More Microworkers Payment Problems

Some time ago I wrote a blog post about the Microworkers payment problems that I experienced when I first applied to get my online earnings from my Microworkers account paid into my PayPal.  It took a long time before I received my PIN number from them.  When the PIN number did eventually arrive however, after over two weeks, it obvious why - I live in the US and the letter had been sent from Slovenia. 

Anyway, after I posted about my experience, I received a comment from a reader called Simona who said that she was having problems getting paid as Microworkers had just withdrawn the PayPal option for payment.  Sure enough, she was right when I checked.  PayPal was the standard way for many of us to get our Microworkers earnings in the past, but now Microworkers are saying that workers have to open an account with Moneybookers, or Alertpay.

Ideally, I would prefer my money to be paid straight to my bank account, but I appreciate that can't always happen and PayPal is generally a reliable money site to use and one of the most common methods used to pay out online earnings by websites.  I don’t really relish the idea of setting up another account with a new website just to pay myself the $9 or $10 that I earn intermittently on Microworkers.  The Microworkers Support page states that more payment options (including presumably Microworkers?) would be available soon, but I have waited around for ages in the hope that PayPal would return as an option with no joy and there is still no sign of it happening at the time of writing.

I like earning money online with Microworkers - they are a smaller operation than MTurk but that is okay, I accept that they don’t have as many jobs and I don’t expect to build up my online earnings quickly - but sometimes they can be frustrating.  I emailed Microworkers a few days ago to ask them what is happening but haven’t heard anything back, as yet.  I will post their answer when they reply.

8 Websites that pay you

I thought it might be useful to write a list of websites that pay you, along with my assessment for how lucrative I have found them in terms of online earnings.  These are all websites that I use, or have used, to make money online.  I give a very brief explanation with a link to a much more detailed review, followed by my online earnings rating – the online earnings rating is subjective, of course, as it is quite possible that someone else might sign up to a site and have a completely different experience to my own.

Crowdsourcing Sites

In the crowdsourcing sites, you make money by performing simple tasks on your computer for online employers in return for small payments.  Tasks might include things such as copying text from scanned business cards, completing online surveys, writing short blog articles, tweeting adverts, writing descriptions of photos or videos.

Amazon MTurk (Mechanical Turk) – The site that this blog is named after and a great site if you want to make money online quickly.  There are times when I find it frustrating, however.  Despite the (occasional) problems, this site is probably one of the better websites that pay you.  Full review: Top 10 Amazon Mechanical Turk Tips and Tricks  Online earnings rating: 8/10

Microworkers – Similar to Amazon MTurk but a much smaller outfit, which gives it some advantages as well as disadvantages.  A lot of spammy jobs on there, so I tend to pick off one or two good ones each day and therefore find that making money money online is slower than with Amazon MTurk.  Still worth doing though.  Full review: The Pros and Cons of Making Money Online with Microworkers  Online earnings rating: 7/10

Social networking websites that pay you

These sites pay you for online social activity.  This might include things like: starting discussions, uploading photos, commenting on people’s profiles, bookmarking links to websites or posts.

myLot – I had a lot of hopes for myLot when I first started it, but overall I have been a little disappointed by it.  It seems difficult to make more than pennies each day, in my experience, although I must say that the ‘work’ that you do is hardly taxing.  Maybe I just don’t use it enough, as there are people on there who say they earn a dollar a day or more just for chatting.  Full review: How To Make Money Online With MyLot  Online earnings rating: 4/10

RedGage  - I have known about RedGage for a long time, but only started using it recently.  I personally prefer it to myLot, although both sites can irritate me a little at times (myLot because of the full page ads and RedGage because it can be a little glitchy at times).  The great thing about RedGage, however, is that you continue to make money online even when you do nothing after you have uploaded enough stuff.  It’s never going to make you a millionaire, but the community on there are friendly.  Full review: Can I earn money online with RedGage?  Online earnings rating: 6/10

Onine reward clubs

These sites pay you for doing things like completing online surveys, reading emails, watching videos, playing computer games, shopping online.

Swagbucks – A popular website with a strong following.  You collect a virtual currency called swagbucks, which you can then exchange for products online, PayPal money, or Amazon giftcards.  Full review: Swagbucks tips and tricks  Online earnings rating: 7/10

Inbox Dollars – Similar to Swagbucks in many ways, but a smaller outfit.  I actually prefer Inbox Dollars to Swagbucks, but make sure that you don’t give them your main email address as they send you lots of emails, which can be annoying.  Full review: Review of Inbox Dollars  Online earnings rating: 7/10

Writing sites

These sites are more involved than the others, as you have to write informative articles and have a good command of the English language.  This means investing a lot of time and energy, often doing research as well as writing.  Earnings are slow at first.  They gradually build, but it can take months before the dollars begin coming in.  HubPages and Squidoo make their money through Google adverts and companies like Amazon, and give the writers a share.

HubPages  You write informative articles on a topic you know.  Good community.  Has been through some tough times after getting hammered by Google, but now seems to be on the way back up, at least for may writers.  There are some big earners on there, although most writers earn well under $15 per month.  Use my referral link to.  Online earnings rating: 7/10  Sign up to HubPages with my referral link.

Squidoo  Similar to HubPages in essence, but the payout system is a little different.  I didn’t have much success with Squidoo and gave up on it, but others swear by it as an earner.  Online earnings rating: 5/10  Use my referral link to sign up to Squidoo.

UPDATE (February 2014)

I would avoid MyLot altogether as they are no longer and earning site.  Redgage is no longer much good either.

Bubblews is a good site, however, if you just want some (relatively) quick and easy money.

Recovering from a bad HIT Approval Rate

As any experienced turker will tell you, recovering from a bad HIT approval rate can be a frustrating experience.  It seems to take forever to come back from the damage that just one or two MTurk HIT rejections can do and all the time your HIT approval rate is damaged, your ability to make money online is compromised.

If you are new to turking and aren’t aware, Amazon Mechanical Turk calculates your HIT approval rate by comparing how many of your MTurk HITS have been rejected by requesters for HITs submitted against how many have been accepted.  The resulting percentages are called your HIT rejection rate and your HIT approval rate.  (All these figures can be seen on the Dashboard part of your Mechanical Turk account.)

The problem is that many of the requesters insist on a HIT approval rate of 95% or better as a qualification requirement and if you don’t meet the qualification standard, they don’t allow you do their HITs.  These MTurk HITS are very often some of the best paid ones and so getting a bad HIT approval rate can really damage your ability to make money online.

As I have mentioned before, when I started out with Mechanical Turk, I didn’t appreciate the problems that having a bad HIT approval rate might bring, so I just tried out lots of different HITs without really caring too much whether some of them got rejected or not.  This came back to haunt me and I learnt my lesson accordingly.

More recently, however, I have seen my HIT approval rate drop again through no fault of my own.  This was apparently because, as I found out from turkers at TurkopticonToolbar, a requester who had been reliable in the past suddenly started using new (faulty) software which was wrongly automatically rejecting HITs that were actually completely fine.  I did complain about it, of course, but it was to no avail, as usually happens!  (See 10 reasons why I hate Mechanical Turk)

Anyway, I’ve spent my time recently working my socks off on getting my HIT approval rating back up to 95%.  It isn’t fun.  As well as my choice of HITs being reduced, each time I do a new HIT I am worried about getting another rejection and getting pushed back down again (once bitten, twice shy!). 

I’m not sure if I mentioned it in my comparison of MTurk and Microworkers: ­MTurk or Microworkers, which is best?,  but Microworkers are more generous with when it comes to recovering from a bad HIT approval rate.  With Microworkers your rate will recover naturally with time, even if you don’t do anything - so long as you don’t keep picking up rejections you will be okay.

In conclusion, my advice would be to not let your MTurk HIT approval rate fall below 95% if you can possibly help it.  If it does happen, I would focus on getting it back up by doing ‘safe’ HITs, that’s to say HITs being offered by MTurk requesters that you trust, as you can’t afford to get any more rejections.  Be prepared for a long haul, though - because the HIT approval rate is a proportional figure, you will need many new HIT approvals to make up for just a few rejections.

Microworkers scam: are accusations about payment problems justified?

I recently received a comment from someone on one of my make money online articles complaining about Microworkers payment problems and not being able to get his Microworkers earnings transferred over to his PayPal account.  He was upset and said he couldn’t understand why Microworkers insisted on mailing a PIN number out to him, which he’d not received, and he also implied (at least this was my interpretation) that the whole thing was a Microworkers scam.

As this was not the first time that I have seen complaints made against Microworkers about payment problems online, I thought it merited me writing a blog post.  I figured that I could also give you my own experience of what happened when I asked to transfer my Microworkers earnings from Microworkers to a PayPal account for the first time.  Before that though, I will go through the complaints about payment problems one at a time and provide some possible explanations.

Why do Microworkers send out PIN numbers by mail?

You would have to ask them that.  Although, often though it is done by companies for tax purposes, when they are attempting to show the IRS that they know who they are paying and sending out PIN numbers is a way of verifying someone’s address. 

Is it in Microworkers interest to scam people?

I personally don’t believe that it is.  They are a small company with a relatively small online workforce, certainly when compared to a giant like Amazon and their Mechanical Turk (MTurk), their main make money online rival.  I can’t see why they would want to alienate workers or get a bad reputation just for the sake of a few dollars.  (I have been critical in the past that Microworkers seem too lenient when it comes to some dodgy tasks being advertised on their website, but that is not the same as saying that Microworkers themselves are not legit!)

My own experiences of transferring my earnings from Microworkers to PayPal

Here's what happened with me back when I first requested a Microworkers payment of earnings to my PayPal account online.  I made a request to transfer $10 from my Microworkers earnings to my PayPal account and noted the date that I’d done this.  Within a few days, a message appeared in my Microwokers Account saying that the PIN number had been sent out.  I waited.  After a week had gone by, I began to get a little nervous.  After 10 days of waiting, I began to wonder if there really was a Microworkers scam.  After two weeks, however, I did receive my PIN number and guess what, the letter with the PIN number in it had come all the way from Slovenia (I live in the USA), so I guess that is a big part of the reason why it took so long!

Anyway I entered the PIN on the Microworkers website, which was accepted.  I then had to wait 4 more days while my Microworkers earnings were “pending withdrawal”, according to the Microworkers website.  All in all the process took just under three weeks from me initiating the payment to receiving it in my PayPal account.

So my advice would be to anyone who is seeking to access their Microworkers earnings for the first time, if my case is anything to go by, you will get your money, but don’t expect it to happen quickly!

Swagbucks vs Inbox Dollars, which make money online website is best?

Swagbucks vs Inbox Dollars.  They are two of the leading online rewards clubs which offer opportunities to make money online through completing paid surveys, reading emails, playing games, searching and shopping online amongst other things, but which website is best?  They both have a lot of similarities, but also differences.  So rather like I did with Amazon MTurk or Microworkers, which is best? and Amazon MTurk vs Inbox Dollars, which is best? I thought that I would compare and contrast Swagbucks and Inbox Dollars, with a view to deciding which one is preferable for those who wish to make money online. 

Swagbucks and Inbox Dollars Similarities

Both are website-based rewards clubs where you can make money online.

Both pay you to do paid surveys, play games, read emails, watch videos, shop online.

Both give you coupons that you can print off and save money with.

There is a Swagbucks toolbar and an Inbox Dollars toolbar that you can install and use to enhance your make money online experience.

Swagbucks and Inbox Dollars Differences

One big difference is that with Inbox Dollars, when you make you make money online it is in dollars and once you reach $30, they pay you cash in the form of a check, whereas with Swagbucks you earn virtual money which you then have to spend in their online shop, or exchange for amazon giftcards, or PayPal money.

Swagbucks is a bigger organization than Inbox Dollars and their number of users is larger than Inbox Dollars. 

Swagbucks have an active official Twitter account too, which you can use to keep contact with them and get info on Swag codes.  Inbox Dollars have no active official Twitter account.

Swagbucks generally is more interactive and community orientated, whereas Inbox Dollars users are more a collection of individuals with no forum or blog to link them up, like with Swagbucks.

Some of the Swagbucks paid surveys pay slightly better than the Inbox Dollars ones, in my experience.

Inbox Dollars give you $5 when you join, Swagbucks give you 50 swagbucks.

You do get more emails from Inbox Dollars than Swagbucks.  My advice would be to do what I do and don’t use your main email address when you join any of these sites.  I have a specific email account that I set up specifically for use with all these make money online websites.

In my wife’s opinion, Swagbucks has slightly more desirable gifts and rewards in their offers than Inbox Dollars does.  I will have to take her word on that one.

Conclusion

I personally prefer Inbox Dollars to Swagbucks on balance, I like the fact that when you make money online, it is in dollars.  I find the Swagbucks concept of giving you virtual money which you then have to exchange a little gimmicky, although I guess it doesn’t really matter much in the long run, as you can convert the Swagbucks to Amazon gift cards or PayPal money, if you wish.  My wife, on the other hand, is a huge fan of Swagbucks (although she still does Inbox Dollars as well, of course), so I guess that makes us a balanced couple!

Amazon MTurk alternatives: websites like MTurk

One question that I see asked a lot online and am always interested in myself is what Amazon MTurk alternatives are there on the web?  It is always good to have other options to fall back on, or other methods of earning online to use in addition to Amazon Mechanical Turk.  As far as I am aware, there are no websites like MTurk that resemble it in every way, but there are places that have some of the Amazon MTurk features and where you can make money online.

Microworkers has the most obvious similarities of all the MTurk alternatives.  The website has a different layout, there are less jobs on off than MTurk, you get your earnings paid into a PayPal account rather than through Amazon, they use some different terms for things such as jobs instead of hits, but the essentials are pretty much the same: you do online tasks and you are paid money in return.  Out of all the websites like MTurk it is the most similar.  I have written numerous articles, comparisons and reviews of Microworkers, such as Microworkers Tips, The Pros and Cons of Making Money with Microworkers, MTurk or Microworkers, which is best?.

Inbox Dollars advertises itself as an online rewards club.  Many of the tasks are the same sort of thing that can be found on Amazon Mturk: watching videos, completing surveys, applying for things.  They pay you by check, so you receive real money, but you have to cross a $30 threshold.  That isn’t too difficult as they give you a $5 start, which is useful.  I have also written a full Review of Inbox Dollars which you are welcome to read.

Shorttask.com has been recommended to me.  I have not had time to join and take a detailed enough look around it in order to write a review, but on the surface it looks fairly similar to Microworkers.

The other two websites that I’ve used regularly are Swagbucks, another online rewards club not too dissimilar to Inbox Dollars and Mylot, which is a form of social network site in the same vein as Facebook, except you get paid for commenting and posting photos etc.

There are websites that focus entirely on surveys.  Out of these, Pine Cone Research is possibly rated the most highly.  They are always full and you need a referral from someone who is already a member to join, however.  My wife is a member.  They pay at least $3 per survey which is good.  Often you have an initial survey that pays $3, then they send you a product in the post, for example, a new fizzy drink.  You try the product then do a second $3 survey telling them what you thought of the drink.

Another option is one of the Paid To Click sites (PTC), where you click on things like website adverts for money, but I haven’t really looked into them, in all honesty, as the earnings seem low to me and they don’t appeal to me personally.  There are lots of them around, however.

UPDATE (February 2014)

If I was writing this article now, I would definitely say that Bubblews was the best alternative, certainly if you just want to earn some (relatively) quick and easy money.  You write short (minimum 400 characters) articles with freedom to choose your topic and interact with other writers, rather like you would do in Facebook, and earn for this.  The payment threshold was raised to $50 recently which means that it can take a week to get a payout, but it's easy and it's fun. 

MTurk or Microworkers, which is best?

With MTurk and Microworkers effectively competing with each other for the same pool of workers and employers, I thought it might be interesting to compare the two companies from a worker’s perspective, and ask the question: “MTurk or Microworkers, which is best?”

MTurk Advantages

1       Definitely more jobs/hits available on Mturk

2       No minimum earnings level to reach before payments begin.

3       MTurk has more jobs with multiple hits, rather than one offs than Microworkers in my opinon.

4       The Amazon store sells a large variety of products to choose from.

5       Amazon are a large company which are unlikely to fold and they also have a reputation to look after.

6       You can work on Amazon Mechanical Turk for as long as you wish and the pool of hits keeps replenishing itself.

7       There are lots of surveys to do on MTurk and they often pay reasonably well.

8       MTurk is big enough to have its own community, which can be found at the Turker Nation forum, MTurk Forum and the Turkopticon Toolbar feedback.

9       You can occasionally make a reasonable amount of money in one day on MTurk if you find good hits and put some effort in.

Microworkers Advantages

1       The lower number of jobs on Microworkers actually makes the site more manageable and easier to navigate.

2       The look and design of Microworkers is more attractive and functional, methinks.

3       They let you know what percentage of workers were successful previously on a job, which helps you to decide whether to take it or not.

4       Certain jobs like Youtube likes and voting in competitions seem to pay better on Microworkers than on Amazon Turk, that’s my experience anyway.

5       PayPal is good way to be paid with lots of options for spending your money etc.

6       Microworkers is fine for supplementing other income sources and gradually building up some extra money.

Summary

Unfortunately both the Amazon MTurk and Microworkers websites have plenty of scammy, spammy, requesters/employers on them, in my experience.  Although this doesn’t stop me working on them, it would be nice to see this sort of thing clamped down on more.

I personally tend to use both MTurk and Microworkers, but in slightly different ways.  MTurk I sometimes work on for extended periods, maybe a few hours, especially when there are hits and requesters that I particularly like.  Microworkers, on the other hand, I tend to use for maybe 15-30 minutes/day and just do a few tasks, with the intention of making a dollar/day towards the ten dollar payout minimum.

Microworkers Tips

Microworkers has money making potential.  In my experience, it’s more suited to doing maybe four or five jobs per day and building up the dollars gradually.  That’s because there are slightly less opportunities for work and earnings than on MTurk, purely because there are usually far less jobs on offer.  If you are like me, however, you use a variety of websites to make money online, not just MTurk.  Anyway, here are my Microworkers Tips.

• Create alternative email accounts etc. to use specifically on Microworkers.  That way, if you get spammed later, it’s not effecting your main personal account.  You can also do this with Facebook, Youtube etc. for some of the tasks that ask you to rate/favorite/like specific businesses etc. but be careful, as the requester may reject you if they work out what you’ve done!
• Always read the job carefully before you agree to do it.  This might seem one of the most obvious of my Microworkers tips, but it’s quite easy to mess up and slip below the 75% approval rate if you’re not careful.  I came very close one time just by me making making mistakes with two small tasks.  One more mistake and I’d have been out of action on Microworkers for a couple of weeks.  (Microworkers is more generous than MTurk and allows your approval rate to recover over time.)
• This is maybe my best Microworkers tips on how to make money online and learnt from experience.  Always check out the success rate of the workers who’ve completed the job previously, it will give you an indication of whether the job is easy to get right and also whether the requester is legit.
• I guess it’s a question of conscience, but I personally avoid jobs that I think might be scams or not legitimate in some way.  I really don’t want to be responsible for posting some fake job advert that might defraud some desperate unemployed person.  (I would like to see Microworkers clean up their site where it comes to scammers and spammers, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon!)
• I find that some of the competition voting is quick and easy money in Microworkers.  You can sign up and vote three times in ten minutes and earn a dollar.  The same goes for the facebook liking and twitter following etc.
• I always say it with MTurk, but the same is worth mentioning for Microworkers, and that’s to always prioritise your own security and don’t give out personal information to requesters that could be used to defraud or spam you.  Always be wary of requesters who offer large sums for apparently simple tasks.

See links in sidebar for more Microworkers articles and make money online ideas.