e-Rewards Review

At the time of writing this review, the world was locked down in self-isolation, and Coronavirus had the majority of the world shut away in their homes – without an income for most. All over the globe, freelancers and digital nomads were suddenly thrust to the forefront, sharing knowledge and spreading ideas on how the world’s population could earn money to support themselves during this crisis.

The problem with this scenario is that – although it looks good on paper – in reality, artisans and graduates alike were not equipped to deal with the incredible amount of discipline it takes to work from home. Not only that, but suddenly online portals such as Upwork were flooded with millions of new contractors and freelancers signing up, looking for a slice of the pie they could claim as their own.

Online shops and stores grew exponentially, at rates faster than even the virus did, and the artificial, online world we had been talking about for decades suddenly became the norm. For those die-hards from generations gone by who had yet to fully embrace technology, the learning curve was immense. For those who – like the millennials – were old hacks at this techno stuff, the world lay before them like never before.

And nestled somewhere in-between these two vastly differing outlooks lay a section of society that looked to online surveys as a way to earn more cash or exchange points for rewards in a bid to survive the worldwide Covid-19 lockdown. Would e-Rewards be a legitimate way to do that, or would it be just another scam site?

Let’s take a look.

Who are e-Rewards?

According to Twitter, “e-Rewards, Inc. is the parent company of Research Now, Peanut Labs, and e-Miles. The combined businesses employ 1000+ employees in over 22 offices worldwide.” Tweets and comments on this page are protected and require admin approval to view.

The e-Rewards home page states that the site has “2 million members worldwide, Opinions from 4 continents, and 100,000 redemptions every month.” They don’t elaborate on how those redemptions are done or for what activities, and I struggle to believe that it’s from online surveys only.

Dynata is a company that emerged following a number of acquisitions and name changes over the years. Originally hailing from Dallas, Texas, USA, e-Rewards was founded in 1999 and was listed by Inc Magazine as one of America’s fastest growing companies in 2007. In 2008, TA Associates, a global private equity firm, invested $60 million as a minority investment into e-Rewards.

e-Rewards then purchased the London-based Research Now firm in 2009, and both companies operated under that name until Research Now was acquired by a private equity fund, and then merged with Survey Sampling International to trade as Dynata, operating in over 100 locations across the globe. e-Rewards is a market research access panel owned and operated by Research Now Group, LLC.

I have also seen other reviews that refer to e-Rewards to as the e-Rewards Opinion Panel, but can find no legal or other information to confirm this. A search of this term brings up many other online survey sights, including e-Rewards. Again, I could not confirm this naming convention, and a search through the legal terms and conditions on the e-Rewards page also did not bring up this term. I did, however, find this term on the e-Rewards Twitter page, though not entirely sure why this didn’t show at the top of my search results.

From a legal perspective, the Research Now Group, LLC. is registered in the UK, and is therefore subject to the laws and stipulations of that country, although the e-Rewards system is only available to persons residing in the USA and Canada, over the age of 13 (with parental consent).

What are e-Rewards?

e-Rewards are electronic rewards you earn for sharing your opinions on testing emerging products for popular brands and giving feedback on topics such as your favorite shows, trending news and branded items. You can redeem these e-rewards then exchanged for electronic cash-value benefits such as loyalty points to your favorite travel destination, gift cards, dining experiences, magazine subscriptions, air miles and more.

As with most more-complicated survey sites, be prepared to sit for what may seem like a long time, duplicating your personal information and additional information needed in order to complete your profile adequately for the e-Rewards system. It would be nice if Google remembered my choices across multiple sites, much like it remembers my ad choices or credit card info, but alas. No.

How much money can I earn in cash back from e-Rewards?

Technically, what you earn through e-Rewards is not cash, although it does have a cash value when you use it to exchange or redeem your points at any participating partner. Bear in mind that you will also have to be registered at the same e-Rewards partner to make use of their available loyalty benefits.

There is no cash amount that will be paid out to you either via PayPal or a check. E-Rewards currency is converted into cash value and then redeemed for loyalty points at participating partners.

Panel Currency has no monetary value and may not be bartered, sold or transferred. Your account will automatically terminate after 365 days of inactivity, thereby forfeiting your accumulated panel currency to date. Should you withdraw, unsubscribe, or terminate your membership to e-Rewards, your accumulated panel currency will be deleted, and there is therefore no way to claim this back through dispute or claim procedures after the fact.

Rewards are available in online and physical forms, though postage may delay receiving your rewards via the US Postal Service or other delivery and courier methods available to you.

How do e-Rewards work?

e-Rewards work on a 5-level system – bronze, silver, gold, platinum and diamond – that each have their own milestones to complete. Leveling up also means access to greater rewards through additional activities, such as invitation-only studies or surveys.

Bronze requirements

• Sign up and activate your account.

Silver requirements

• Complete your first activity
• Complete 25% of your survey profile
• Complete one additional activity in the past week

Gold requirements

• Complete 50% of your survey profile
• Complete a survey in two consecutive weeks
• Complete 10 additional activities

Platinum requirements

• Complete 75% of your survey profile
• Complete a survey in three consecutive weeks
• Complete 25 additional activities

Diamond requirements

• Complete 100% of your survey profile
• Complete a survey in four consecutive weeks
• Complete 50 additional activities

As mentioned, the rewards differ per level, however e-Rewards pays out quite quickly once you’ve accumulated the minimum amount of e-Rewards currency. The lowest gift card you can currently use and exchange your e-Rewards currency for is $10, making this one of the lowest cash-out amounts compared to other survey sites like InboxDollars [insert link to last review] and SurveyClub [insert link to last review].

What kind of customer support can I expect from e-Rewards?

A comprehensive help guide, legal terms and conditions, and the about page all served to answer any initial questions I had. At that time, I must admit that most of my queries were based on monetary questions I had, and a few other questions about the process. Customer support were quick to respond when I sent through the contact form (within a 24-hour window) and my query was resolved.

e-Rewards also has a customer support email option, accessible from within your account.

What’s the catch with e-Rewards?

In a nutshell, if you have not been invited to participate in a survey by one of the e-Rewards partners, you simply don’t qualify to complete it. That makes it really difficult to achieve your level goals, which means your rewards take a long time to accumulate. I also don’t see how you’re supposed to go and register with the partners of your choice (Twitter or Best Buy, for example) so that you can announce you’re ready to complete surveys on their behalf.

There are the odd surveys that are open for the general public to complete, and these will also be sent via email. It is important to always check your mail immediately when you receive notifications from survey sites, so that you complete the survey in the given time limit and before all available seats are filled.

What others are saying about e-Rewards

Reviewers and users alike have pretty much the same comments, and most of these are centered around payment issues and cashout value versus e-Rewards currency value.

Taking a look at TrustPilot, I noted that there are two very differing ratings for e-Rewards, as they have two profiles on the TrustPilot site.

In the first TrustPilot profile noted above, e-Rewards are rated as average, based on 800+ reviews.

In the second TrustPilot profile noted here, ratings are really low and based on 33 reviews only.

The Better Business Bureau, however, paints a much clearer picture, with 800+ complaints alone – not just reviews.

As this reviewer noted, you may find that some surveys disqualify you towards the end of the survey, after collecting the bulk of the information they need to complete their data-mining exercise. You may, in some instances, receive a fraction of the points you would normally have received for those disqualifying surveys, but the damage is done and whatever information you had already entered has now been bought at a fraction of what you should have been paid for it.

One reviewer noted that the cash you earn is misleading, as the opinion points you earn from market research and online surveys are worth less than half of the actual cash value. Cashing out $25 gift cards would, therefore, cost you around $60 e-Rewards currency. Also interesting to note was that this reviewer mentioned that a specific reward cannot be cashed out twice in a row, and certain rewards can only be cashed out once a year. In other words, if you already used your e-reward to cash out a $25 gift card from Amazon, you can’t do that again this year. The comments from ex-members at the base of his e-Rewards review are also concerning.

Pros and cons

The easiest way to tell if a site is genuine or not (scam or legitimate) is to weigh up the pros and cons of using that site. Whilst on the whole it may appear to be a legitimate survey site, the pros and cons can sometimes shed light on why members call it a scam or decide that it’s not worth pursuing. In this e-Rewards review, the pros and cons that I could see are as follows:

Pros

• Great rewards available (i.e airline miles)
• Leveling up increases your rewards level and thus your “earnings”

Cons

• Invitation-only surveys
• Not enough general public surveys to earn many rewards
• Unable to find a way to list myself as available for surveys with partners
• Level requirements seem daunting when you consider that it’s invitation-only
• Opinion points (e-Rewards currency) versus cashout currency are not equal
• Loss of privacy

e-Rewards

• Open to healthcare professionals
• After registration, you will receive invitations for available surveys.
• Does not always accept new members
• Not enough general public surveys to earn many rewards

4

★★★★★ 2/5

OTHER SITES

In conclusion

If surveys really are your go-to for earning money online, then this one will surely disappoint, given that there are so many other survey sites out there to choose from that are way less complicated and pretty much more upfront and giving with their payments, rewards and conversion of opinion points.

I wouldn’t exactly call this site a scam and have to concede that, yes. E-Rewards are a legitimate way to make money (of sorts) online. I must, however, state emphatically that this one would be a waste of time, given that time is all you now have in lockdown.