The Importance of Honesty When Doing Paid Surveys [Guide]

importance of honesty when doing paid surveys header

When doing online paid surveys, it can sometimes be tempting to just finish the surveys as quickly as possible without really seeing what you are answering.

This way, a survey will not take very long, and you will quickly be able to make a bit of extra money.

But honesty is, for several reasons, an important aspect of doing online surveys.

In this article, I will go over why it is important and how you can also do it so it still does not take too long to do a survey.

Honest feedback – the reason companies pay you for doing surveys!

One of the main reasons online surveys are popular is because we can get paid to do them.

But there are also other reasons to do online surveys. It is a chance to give feedback and have your opinion heard by companies, organizations, governments, and more.

And you will actually get heard – if the companies were not interested in actually using the feedback and listening to your opinion, they would not be willing to put so much effort into research and even pay you for taking surveys.

Even though those aspects are very important as well, getting paid for doing surveys is still an important aspect for most. And the reason you can get paid to do surveys is that the information companies get from your feedback is valuable to them.

But the feedback is only valuable if it is honest and reflects what you really think. If you just choose random answers, the feedback will not reflect the real opinion of a real person, and therefore it will not help companies and governments to improve, but they might make decisions based on fake answers.

At some point, they will then probably figure out that people are doing this, and then offering online paid surveys is no longer a good option for them.

So, the only reason that you actually can get paid to do surveys is that your honest feedback is valuable. If you are not honest, your feedback is not valuable, and at some point, paid surveys will then stop being offered.

Honest feedback – it will give you a chance to be heard!

Honest feedback is not only valuable to companies and organizations. It can also be very valuable to yourself.

If you want to have your opinion heard, online surveys are a great way. And it can have a direct effect on the decisions made by companies, organizations, and governments.

And if you do not give honest feedback, you might end up giving answers that will cause decisions that you are actually against.

So for your own sake and for getting a chance to have your opinion heard, honesty is also important.

Is it not boring and will take too long, when you have to be honest in every answer?

The main reason it can be tempting to rush through a survey and just pick random answers is that it is faster than actually reading the questions and the answers.

And even though having your opinion heard might be important for you as well, most of us wish to get paid a reasonable amount for our time. And one of the issues some people have with paid surveys is that you only get paid very little for your time.

But being honest when doing surveys does not mean that it has to take too long to do a survey.

bored girl
It does not have to take long and be boring to take online surveys honestly.

What my approach is, is that I want to be as honest as possible, but also I do not want to spend several minutes on each question – and that is also not necessary to take that much time to be honest.

For companies, your initial thoughts and ideas are the most valuable.

So do not overthink and read every question several times and think too much about it. You can just quickly read the question and answer what you first thought is. That is great honest feedback, and will also make it possible to do surveys without it taking too long.

However, you have to be aware that surveys will never be a way to make a full-time income online and will not give you a huge hourly rate. The sites that promise this are usually tricking you to make money themselves. So if you are doing online surveys, you should do it with realistic expectations.

If your goal is to make a living online, there are ways to make a full-time income online, but surveys are not the way. I myself really like doing surveys to earn a bit extra, but I know that I will not be able to make a living from it, and I am satisfied with that.

Can survey companies detect if you are not honest?

detect dishonesty in surveys

Some survey sites actually do have ways to find out if you are honest or not, and will then ban you if there are indications that you are not honest enough.

It is not something you have to be afraid of when doing surveys, but it can maybe be nice to know how some companies try to measure the honesty in surveys.

There are several ways of doing this. The cleverest way I have seen it is on the survey site PaidViewpoint.

This site has an inbuilt algorithm that remembers your answers, and if there are too many contradictory answers, it will raise a red flag.

This site also has daily small surveys that are called traitscore. You will get paid for these, and at the same time, it measures your consistency. After a while, when you have proved that you are consistent and honest, you will start getting better rewards for surveys. The great thing about PaidViewpoint is that the surveys on this site are very short and easy to answer, so on this site, it does definitely not take up too much time to be honest.

Other more common ways of testing honesty in surveys are to put in test questions or measure the time spent.

Test questions are when you, in the middle of the survey, will have a question that is not really a question but a sentence that tells you to pick a certain answer in that particular question to test if you actually read the question or if you are just picking randomly.

Measuring the time spent on a survey is just in some surveys. I think this method is not really working, and luckily, not many survey sites use this method.

But you can experience that after doing a survey, you will be told that you were too fast in relation to what the average person uses to answer this survey.

This method does, in my opinion, however, not make much sense, as there can be a huge difference in the reading speed of people and how fast you are at using a computer. So, for some, it is possible to do surveys faster than it is for others.

But do not worry about these measurements when you are doing surveys unless it is just because you are picking completely randomly.

Final thoughts

In conclusion, I would say that honesty is important when doing surveys because companies are only interested in paying for honest feedback. And only if you give honest feedback you will have the chance to actually affect the decisions made by companies, organizations, and governments.

If you like getting paid for doing surveys, you will also have to give useful answers – if not, it is a question of time before companies will stop giving you the opportunity.

So be honest, but do also not overthink and overanalyze every question and answer, as that will take too long, it is not necessary, and it will also not give better feedback.

If you have any other opinions or questions, please leave a comment below, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

8 thoughts on “The Importance of Honesty When Doing Paid Surveys [Guide]”

  1. I think you have to approach doing paid surveys like you do any other job – do your best, and try to enjoy the process! If you don’t, you’ll quickly tire of clicking buttons and just chasing after the almighty dollar. (And yes, many paid surveys from what I’ve learned don’t pay much more than that dollar or two, UNTIL they figure out if you’re the right kind of person for the companies they’re doing work for! Doing quality work always pays off in the end… plus, you’ll sleep better at night if you’re not constantly cheating someone… at least, that’s my personal point of view!

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  2. A very helpful report. I have often wondered about doing surveys and answering questions for money. Wondered how legit they were. You have explained really well. Thank you.
    I do understand what you mean about the honesty as well. It may take a little longer to be genuine but there will be more satisfaction in a job well done by being honest.
    Some people have time at home on a PC and might as well do something productive with it. My Niece does “Mystery Shopping,” and she has a pile of paperwork to do afterwards. after all, the companies paying for the surveys are gathering information which they have paid for. It should be honestly done.
    Thanks for an informative and clear article.

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  3. Thank for a very valuable report. I was always in dilemma ,how could we paid so much for just sharing our opinion and answering few questions.But thanks to you friend ,you have explained it to me very clearly.
    But my opinion is companies do really pay for our honest opinion for marketing their product and for analysis of data.My sister has been working for these guys for last 03 years and making a handsome living …..

    Reply
    • I always appreciate genuine comments on my website Nandu. But yours is more just trying to sell a product that is not worth selling. Nice try to make a comment that seems legit on my site where you post a link to a site that promises people they can become rich from doing surveys and also claiming you sister has done it through that company.

      Obviously I have blocked the link, as it was just a link to a site that has fake promises and just links further to one of the sites I actually warn people against joining because it charges them to join and promises way more than what is realistic with surveys.

      I hope that people that sees your comment will understand that this is just a fake comment to try to drive people to join a page where you get paid to get them to join without them getting anything out of it. And hopefully people will recognize similar comments on other websites and stay away from the links in them.

      As I continously mention throughout my site – surveys are a great way to make a bit of extra money, but you can NOT make a living from it or become rich from it. And people should NEVER join a survey site that charges them a fee to join.

      Mikael

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