Karlonia.com

The paid survey site Your2Cents.com sent out a rare email update today notifying us that they have upgraded their check processing system and also will be sending us more survey opportunities in the future. I have been a member here since 2005; so far they have been reliable about payments but the rewards per survey are fairly small, usually in the $1-5 range. Occasionally I have seen survey offers for up to $20 but these are less common. There is also a $5,000 sweepstakes giveaway that is held every quarter (3 months) where one winner is chosen by a random drawing.

Currently I have $17 in the kitty with this program, so I’m eligible to redeem this balance and receive another payment. I just might do this soon so that I can post the check image and make another payment proof post. Meanwhile, here is the actual text of the update, along with a few paragraphs of my opinions and commentary placed below:

Dear Karl:

Thank you for sharing your opinions with us. We are writing to let you know about some things we are doing to help make your membership experience more satisfying:

1. Expect more survey opportunities in the coming months. Many of you have expressed an interest in receiving more survey opportunities, so we are working to deliver them. As always, participation is your choice.
2. Get your reward checks delivered faster. We have installed a new system that will reduce check processing time to 2 to 3 weeks from redemption to mailbox.

To enable the reduction in check processing time we have installed a new check printing process and we will be changing the reward redemption minimum from $5 to $10 for check requests received starting on September 1, 2008.Many of you are regularly redeeming at the $10 mark already. Remember, we are also working to bring you more survey opportunities, and more chances to earn rewards.

We appreciate the time you spend sharing your opinions with us. Thank you for your membership.

Sincerely,
The Panel Support Team at Your2Cents

____________________________________

Keep your contact and profile information current! Visit http://www.your2cents.com, log into your account, and click on “Update/View member profiles” or “Update contact information” to make updates.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

If you have any questions or experience any technical difficulties, please go to our support website at http://www.your2cents.com/SurveySupport/?sid=13&pid=5816977 or call 1-866-249-4294.

HONESTY AND INTEGRITY

Honest, thoughtful answers to survey and profile questions are vital to the integrity of the research process. Providing false, misleading, or otherwise questionable information is grounds for disqualification from a survey, and/or from the Your2Cents Online Opinion Panel. Disqualification from a survey will result in forfeiture of all rewards for that survey. In the event a panelist is disqualified from the Your2Cents panel, all unredeemed or unpaid rewards will be forfeited. Your2Cents reserves the right to request verification of information provided by panelists from time to time.

PRIVACY AND ETHICS

Your2Cents is a member in good standing of the Marketing Research Association, the Council of American Survey Research Organizations, and the Interactive Marketing Research Organization, and abides by the standards of conduct and ethics set forth by each of these organizations. For details of Your2Cents’ privacy policy, click here: http://www.your2cents.com/Privacy.asp

While it is good that they are speeding up the check payments somewhat, frankly this does not seem like much of an improvement considering the fact that we are now in an age of email, the Internet, and electronic payment processing. In my experience, most other survey companies are already sending checks to members within a 2-3 week time frame.

What I do not understand is why more of these survey companies do not use PayPal or even AlertPay as an option for faster payment processing. Currently there are very few companies in this genre that pay by PayPal; the only ones that I have encountered so far are Pinecone, Surveys.com, and a relatively new one called SurveyHead. Synovate had promised to offer PayPal back in September of last year but as of this writing, this has not yet materialized.

This reluctance to accept the faster and more recent technology is baffling to me, especially considering the fact that most payments from these outfits are pitifully small, so we’re not talking about much of a security or money laundering risk here. Overall, it seems like the companies would benefit by not having to incur the expenses of printing all those checks, having them placed in envelopes, and then paying for the postage to mail them. Moving to some form of electronic payment processing would not only save the companies some expense, but would also provide members with more timely payments and increase the likelihood that more people would sign up with them.

Check payments should still be offered as an option for people who cannot accept PayPal for various reasons, but I suspect that the majority would switch over to the faster electronic payments if only they would provide us with the ability to do so. It is long past time for the paid survey industry to move into the 21st century and start paying us what our time is actually worth by methods that are more appropriate for those of us who are trying to enjoy the Internet lifestyle.