These are actually similar to paid to read emails except you are paid to take online surveys. Basically it works like this:
You register with the company
Each day they send you a number of surveys to take.
For each survey you take you get paid
And therein lies the rub (again).
Most survey clubs for starters charge you an insane fee to join, as much as $69 for one. Sure, you get access to hundreds of survey companies through the club but when you start getting surveys sent to your email box you find out that you don’t qualify for 90% of them. So before you even actually get to take a survey it can be days or even weeks. One company I received surveys from I have YET to qualify for ONE. And then finally when you DO qualify for a survey, the amount they pay you for each is a joke. Some companies actually just give you what they call credits and then you cash your credits in for payment. The average company requires 1000 credits to get $10. At 10 credits per survey it takes 100 completed surveys to make your $10. Even if you qualified for one survey a day it would take you over 3 months to get your $10 check. That’s what it took me with this one company. I have since given up on taking online surveys. They are just not worth the effort for the amount of money you make.
More importantly than how difficult it is to actually make any money with surveys is the fact that all these sites that make you pay for a list of survey sites should literally be hung by their shoe strings. All of the sites that you ultimately pay to get access to are out there on the Internet. All you have to do is go to any search engine and look up “paid surveys” or “paid survey sites” and you will find dozens of sites to take surveys with. So there is absolutely no reason to actually pay for this information.
Another problem that's even bigger than wasting your time taking surveys that either pay you peanuts or that you don't qualify for, is all the junk email that you end up getting when you sign up with these sites. The reason is simple. These sites will sell your email address to every company that is willing to pay for it. In case you think this is illegal, you need to look at the agreement you signed when you joined this site that says they will be allowed to send you offers from time to time. The problem is, the offers come in like gang busters and your email box ends up getting overrun.
For the few housewives who actually qualify for these surveys and make about $50 a month for 400 hours of work, maybe it's worth it. But if you're looking to earn any kind of decent income on the Internet, paid survey sites are not the way to go.