The real deal on the “Get Paid To” websites
June 9th, 2006Does it work?
In a word, Yes! It does, however most people get frustrated with it because they do it wrong, and they end up quitting and not earning anything. Below i will show you exactly how to cash in on the Get Paid To sites fast, easy, and effectively. Here are some of the checks I received from a Get Paid To site, More checks will be posted as i receive them:
Please BOOKMARK this site now (ctrl-d), you WILL want to have this as a reference once you get going with GPT.
A History
Many of you may remember that before the bubble burst in 2000, a number of websites such as AllAdvantage and Spedia would pay you to surf as long as you have their advertisements running at the bottom of your computer screen. When the bubble burst, many advertisers no longer could pay to have people just look at their advertisements, they instead moved to a model where they would pay people to get people to actually act on their advertisements, not just see the advertisements. They pay websites x amount every time someone signs up from their websites. Some companies took this and instead of keeping all the advertising dollars, decided to give some of them to the user, and “Get Paid To” began.
“Get Paid To ” (GPT)
So you probably have seen the advertisements all over the web about getting paid to complete surveys. Do they really work? How do you do them? After testing out a number of these “Get Paid To” (GPT) sites, I have compiled the below information on these GPT sites.
Does it work?
Yes it does, but you need to know what you are getting into before you embark, or you will end up frustrated and giving up on the whole thing.
Email Address(es)
One main item you should remember while signing up for stuff online is what information you submit to who. You should first (if you don’t already have one) set up a “Spam” email address that you will use to give out to companies. This email address will be different from your regular email address, you wont need to check it regularly but you will be able to check it if necessary. To get a Spam email address go to a free email site such as http://mail.yahoo.com or http://www.hotmail.com and sign up for a free email. Note that a number of the “cheap” offers are from the same company, so you will need to sign up with different email addresses if you fail to get them confirmed.
Note that there are some times that you will need to use your real email address, and some times you will need to use your Spam email address. I will tell you below for each item which address to use.
EMAIL UPDATE: Just a note that some of the cheap offers require you to have a different legitimate email address for EVERY offer you fill out for the same company (50%-60% of the cheap offers are from the same 3-4 companies). I own my own domain, so through that i have unlimited legitimate email addresses. If you dont have your own domain yet, you can do it through my hosting company, Lunarpages, for $6.95/month:
Lunar Pages
Additional Email Update: it has come to my attention that if you have a GMail account, such as johndoe@gmail.com, you also have all combinations of that email with “.”’s in it, i.e. if you send an email to john.doe, jo.hndoe, joh.ndoe, jo.h.n.do.e, etc, they will all go to the same email address.
This is very important, as it allows you to sign up for a single junk email address through GMail and then use all the variations of it to sign up for the 50 cent offers.
Getting Started with a Program
Whenever you sign up with a Get Paid To site, you will sign up with your REAL email address, not your spam email address. This is because the company will not spam you, they will only send you things like alerts that your offers have been approved. Scroll to the bottom to see the list of Get Paid To sites i recommend.
“Completed Offers”, “Pending Offers”, and “Available Offers”
All offers are initially “Available”. When you click the link to go to an offer, it has a tracking ID with it that tells the company that you are the one completing the offer. When you click “Submit” or “Done”, it tells the GPT site that you have completed the offer. The GPT site then goes to the company that you signed up with and says “Did this person really complete the offer”. While the GPT site is waiting for a response, the offer is marked “Pending”. When the GPT site gets the word that you did in fact complete the offer, it will mark the offer “Completed” and send you and email notifying you that your account is credited with the money.
Cashing Out
So you have completed a ton of offers, and you want to get the cash. With most websites, you have a few options. My suggestion is that you go with the Check option, as it usually doesn’t cost anything. In addition, you can carry the check around and show your friends, or post it online (blacking out the important bank numbers). This is a great way to get other people interested and have them sign up under you.
All sites have a minimum amount you have to earn before they will pay you, anywhere from $5 to $25. If you don’t make that much in a month, your balance carries forward. At the end of the month, if you have earned enough, they will pay you. It usually takes 20 or so days after the end of the month for the checks to be processed and sent out. As soon as you make enough, you are paid the amount you earned.
The different “Offers” you will encounter
There are a number of different offers you will encounter on GPT sites, I will explain each one below and tell you how to handle it.
Make sure you read each offer in a GPT site and figure out which of the below offers it is BEFORE proceeding with the offer.
Getting Started: The “Getting your Feet Wet” Offers (the “Free” Offers).
The two types of offers below are great for getting your feet wet, and can always get you enough money to make the minimum payments and get a check. Once you have the check in hand (or even earlier if you feel so inclined), you can move on to the “Not So Free” ones, as they will make you a ton more money much faster.
The “Get a Free xyz” offers
Cost to you: Free
How much you make: Usually between $.40 & $.80 each
Time to Complete: Few Seconds
Email: Use your Spam Email
Notes: These offers are usually from “Shady” companies who offer you “Free $500 Gift Cards” and “Free XBox’s”.The advertiser basically wants to get your email address, and once they have that, they will ask you to sign up for a thousand offers before actually giving you the “Free” Item, most of which you have to pay for. you should understand that you will never actually get the “Free” items, but you are not after those items, you are after the $.40 to $.80 an offer you sign up for. Make sure you read the description carefully to figure out exactly what you have to do to complete the offer. If it says “enter your email address with intent to participate”, that is all you need to do. Once you have done what it says, click “Done” or “submit” next to the offer (on the GPT site).
Note that you should clear all your cookies except the GPT main site cookies between each offer. To clear your cookies, use firefox and the “Cookie Culler” extension. Install it and reboot firefox. In firefox, click View-> Toolbars->Customize. Scroll down and drag the image of a cookie to the toolbar on firefox, just between the stop button and the home button (or wherever you want it). Click the cookie, and select the GPT website cookie (i.e. TreasureTrooper.com) and click “protect cookie”. Now whenever you complete an offer, after you have done the pearl game, click the cookie and then click “Remove All Cookies”. This will clear out all cookies except the Treasure Trooper one (this will keep you logged in to treasuretrooper but remove the cookies from the offer pages). If you have other websites you log in to, you can protect those cookies also, just dont protect any cookies you get from the free offers pages.
Also, a lot of these $.50 items “Fail” to get confirmed because they are from the same company. The key here is to sign up for a few spam email addresses, and once you do all the offers with alternating addresses, wait a few days and any offers that fail to be confirmed, fill out again. NOTE that on your “second pass” of the offers, you should do 2, wait a half hour or so, and then do 2 more. Treasure Trooper confirms these $.50 offers every half hour on or about the 33 & 03 minute mark, so after that has passed, try two more.
Important: When going through the second pass on Treasure Trooper, Focus on getting the offers which earn you a pearl done FIRST. The pearls are very valuable in that when you have 8 of them, you can purchase a friendship bracelet from the hut and that will give you 2 free referrals, who will in turn earn you more money!
The “Fill out a Survey” Offers
Cost to you: Free
How much you make: Usually between $.60 & $1.00 each
Time to Complete: 2-3 minutes
Email: Use your Spam Email
Notes: These survey offers take a bit longer than the above as you have to answer a lot of questions. Make sure you read the description carefully to figure out exactly what you have to do to complete the offer, you will basically need to fly through the survey, Make sure you take note of which questions are required to continue (usually denoted by a red asterisk). Some sections will say you have to say yes to one or more of the items, in that case click yes, then when presented with that offer, you have the option to click “I do not want this offer”. Watch the header closely, as at one point it should say something like “Congratulations, you are entered”, however it will keep asking you questions. Once you get this acknowledgment, close the page and click “done” or “Submit” on the GPT site.
Remember to clear out your cookies between each of these offers, see the above section on how to do so efficiently with Firefox.
Dive in the Deep End (”Not So Free” offers)
If you have made it this far, congratulations. A large number of people who do GPT sites give up somewhere above in the cheap offers. They never move on to the next stage, the one where the real money lies… Offers requiring Credit Cards. Basically you pay a small amount for a trial and then if you don’t cancel they charge you later for the service.
Wait… Did you say Credit Cards? No way im putting my credit card in to some shady company..
You don’t have to! How? You have two options here:
1) Get a Citi Card and use the “Virtual Account Numbers” feature. (once you have the card and a web login to citicards.com, go to https://www.accountonline.com/View?docId=VanIndex ) This allows you to create virtual account numbers for the initial payment (usually one to 5 dollars). Once the offer has confirmed with the GPT site, you can cancel the virtual account number and never have to worry about being charged again.
2) “Visa Giftcards”. If you dont feel comfortable using your credit card for these offers, i would suggest you stop by your local mall and pick up a Visa Giftcard (Or get one online at giftcards.com). These gift cards are basically pre-pay credit cards that don’t affect your credit in any way shape or form.
These offers are amazing compared to the above free offers, as you can make $10-$60+ for EACH offer. The difference with these offers is that they do need you to enter a credit card. In addition, instead of a 50-60% failure to approve which you saw with the above offers, nearly 100% of the “Credit Card Required” offers get approved (note that it does sometimes take longer to approve these than the free ones.)
Get Paid to do a Free Trial of a paid service
Cost to you: Free, but remember to cancel the trial if you don’t want the product
How much you can make: $8-$40 per offer
Time to Complete: Few seconds to sign up, Few minutes later on to cancel.
Email: Use your REAL Email
Notes: Basically the idea is that you get paid to sign up for a free trial of a service.. These companies are all legit companies who have a paid service (AOL, Real SuperPass, EFax, etc…), so make sure you use your REAL email address, as you are not in danger of being spammed, and you will need to use the email address for login information. If you dont want the service, you can cancel it at any time during the trial and never be charged anything (But you get to keep the money you earned through GPT). Important: Make sure you email yourself as a reminder for each of these items, as you need to remember to cancel a few days later if you do not still want the service.
Get paid for a Free Trial, You Pay for Shipping
Cost to you: $1-$6
How much you can make: $8-$40 per offer
Time to Complete: Few seconds to sign up, Few minutes later on to cancel if not wanted.
Email: Use your REAL Email
Notes: These offers are the exact same as the previous offers, however you need to pay a small amount to ship the free item to yourself (or to pay the “Processing fee”). The amount you have to pay to ship the item however is much less than the GPT site will pay you to complete the offer, so you make out in the end. Again, remember that if you don’t want the product after receiving it, cancel the trial.
Is that it? No, Tell your friends!
“Get Paid To” Websites will pay you to tell your friends about them. Here is how it works: You send your friends your “Referral Link”, and they click that and sign up. Now whenever they make any money, you will make 20% (depending on the site) of whatever they make. It gets better, If they refer their friends, you also make 10% (Depending on the site) off whatever those people make.
Suggestion: put your referral link in your email signature, on your website, or in your Web Forum Signatures.
GPT Websites
Below is a list of the GPT sites i have found so far. Note that TT & CC are the only ones i really have made money on, so i wouldnt bother with the other ones unless you have done all the TT & CC Offers.
Treasure Trooper (I have made $550 so far with this one)
Note on Treasure Trooper: To get the Cheap Offers, order by lowest payout or search for the word “intent”. ALSO make sure you do the free game after each offer which gives you 1 in 3 chances to win a “Pearl”. Use 8 pearls to “Buy” a “Friendship Bracelet”. When you buy one, the next two people who sign up for TreasureTrooper without a referral automatically become your referrals, and you get 20% of what they make.
Cash Crate (Made just over $100 so far with this one)
Note on Cash Crate: To get the cheap offers, order it by payout and go to the last page, working your way forwards.
Others i know of but dont use:
Spread the word: