Paid surveys are a great way to make some additional cash from home. You can easily earn a couple hundred bucks a month for just a few minutes a day.

Companies conduct market research all of the time.  Ever leave a movie theater and have someone come up to you with a survey and a no erasered pencial? If so, you've been a part of market research.  Companies need consumer input.  And in this day and age of the information superhigh way we call the Internet, they're willing to pay people for their spare time!

As a student, this is great news. As a FILM student, it's revolutionary.  Props, sets, actors -- everything costs money. And a lot of it.  It's hard enough to pay for books and tiution let alone film projects, and yet I need to be able to in order to learn.  And that's where survey websites came in for me.

The problem is however, that a lot of scams are out there. It's tough to pick out the good from the bad, but it can be done if you're careful.

Why do these websites that require a fee or some piece of information continue to operate? Shouldn't they be shut down?

A lot of the so called "scams" continue to operate because they aren't exactly commiting any sort of crime -- they do in a way give you what they promise. You'll give them a "memebership fee" in hopes of meeting their promise of making thosuands of dollars a month, only to be handed a simple list of survey websites that were free to join anyway. In a technical sense they are giving what they promised.  And as such, there's a ton of these out there. But don't let that spoil it for you. There's still good ones out there -- I have and continue to use several survey websites myself.

The fruads can be easily avoided, so long as you keep the following as part of your sign up philosphy:

 - Make sure you're not giving away any information you wouldn't mind having avaliable to anyone anyway, if something is required that is sensetive, such as a credit card number, don't bother.

- Never pay anyone a cent for your time. You're working for the companies, not the other way around -- you're giving them valuable market data, so they should be paying you.

These sites will claim you're going to make thosuands of dollars. Well, you won't.  Legtimate survey websites do pay, and they do give you ample opprtunity to earn money -- but you are working on commision regardless.  You are not making an hourly wage or a fixed anual salary.  When you complete a survey, you are compenseted.  It's that simple.  In a way, it's nice because it creates flexiability. Need more money? Do more surveys.  Can't afford to spend any time on them at all this week? Simply make less and do more next week instead.  Surveys aren't always avalaible, but if you sign up for enough legtimate survey websites you should be able to always have one or two around at any given time.  How much money you make ends up depending entirly on how much time you put into it.

Just think about what you're signing up for before you sign up for it.  Never trust anyone. Double check your sources. Surveys do work and you are paid for your time - but only if you're in the right place to begin with.

Visit http://surveysafari.x10hosting.com/ for a list of paid survey websites that i've compiled and used myself, as well as more extensive tips.  I've been paid by all of these, so they all check out.

Michael Boe is a student filmmaker. Michael is using the power of internet to raise money for his own short films, to make his dreams come true.

In 2008, he started http://surveysafari.x10hosting.com/ to archive paid survey websites which he could use to raise money; and it since has grown into a collaborative website with user submitted tips and links.