Opinion City Review

Need best-practice tips on how to avoid being swindled by scam survey sites? Click to skip ahead or keep reading to scroll there in time.

I once knew a man with integrity, the kind that clients speak of in hushed tones. A German-South African, he spoke with quiet authority in a voice devoid of emotion, so you never really knew if he was being mean, sarcastic, wistful, or even just plain funny.

What isn’t funny is placing a value on integrity, and then finding out you were swindled. As more and more of the world’s population become tech-savvy under the Covid-19 lockdown and self-isolation regulations, finding legitimate work-from-home opportunities and part-time gigs to make money online could become more and more difficult for those who may not be quite as tech-savvy as their digital peers.

Online survey sites that payout in rewards or cash can be a great way to earn some much-needed bucks and get paid right now, but how can you be sure that the options your search brings you are legitimate companies that operate with integrity? Well, you can’t always be sure (no matter what you read) that something isn’t a scam, so what else can you do?

Tips for finding legitimate survey sites

Not interested in these tips on how to avoid being swindled by scam survey sites? Click to skip ahead or keep reading to scroll there in time.

• Do your research – add the word “review” to your search keywords for better results. For example, “opinion city +review” will bring up all relevant sites that mentioned an Opinion City review
• Create a separate email address – because many of the sites you visit will spam your personal mailbox if you don’t
• Keep track of progress – tracking your progress on a simple spreadsheet or keeping a journal of sites-to-avoid can be a great way to manage your earnings
• Keep track of the survey sites you are not comfortable working with – this will come in handy when your lists get longer
• Sign up to a few survey sites at a time – be diligent and disciplined about following up and completing the surveys you get invited to join via links and invites in your inbox so that you’re first in line to make money
• Always be privacy-conscious – if it creeps you out to add some personal data anywhere, it’s best to avoid that website altogether and delete your account there, also
• Pay attention – when you hear or read of red flags about certain survey sites, you can be sure that doing business with them is probably not going to be in your best interests

Speaking of red flags, we’ve heard quite a few whisperings about Opinion City, a US-based survey site that accepts signups from all over the world. In this Opinion City review, we examine some of those red flags, and the claims we’ve read that Opinion City is a scam.

Have you signed up for Opinion City yet? Can you add to this review? Leave your comments below.

Click here to discover our pick of the best survey sites you probably haven’t heard too much about yet.

Legit vs. scam – what’s the deal?

In the online survey industry, those who’ve had run-ins with survey sites will be quick to voice their opinion about which sites lack integrity. It almost seems ironic that the people looking for extra cash by doing the least amount of work for it should be so vocal about shady business practices overall. That said, members of online Get-Paid-To (GPT) sites also tend to be the most fanatical of all work-from-home industries, with higher than average standards about being paid for the effort they’ve put in.

And why shouldn’t they have those standards? Completing surveys and sharing your opinion to make money online is not just a click-click kind of activity. Building your portfolio on the survey sites you sign up to can take a while, and the more survey sites you sign up to, the more profiles you need to complete. Enabling auto-complete on your browser settings may help a little, but it’s also tedious, at best.

Most companies operate above the board and are recognised as legitimate GPT companies by rating agencies and places like the Better Business Bureau. What those ratings don’t always reveal are who is hustling their shady business practices, who uses misleading marketing texts, which sites don’t pay or are not worth the effort, and which of those survey sites have non-existent customer service divisions.

Remember our tip about keeping lists of the GPT sites you do and don’t want to do business with?

Legitimate GPT sites pay cash, rewards, or other incentives for your honest opinion on products and services being reviewed, or for answering surveys sent out by their partners, clients, and affiliates. I wouldn’t say that different survey companies all pay well or even on time, but at least they do eventually pay.

Scam sites, on the other hand, are those that use misleading marketing texts on their website content. They either do not pay or do not pay well (for the amount of effort you’ve put in), or they close your account for no reason just as you’re about to cash out that hefty Visa or PayPal reward for all those points you spent the last 11 months collecting. You get the picture, right?

Is Opinion City legit site or a scam? Keep reading to find out more.

Red flags or red herrings?

Red flags are those things that make us sit up and pay attention. Red herrings are designed to divert your attention away from whatever is in front of you.

With this in mind, we scoured the web in search of fair and factual information in other Opinion City reviews. What reviewers and members were saying was that Opinion City is a scam, based on red flags found.

Interestingly, both Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary and the Urban Dictionary use defining words such as deceit, betrayal, not trustworthy, not legitimate, fraudulent, con, game, and so on to describe a “scam”. Using the same sources to define “red flags”, the two dictionaries describe a red flag as a feeling of dishonesty, irregularity, unsafe, aroused suspicions, warning signs, and more.

Have all of these reviews and comments been about red flags? Is Opinion City a scam, as everyone is saying?

Click here to discover our pick of the survey sites that pay cash instantly or continue scrolling to read our Opinion City review.

Opinion City Review

Opinion City is free to sign up to worldwide, with limited region-specific GPT portals available. Once you have entered your name and email on the Opinion City website, you agree to subscribe to the Opinion City newsletter and a verification email is sent out to the email you used when you subscribed. Almost as soon as you’ve verified your profile, you start receiving emails from survey partners and other third-parties. If you’re new to work-from-home GPT opportunities this may alarm you at first, but for most seasoned online survey takers, this is pretty standard – no matter who you sign up with.

While past reviews and comments make it clear that there are many red flags associated with Opinion City, we decided to focus on those that have a direct bearing on your earning potential. Discussing Opinion City owners, terms and conditions, the privacy policy, or false indications of limited spots available on some survey sites seems like overkill when everyone else is discussing it.

Also, the “Alyssa” stock photo discussion is kind of pointless when any one of us use someone else’s pics on our own social media accounts almost daily. A gravatar is a gravatar. It would be nice if some random woman decided to become the face of a huge member-only website, but no. Random stock photo, pretty standard procedure. Yeah, you begin to see how pointless the “Alyssa” discussion is.

Red flag #1 – No way to earn cash or rewards

The best way I can describe Opinion City is by telling you that it’s a central location for links. That’s all I took away from Opinion City. Are these all referral and affiliate links? We’re not sure, but there is simply no way for you to make money online or earn rewards directly with Opinion City unless you sign up with another website in their listings and get paid there for taking online surveys, completing offerwalls, watching videos, playing games, entering competitions or sweepstakes, etc.

And because Opinion City has no way for you to make money or rewards from your sign-up except by signing up to other survey sites, there simply is no reason to sign up to one of their linked sites if you can go and sign up directly with that same site. Why should you sponsor someone else’s referral or affiliate links to reward them instead of you?

Red flag #2 – Dishonest claims about earning potential

If the words can, could, might, potential to, stand a chance, between, or up to appear anywhere in the fine print of any advertised product or service anywhere on the net, you can bet your bottom dollar that’s the ceiling to your earning potential. What that doesn’t tell you is how long it’s going to take you to get there, or how many small-sum surveys you have to complete to start earning better bucks on this GPT track you’ve chosen.

It seems strange that people don’t already know this, but as more and more people try their hand at making money online from home during these pandemic times, and more and more people are venturing out of their tech-shells to explore their digital options, the more authentic and integrity-driven some of these online survey and GPT sites will have to become – or risk losing members to other, more transparent survey sites.

Either way, as Opinion City is merely a bank of linked survey and GPT sites that have no value to you until you click and join individually, it’s up to us to check what our earning potentials are on any given site or link we choose to follow. How we interpret that data is a wholly personal thing, and it’s big business. This is the true nature of market research – to figure out how our potential customers will think and buy (or buy into), as determined by a baseline model of what statistics say that buying profile should look like.

Red flag #3 – Inconsistent reviews

When a whole bunch of members is all talking about shoddy customer service, banned accounts, or non-payment of rewards or cash earned for taking online surveys, you realize that your issue is not an isolated incident. Negative reviews change rating scores but only at reputable rating agencies and sites. In all other instances, it’s best to be overly aware of the possibility of slewed rating figures.

Reviews go a long way to establishing credible and in most cases, reliable, sites. When all other reviews for a particular site are at less than five stars, it kind of makes you wonder how Opinion City could grant a five-star rating to those same survey sites. Always do your homework.

Red flag #4 – Social media

This was one that made us pay attention: Facebook refuses to publish a link that contains any reference to opinioncity.com, stating that the link “goes against [our] Community Standards.” Not that Facebook is the go-to authority on above-the-board business practices, but it still makes you wonder. Other reviews mention that Opinion City links are blocked on Facebook because Facebook members have reported abusive behaviour.

There are, however, other Opinion City links and references to the site all across Facebook. It’s just their direct website address that is blocked.

In conclusion

If you consider the traditional sense of the word scam (as discussed at the beginning of our Opinion City review), then no. Opinion City is not a scam.

If you consider that Opinion City is merely a bank of site listings and can directly offer you no return on time invested there, then yes. Opinion City is a scam, but not in the traditional sense of the word.

However, I’m left with a general feeling of being duped into thinking this is another GPT site that will reward me for my time, and that I should have been paying closer attention to all the warning signs.

Our verdict? Not a scam, but steer clear.

Sources used:

• https://www.urbandictionary.com/
• https://www.merriam-webster.com/
• https://www.opinioncity.com