Which sites have disappointed you?

Discussion in Off Topic Discussion & General Questions started by Onionman • Dec 3, 2014.

  1. Onionman

    OnionmanActive Member

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    On the forum a lot of people have recommended a variety of sites to join, and some to think about avoiding (Bubblews seems to pop up a lot).

    But which sites have you joined based on a recommendation that haven't met your expectations? And if they didn't meet expectations, why not?
     
  2. johots

    johotsNew Member

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    More and more sites are full of advertisement or pop-ups. That's annoying.

    I installed ad muncher to prevent these ads. For uncertain sites, check out mywot to see if it is safe.
     
  3. jneanz

    jneanzActive Member

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    I write on a freelance basis and sometimes go to mills as a way to pass time. Last year, I went to iWriter and was thoroughly disappointed. They wouldn't even let me cash out after adding enough money for a minimum payout. On the other hand, I liked Content Blvd, as they paid better than most content mills and paid on time but disappeared then reappeared under a new format. Since these events, I'm careful about where I offer my personal information.
     
  4. deathbyprayer

    deathbyprayerActive Member

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    What sites specifically? If you're talking about writing site then Bubblews is a bad idea to start with. I would say Humanatic is pretty crappy and after my first try I never went back to that site.
     
  5. Theo

    TheoWell-Known Member

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    I joined HubPages due to their reputation and recommendations, but what no one tells you is that unless you have adsense already then there is no revenue sharing. It takes a couple of months to get approved if you are lucky and also 15-10 featured articles, so all that hard work and no guarantee of income and the pay out threshold is $50. I put so much time into it, but stopped, because you don't have readers, you need to market yourself to get people to look at your pages too, so I still have the account, but rather put my efforts into something where cash is guaranteed, or I have more control.
     
  6. wulfman

    wulfmanActive Member

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    iWriter was a huge disappointment. Please if you hear about this or google it DO NOT waste your time. You will invest a lot of time and clients can reject your work. The guidelines you are given to write an article are circumstantial and not clear. You are left making educated guesses and a lot of times you work hard on an article and get rejected. The more times you are rejected, the more likely you are to get banned from writing for the site. The banning part nobody knows about because it is deep in their fine print. And the pay is not worth it.
     
  7. Nickchick

    NickchickWell-Known Member

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    I would say Clickworker was probably my biggest disappointment though I joined because of a YouTube video I saw. I used to get good pay from there but being constantly booted out of a task on the external website got old. I liked it when they had the ones where you weren't graded but one of the last times I went on there they didn't have that anymore. Plus since I left, the payout takes longer.
     
  8. Onionman

    OnionmanActive Member

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    Thanks for pointing out iWriter. I looked at it the other day and wasn't entirely sure about it so I did a bit of research on it. It doesn't appear to be the most reliable of sites. Or rather, I noticed quite a few comments from disgruntled former writers on the site. I saw it recommended elsewhere a while back, but I don't know whether I'll bother dabbling with it just now.

    I tried out Humanatic as well. Maybe I wasn't doing it right or wasn't disciplined enough, but I really couldn't get into it. I found it overly boring and I wasn't really making much money out of it at all. Maybe I'll give it another go sometime in the future, but I was put off by being told that I had to retrain (I can't remember the exact terminology, but it was all about me not being very good at what is a very banal task).
     
  9. Lushlala

    LushlalaWell-Known Member

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    Wow, now I'm seriously disappointed in Humanatic or the rather reviews here. I registered there last week and have been meaning to go on and knuckle down, but I'm getting very mixed reviews! But to answer the question posed, I've sorely been disappointed by survey sites in general. I registered with a handful of survey sites in the hope that I'd be able to make a few cents that would slowly build up nicely. It was easy enough to register and at the time my country wasn't a problem (and was even listed on some sites!), but now each I log on the same message pops up; no work for your area. I see a lot of work on these sites, but I seem to be rendered ineligible by my location :(
     
  10. Onionman

    OnionmanActive Member

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    I think Humanatic might be fine for some people, and there did seem to be a fairly regular amount of tasks to be considered for. I just think that it hasn't been for me. So far, at least. But give it a go - as far as I know it's still a site that pays out for the effort put in.

    As for the surveys element, I'm entirely in agreement there as well. I don't get the chance to sign up for most of the surveys available out there, and the sites that do allow me to participate rarely seem to have work.
     
  11. missbee23

    missbee23Member

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    Clickworker was a disappointment. I was looking for a way to make some extra cash for Christmas. I read through some forums, and several people recommended it. But there is never any work. You have to sit there all day hitting refresh and hope you get lucky and a $0.03 job pops up. I made about a dollar doing that over the course of a week. Not worth it.
     
  12. Nickchick

    NickchickWell-Known Member

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    Yeah there is some work but they don't pay you enough though that's a lot of sites. Most of these sites don't seem worth the money anymore. Paid to post is about the only thing that is worth it. If I ever get a job I'm done with the other beer money sites.
     
  13. spacetimecontinuum

    spacetimecontinuumMember

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    Swagbucks has disappointed me because I don't want gift-cards, I want to cash out via Paypal for say $5.00, you have to have a larger number of points than I currently have to do Paypal, if I can't get cash from the site I'm participating in, then generally I'm not interested. I will continue to do Swagbucks until I get to one of their Paypal payout thresholds(which is around $25.00 I think, but after that, I can't see me spending anymore time on it.
     
  14. Onionman

    OnionmanActive Member

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    Yeah, Clickworker has been a bit hit and miss for me as well. You have to have a bit of 'dead time' on your hands because you can spend a lot of time only picking up $0.03 here and $0.05 there. I've tried doing it for sustained periods during the day and did ok, but it's not regular enough and certainly not sustainable.

    Swagbucks isn't one that I've been able to sign up for (I've tried and failed because of geography). But I'm with you on focusing on Paypal payouts. Gift cards are pointless in my head, regardless of whether I lived in the right region or not. And I do start to get worried with sites that have high payout thresholds. I need to have the choice to checkout sooner rather than later.
     
  15. Lushlala

    LushlalaWell-Known Member

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    Thanks for the feedback, Onionman. I think I'll definitely have a go and see how I get along. It's just one of those that you need to experience for yourself, I think. It seems to split opinion. The same appears to be the case for Bubblews, which I've been considering for a while. There doesn't seem to be any grey areas with that one; people either love or loathe it, with some even going so far as to say it's scam!
     
  16. Onionman

    OnionmanActive Member

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    For Bubblews I've seen an increasing number shift to the loathing end of the spectrum rather than loving it in recent months. It's just something I've noticed on a variety of forums. I never managed to sign up for it before I saw all the negative press. I think the issue started when they changed their terms and conditions, which had a knock on effect on people's ability to monetize articles they had posted. Then it led on to people not actually getting paid. I get the impression that anyone who signs up to it now goes in with their eyes wide open.
     
  17. Theo

    TheoWell-Known Member

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    I'm also disappointed in DailyTwoCents as it claims to be a place where you can write about anything, but it's so disorganized it made me look at my own blogs and made sure they didn't look like theirs. Although the pay threshold is low, it seems to be still in it's infancy and because there is no control with the font or positioning, I feel it is free content that I may as well write on my own blog and at least it will look how I want it to look. That's true of all similar sites, so it depends whether how important it is to you.
     
  18. Onionman

    OnionmanActive Member

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    It's interesting that you say that, as I've been writing on there since July and I'm thinking about slowing down with my input. When I first started I wrote a lot (maybe 2-3 pieces every day much of the time) and it took a while to get into it. Then I got to the stage of improving the quality of my output but not necessarily making major inroads in terms of income. Now I'm drawing in on 200 posts but haven't got the time to push on to make an incremental difference to pushing my income there. So I'm going to rely more on what I've already done there. I get what you're saying in terms of design - they can definitely improve it. In the new year I'm going to work harder on monetizing my own blog and a lot less on DTC. But at the very least I should still be able to get above the threshold in residual income even without writing much, if at all.
     
  19. spacetimecontinuum

    spacetimecontinuumMember

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    Don't sign up for Bubblews, I've heard too many complaints of late of them not paying people, for arbitrary reasons. People who have accrued a considerable amount suddenly have their accounts deactivated or are accused of plagiarism. Avoid like plague, you don't need the aggravation.
     
  20. asereht1970

    asereht1970Member

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    My biggest disappointment was with Squidoo. It was with that site that I really spent a lot of my time, really tried to polish my writing skills and made a lot of friends. I love reading comments on my articles and see their views go up and down. So I was really disappointed when it was taken by Hubpages.