First of all, I apologize for the two-week silence. I’m down to crunch time at school, so I’ve had to limit my extracurricular activities. Finals are next week. After that, I’ll be back to posting once or twice per week.

I previously posted about mystery shopping with SecretShopper.com, and cashing out with Opinion Outpost. I received checks from both of those this week, as well as a check for Mrs. Fencepost from MySurvey.com. Here is a summary:

1. MySurvey.com: $10.00 (Mrs. Fencepost earned this one.)
2. SecretShopper.com: $23.00
3. OpinionOutpost.com: $6.40

• Total: $39.40

Once finals are over, I’ll try out some other mystery shopping providers and post about my experience.

Regards,

J

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© 2008, Jonathan Johnson. All rights reserved.

When I started trying to make money online, getting scammed and losing money were major concerns for me. As a result, I took some steps to minimize my risk. Here are a few tips based on my experience:

1. I do not ever pay money to join a paid survey site or mystery shopping provider. Legitimate companies can be easily found with a Google search, and there is no reason for them to charge a fee. They get paid by the companies whose surveys you take.
2. Before I sign up with any site, I type their name, plus the word “scam,” or “fraud,” into a search engine (such as Google) to see what comes up. I decided not to join a couple of sites based on what I found out about them through a quick Google search.
3. I avoid Get Paid To sites. These sites offer incentives for signing up for various trial offers. The problem is, most offers require you to give out your credit card number, which is billed if you don’t cancel within the trial period. Some people have reported problems trying to cancel before the trial period runs out, or being billed for other offers that were hidden in the fine print. In my opinion, the hassle and risk is not worth the little bit of money to be made that way.
4. I set up a free web-based email account solely for the purpose of mystery shopping and surveys. I call this my junk account. I did not set this secondary account to forward to my main email, even though I had the option. I assumed I’d receive a lot of spam, and I didn’t want it cluttering up my main mailbox. I log into it once or twice per day to see if I’ve been offered any new surveys, and that’s it. When I stop doing surveys, I can just abandon the email account and forget it ever existed. I recommend Gmail for this purpose.

If your online activities require to to share your email address or phone number with companies you don’t trust, there are free services for getting around that problem:

1. I set up an account with SpamGourmet.com. SpamGourmet.com is a free service which automatically sets up temporary disposable email addresses that forward to the account of your choice. I don’t recommend using this service for surveys or mystery shopping (you want to hear from those companies), but it could be useful if you are into the GPT sites. I’ve used SpamGourmet.com several times to sign up for mailing lists in exchange for an incentive.
2. Along the same lines, there are a number of net-based voicemail providers. I have an account with k7.net. When you sign up, you give them your name and email address, and they give you a phone number with a 206 (Seattle) area code. Setup is very similar to regular voicemail. When someone calls the number, they go straight to your outgoing message. You can sign in to check your messages, or you can have them sent to your email inbox as audio attachments. The only catch is you have to use the service at least once a month, or your account is deleted. I call my number and leave a message about once every two weeks just to be safe.

That’s all for now. If you think something should be added this list, feel free to post it in a comment.

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© 2008, Jonathan Johnson. All rights reserved.

I recently tried my luck as a mystery shopper. For those who don’t know, a mystery shopper visits businesses as an anonymous customer, and submits a report of their experience through a mystery shopping provider. Businesses that have been mystery shopped use the reports to improve the customer experience. Mystery shoppers typically receive compensation, usually including reimbursement for purchased items, as well as some extra money for their time. As with surveys, you shouldn’t quit your day job, but you can make a modest amount of extra money as a mystery shopper.

Back in February, I signed up for a mystery shopping provider that I had researched and trusted, SecretShopper.com. I completed their online training, passed a couple of tests, and scheduled my first job, which I completed last week. After visiting the store, I electronically submitted my report and a scanned copy of my receipt. The job took about three hours including drive time and report submission, but much of that was first-time learning. I expect that the next job will go much quicker.

My payment from SecretShopper.com is supposed to arrive near the end of April. I’ll post an update when I’ve received it.

Since completing my first job, I’ve signed up for a couple more networks. My life is going to be busy for a few weeks, so I won’t be performing any more shops until I complete a few higher priority tasks.

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© 2008, Jonathan Johnson. All rights reserved.