Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The A.W. Surveys Scam

A lot of you are probably already aware of the fraudulent activity at this site. However, due to the large amount of links across the web and people falling for them, I felt it necessary to post this. I also apologize for the length of this post, but you need not read it all unless you still doubt that A.W. Surveys is a scam.

OK the first clue that they are a scam is in the fact that they promise big bucks for each "survey." I tried one for myself, which said it was offering $4. The so-called "survey" in this case was visiting a website and writing two sentences about my first impressions of it. There is no way that any company could afford to pay that much for such a small task.

In case you continue to doubt it's a scam, I'll dig even deeper. If you search the internet, you'll find numerous complaints from survey-takers who have not been paid. Apparently, A.W. Surveys has a habit of canceling accounts as soon as people try to cash out. Also, they have a history of disappearing for periods of time and then coming back.

Now I have a feeling someone's going to read this and say, "But I know someone who got paid." Well, that's their scheme. If you are very, very lucky you will get paid. They randomly choose people to pay in order to hide the fact that they're a scam. But it's a very small ratio compared to all of those who are not paid.

Another tactic that they're using to keep themselves afloat is their referral campaign. I've seen links all of the internet, including on blogs of people that I respect. These people do not realize it's a scam. All they know is that they are promised big bucks for referrals so they'll do anything they can to promote it. Plus, it is impossible to reach payout without referrals since they stop sending surveys after you've reached $20-$30. And you can not cash out until you've made $75.

If you still need further proof (because I've seen these people who have actually gotten paid fight this like crazy) just check out the report of A.W. Surveys at the Better Business Bureau. They gave it a score of an F. The reasons cited being that they are lacking important information, such as background information, a number of complaints filed against them, and failing to respond to the complaints. It also says that the BBB has not been able to contact them or even obtain accurate contact information. The only address they have on file is a P.O. Box.

It should also be noted that, according to GPTBoycott, Aclarn, Inc. (the company behind A.W. Surveys) is also believed to be behind other fraudulent paid surveys sites, such as Survey King and Top Surveys.

1 comment:

  1. i don't really remember if I sign up for this one but most likely not. I have been doing many other things lately so I'm a bit clouded up. There are only good reliable sites I can recommend that surely work.

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