Anyone ever participated in online rewards? Or are these just a scam?

Question

I am a MyPoints user and extremelly satisfied. I get my rewards and use them as promised. I also use rewards by credit cards and can't say I have ever been treated not as promissed.

Now, I'm in the market for some subscriptions, like netflix and stuff like that... I noticed that some websites promise you BIG rewards (we are talking like laptops, HDTVs, playstation3, etc) if you subscribe to certain magazines, services, etc through them. Are they legitimate? If I do follow all their instructions and 50 million rules, will I get a laptop? or anyone tried and never got your reward?

(I'm talking about these guys:

http://yoursmartrewards.com

http://www.onlinerewardcenter.com )

I figured that since I'm planning on subscribing to those of those services, might as well be rewarded for it... but don't want to reward something if it's a scam.

Answer 1

Looking over the first website you provided, this stuff looks *very* scary.

The bottom line seems to be that they have only the flimsiest obligation to give you your 'gift', and they'll definitely make you jump through all kinds of unnamed hoops to get it. You *will* be required to make several cash purchases along the way, and they don't tell you how much, how many, or the total outlay you're going to have to make.

In fact there's nothing to suggest that the money you'll be spending to get through their 'offers' will be less than the retail price of your 'gift'. I'd be surprised, frankly, if this didn't cost much more than going out and buying the thing on the high street. All the obligations are yours, and they undertake to do nothing. The money they make off you probably finances the whole operation, even before they get their kickback from the 'offers'.

And even if you *did* save a buck or two - betcha you won't - you'll have to deal with the fact that your email, your street address and everything you've been forced to tell them about your buying habits has been sold to every spam list in the universe - and you signed up to give them permission to do it!

Looks to me as though this starts off gently, and not costing much. But as you get - you think - closer to your 'prize' you'll be buying subscriptions to magazines, credit cards you don't want (which you *have* to use!), and Dawkins knows what else. It wouldn't surprise me if the last 'offer' you have to complete is so expensive that nobody in their right minds would take it up - and so you drop out, and they owe you nothing! And you still get the spam and junk mail forever.

I'd stay as far from this as I would from Ebola. If you want to pick up a cheap laptop, try the small ads. The great thing about consumer electronics is that last year's perfectly good model goes for peanuts.

Ugh. Nasty.

CD

Answer 2

It would be hard to say, but some sites are legitimate sources of pay, even though it doesn't seem like it. Its just that most people don't pay attention to the fact that it takes time for money (or points, depending on the site) to accumulate to the point to where it can actually worth something, which apparently, is a long amount of time. So, cleanly put, survey sites are only good for getting money on the side. A suggestion of mine for taking offers/surveys and filling them out would be to get an account on MyPoints, they're reliable enough and you can choose the rewards that you get for spending those point, though i have not seen an option for plain-out cash pay-out yet.