Thursday 1 November 2012

Review of Toluna


Toluna evolved from Ciao and other well known companies. It is big, has many survey participants to choose from and many clients ordering survey results. It claims to have members in 39 countries, while the rewards are posted from France. Toluna uses its market leading position to pay tiny rewards for the surveys. They disguise it with a massive amount of points given even for 10 minutes work. Often they would send invites for a 7 minutes survey rewarding 1800 points. The points have no monetary value and can be exchanged for high street vouchers, amazon credits or similar. Thus Toluna saves on average 5% more from the retailers it buys these vouchers.

80000 points give £15 in a Love2Shop high street vouchers, making a 1800 survey worth £0.33 + the inconvenience to use vouchers. The vouchers expire after some time and as I ordered several a long time ago, it became urgent for me to use them. I looked at the retailers logos and hurried to Focus DIY to buy something. However, Focus DIY went into administration and disappeared from the retail space. I thought that I could always find something useful at Woolworths, which also accepted these vouchers. The Woolworths met the same fate as Focus and was no longer available. I turned to Peacocks, which I could find absolutely everywhere, but Peacocks went into administration as well, was sold to another company and stopped accepting any vouchers. The Comet went the same way. The best I could do, was to buy some cleaning materials, which I didn't really need, at Wilkinson and get maximum cash value from these vouchers - £1. This is the maximum amount given in change.

Those, who complain about the long time until the rewards are credited and then even longer time until the vouchers arrive - don't worry, at the end credits will appear and vouchers will arrive. It is all part of the process to spend as little as possible and to delay any payments as long as possible.

Apparently, Toluna does have a problem to find enough respondents for their low paid surveys. They keep sending invites with headers like, "We've got a fun & interactive survey", "Here's your chance to voice your opinion!", "You've still got some time left to give your opinion".‏ When nothing helps and they can't find enough respondents to fill in a 40 minutes survey for a few pennies, they would subcontract this survey to another survey company, pay decent rewards and get enough respondents.

Once in a while one could get a survey with a decent reward. Still, the electricity and broadband used to fill in Toluna surveys might cost more than the reward itself.

18 comments:

  1. Giving out vouchers as a reward / payment for answering surveys may not be the best thing online surveys can offer. These vouchers unfortunately, expires and is not accepted throughout the globe. People who sign up for these surveys are not always in a location where these vouchers are accepted. At times, instead of making the best out of this, you end up buying / exchanging these vouchers for something you don't really need.

    Sadly, I would have to agree that electricity and broadband consumption may be higher than the reward being offered.

    This is a nice post.

    marc_anthony_o

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  2. I have once used on-line surveys for making money and I have to say that if you use the proper way then it surely works for you.

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  3. Your post about Toluna.Toluna evolved many well known survey companies.It has many survey participants.I know what is the value and validity of it's point.The vouchers expire after some time it is not satisfied me.I think the value of it's point are very good.Your post describe some useful information about these survey companies.Many people are benefited from those survey companies.But these service are not acceptable for any location.

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  4. Warning - they take ages to give out their rewards, despite promising 6 weeks delivery. I ordered my reward on 3rd November (£15 Amazon voucher) and still waiting, today is 17th January.

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    1. same as that i ordered mine on the 4th of july and its now 19th of september and still no vouchers after 11 weeks....a total joke other sites are much better

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  6. I applied for voucher on the 5th November and I am still waiting. It is the first time I have encountered this problem but must admit I am beginning to wonder whether they are going to pay out.

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  7. BOTTOM LINE IS:
    Toluna is scaming the users to make money without ever paying 1p to any user for the surveys completed.

    I have been waiting for my Amazon voucher for more than 3 months and every time I contact Toluna I just got the same response over and over again....
    I have checked and I can confirm that your voucher request is still processing. As we order and process large batches of vouchers at the same time, it normally takes up to 4-6 weeks from when you order your voucher until when you receive it. We know that in this case the original 6-week time has been surpassed, therefore we send you our sincere apologies. We fully understand that you work hard to earn your rewards and we assure you that we will be processing all outstanding vouchers as soon as we possibly can. Unfortunately I cannot provide an exact processing date at the moment.

    They should be reported and website closed if no payment are been made for the users of the Toluna website.

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  10. The comments about Toluna's pathetic payout per survey, and the delay in the arrival of rewards, is all fair comment. The delay of a month or more in providing an electronic voucher which other survey companies supply within 24 hours - if not seconds - is completely inexcusable. However, the implication that Toluna are somehow at fault when vouchers are subsequently not used by the recipient, or the retailers for which they are valid cease trading, is unfair. FWIW I have had 13 x £15 Amazon vouchers from Toluna over the last two years.

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  11. I would like to ask Alex a question. My partner and I have just started a new survey panel in the Netherlands and UK. It's called Quaestion (http://www.quaestion.com/uk/) and it is set up in cooperation with a global market research company CINT. We have been able to reach 1000 members in 2 weeks in the Netherlands. Would you like to review the UK version on the blog?

    If you have any questions or remarks, don't hesitate to e-mail me on panel@quaestion.com!

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    1. I would like to make a point about Quaestion. I recently got to the minimum £10 pay out threshold and while they say PayPal take a 2% fee, I was left with £7.84. I have contacted Quaestion 5 times following this to ask why and they have not even bothered to acknowledge my emails. I would like to put this comment on Survey Police but I can't see them listed on their website. I think it is a rip off and I will not be continuing given they are clearly keeping almost 30% of MY earnings.

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  12. Great post full of useful tips! My site is fairly new and I am also having a hard time getting my readers to leave comments. Analytics shows they are coming to the site but I have a feeling “nobody wants to be first”. paid surveys

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  13. Scam. Time wasted. Surveys 15 min into say I didn't meet criteria. They just got survey for free!!!! Scam.

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  14. By chance, I joined Toluna and Global Test Market on the same day about three months ago. The comparative difference between the two sites is massive. Since March, I have made £160+ from Global Test Market, while I still haven't managed to breach the ridiculous numeral of 160,000 points on Toluna, the limit at which you can claim £30 on PayPal.

    Go figure.

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  15. The best part of Toluna surveys is the variety of prizes. When you eventually meet the payout threshold do have a nice selection of gift cards to choose from.

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  16. Very good information. Lucky me I ran across your website by chance (stumbleupon).
    I've book-marked it for later!

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