staff who replied to my email -- Daisy Windsor -- informed me that Toluna is having problems with Paypal.
But, if they don't resolve their problems soon, I will be making a police report against Toluna.
I think the Commercial Affairs Division of the Singapore Police Force or Interpol's fraud division should be able to do something about this.