Swagbucks.com Reviews – Legit or a Scam?
According to their website, SwagBucks.com is a “loyalty program” where you can earn prizes for doing the same stuff you do online everyday.
Shopping, watching videos, searching for products, playing games; all of these things and more can earn you prizes with the Swagbucks system.
How Does Swagbucks Work?
It may be confusing to understand why a company would pay you to just do “anything” online. But companies understand that the average American actually spends quite a lot of time on the internet, and that what people do online says a lot about their interests, habits, likes and dislikes.
If companies know what kinds of games people play or what kinds of products and advertisements catch their attention, it goes a very long way towards helping companies understand how to better reach their target market. Companies all over are discussing the benefits of understanding exactly how and why we do the things we do online.
So, Swagbucks will give you prizes in exchange for “doing what you already do online” because they are taking that information and providing it to others, who will use it to change and influence the way they do business online in the future.
What Is a “Swagbuck”?
Swagbucks, unlike other pay to search sites, does not compensate their members with money. Instead, they give them various amounts of points, called Swagbucks, for the tasks and activities they do online. At any point in time after you have begun collecting these Swagbucks, you can go to the Swag Store and exchange them for items.
One of the issues with Swagbucks is that they do not maintain a set rate of pay for activities. The pay changes as certain demands for information changes. However, keep in mind that you are still simply getting paid for activities you would be doing regardless, so though it may be frustrating, it’s still not a bad deal.
You also have the option of turning your Swagbucks into cash, but customers report that you get less bang for your Swagbuck when you make this choice. It takes more Swagbucks to get cash paid directly into a PayPal account then it does to simply redeem them for a gift card of the exact same value. This goes back to Swagbucks’ partnership with various companies, but luckily for their members these partners tend to be large vendors like Amazon.com and Wal-Mart, places where you are likely to spend your money anyway.
Tips for Earning with Swagbucks
- Take advantage of the referral system. When you refer someone, Swagbucks will reward you with matched earnings up to 1,000 points. The more people you refer, the easier and faster you’ll rack up Swagbucks.
- When you use the Swagbucks search, be normal. Swagbucks is recording your searches, and if you are continuously entering gibberish like “aldkjfa;ldkj” and hitting the search button, you won’t be a member for long.
- Take advantage of the Swagbucks “extras.” Once a day, they’ll have special offers for you to look at that will take a couple seconds. Or submit poll ideas. If yours is chosen, you earn more.
- Use their toolbar, and better yet, use Swagbucks. For everything. The whole point of the system is that they want to know what you are doing online. The more you use it, the more they benefit, and the more you will earn.
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May 15th, 2012 at 1:03 am
What other websites are you talking about?
April 23rd, 2012 at 11:08 pm
I have just received my $5 in PayPal cash for redeemed the 700 points. It is not much of the $5, but I can prove that Swag Bucks is legit.
Jut says:
May 13th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
So, some of the people are misunderstood. This website is for people who surf the web mainly and like to partake in social polls and maybe take an offer/coupon that you redeem.
It took me a 2 weeks and a half to accumulate enough points for an amazon 5$ gift card. Now let me say I have been on the site for a total of maybe 2 hours during those 2.5 weeks.
Ways to get points fast: Referrals . . Referrals allow the new person to accumulate points and will help the referrer to get equivalent points up to 100 i think. Just do the polls, NOSO, and surf (there are 3 times you can surf in a day where you can get ~30-40 swagbucks.
As for the person who got banned, you tried to cheat the system. They dont allow similar home e-mail addresses and same computer boosting.
In all, this site is for people who can spend 2-3 minutes per day on this site to get about 200$ in gift cards and items in a year.
April 5th, 2012 at 9:27 pm
SwagBucks is legit but I’d say it’s a rip-off and very unfair. They only reward you 50 swag bucks for a 25 minutes survey which survey sites reward you $3.00 for your time. So how is that fair? A 50 swag bucks is equivalent to only $0.50 which means Swagbucks pocketed $2.50 very unfair.
It takes too long to accumulate points watching videos also…. you only get 3 points(equivalent to .03 cents) for watching 10 videos(plus ads, there’s an ad in every video), whereas in real survey sites you get rewarded .10 cents to watch a video and .10 cents to just visit a webpage, so there it is again Swagbucks pocketed .97 cents each time they reward you .03 cents.
Swagbucks is just plain RIP-OFF, so STAY AWAY from it !!!
April 5th, 2012 at 3:00 pm
This is the ONLY site I have found that only took me a few days until I earned enough points for something good. In a months time I have made 20,000 points or so I spend my entire day on the internet so others may not be close to what I have but I have received $95 in gift cards already like applied to my account and no one can touch it or take it back! I am also waiting on another $50 card and 5 $5 cards too it is well worth the time even if you only spend a few hours a week it all adds up. Plus some are as easy as watching a 20 second video or playing a game or answering a few questions there are so many ways to earn too! Give it a try if you haven’t you can even sign up under me referrals don’t make sign up bonuses but swagbucks will match the search wins any referrals get so thats pretty nice too
Taha says:
April 21st, 2012 at 11:43 am
Hey I just want to ask you… how did you managed to earn 20,000 points in a month ?? O_O I can barely earn 1000 to 2000 per month, good advice would be much appreciated :) Have a good day
April 4th, 2012 at 6:12 pm
I used the site for about a month, slowly accumulating “swagbucks.” When I finally tried to redeem a gift-card, they deactivated my account for no reason. They got their customer research, and I got screwed. So they were happy. Scam.
April 3rd, 2012 at 7:22 am
Swagbucks has many benefits and flaws. First the surveys are third parties that are paying for advertising but Swagbucks should really filter these better. So many of the survey sites don’t give the points are process correctly so you never get your swagbucks for doing the job. Second it takes a long time to actually earn enough swagbucks for money.
You can find many tips and tricks within swagbucks to earn quicker.
March 27th, 2012 at 5:42 am
I have been a member for about 25 days now and I have already received (actually applied to account and everything) $20 in amazon cards already. I am waiting for another $65 to arrive in my account and have enough points for at least another $25 gift card. Basically it is really easy to earn points the pay out is pretty good for most tasks. The points are about $1 = 1 point equivalence for gift cards maybe a little more or a little less depending on what gift card you want.You CAN make actual money with this by doing the paypal gift cards and transferring the balance to your bank account so to me it is worth it I have earned about 13400 points in the little amount of time I have been a member.
chronos says:
May 10th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
lies! if not elaborate your ingenious system of accumulating points
March 23rd, 2012 at 8:18 am
Swagbucks is legit, you can earn prizes. But if you work too hard for them (earn too many gifts), they’ll definately deactivate your account for obscure reasons. A good site only if you don’t plan to gain more than a few bucks per month.
March 11th, 2012 at 1:41 am
Oh.. and in addition.. beware because 90% of your email invites will be “you can earn xxx Swagbucks if you buy xxx”. Not sure about others, but I actually was thinking of EARNING money on the survey site, not SPENDING.
So to me it isn’t a survey site, it’s a sales site with a few interesting features.
March 11th, 2012 at 1:35 am
I’ve tried 5 different survey sites and this by far is the worst I’ve seen. Like some other reviewers, I’ve experienced the 10 minutes of answering just to be “disqualified”…. and this is AFTER I’ve filled out pages and pages of “profile surveys” that allegedly make you get more surveys you are qualified for. I have also experienced major issues with the tasks as well.. spending 15-20 minutes on a couple of them only for it not to give me credit. In addition, if you send a question about these issues, they don’t read past the first 2 sentences– so whatever else you’ve asked will be ignored. (but they so far have resolved the first 2 sentences). Overall, this is a huge waste of time and the only reason I haven’t canceled is because I do somewhat enjoy some of their mindless games.
March 5th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
This website is definitely legit. you have to have TON of patience to be doing the search and the surveys if you’re a person that wants things fast your definitely going to give a bad review. but i have been on their site for 2 years and made over $250 dollars off of amazon gift cards.
February 23rd, 2012 at 3:23 pm
You won’t get rich from Swagbucks, but, for minimum effort you will get *some* reward.
I generally get a new CD about once a month for my troubles – but, BE CAREFUL. There is a whole lot going on under the surface that you need to be wary of…I will list some of the dangers here…
1. Whenever you go on the Swagbucks site, make sure you are using FIREFOX – and make sure that you have the Firefox add-on ‘Noscript’ installed (Google ‘Mozilla Noscript’ and it should be the first result). (I really WISH someone would write an equivalent for Chrome, which tbh, I prefer).
The reason for this is that there are LOADS of third party sites running silently in th background. With Noscript, no site will run anything (avoiding anything nasty) unless you let it. You can allow or forbid any domain with a simple click. To be honest, this is an increasing problem on much of the internet, but, Swagbucks is much worse than any other site I’ve ever been on. There may be parts of the site that won’t function….but, you can still get points from a number of things on the site and your computer has that extra little bit of safety.
2. Do NOT under any circumstances download ANYTHING from the site. The Swagbucks toolbar is, apparently, almost impossible to remove, and there are plenty of ‘make my computer go faster’ type offers on the site. If you download anything, you risk spyware, malware, viruses etc.
3. Before you take up ANY offers, have a look round the net to see if they are really as good as they seem. For instance, there is an offer from VistaPrint, a company that I use anyway for 250 color business cards for a fiver plus postage. Sounds good, eh? Except that if you go straight to their site, you can get the same for £2.50 plus postage.
Some of the so-called offers are simply scams.
I’m sure there are some decent offers in there…but, as already said, look round the net first to see if the offer really is as good as it seems.
4. Paid Surveys : It’s up to you. Several on here have said they want loads of your details. That’s true. Nothing to do with Swagbucks, these are the details all survey companies ask for, more than anything, for classification purposes. You will get screened out of a LOT of surveys and earn nothing for your time. Again, this is normal for survey companies. Most surveys are simply market research, so, if it’s a survey about, say, yoghurt, they’ll only want people who eat yoghurt regularly. Of course, they won’t tell you that, you’ll get a list of say ‘crisps, rice cakes, fizzy drinks, yoghurt, teacakes’ and be asked which you buy regularly. If you don’t tick yoghurt, it’s bye-bye and you will get nothing.
4. Purchases : I’ve never made one on Swagbucks, so, it may well be perfectly legit….but, remember that you’re going through at least one other website to get to where you are putting your card details into. Even if Swagbucks are 100% honest (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), this is a potential minefield for hackers.
As I say, I get a new CD a month for little effort. You can too, but, be aware of the pitfalls. If you’re not web-savvy or tech-savvy, it’s probably not for you, but, if you have read what I have said and are confident that you can avoid the pitfalls, then a few minutes every day can bring you small rewards…
January 18th, 2012 at 5:39 pm
has been using this site for couple of months, and so far managed to get total of $45 amazon gift cards, you will have to spend some time on this site to collect enough points, try it if you would like :)
January 9th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
This site is for the web savvy only!!! Swagbucks WILL get you Amazon and Paypal cash, but a few words of warning: 1.)Don’t download anything! 2.)You must be very savvy about web scams if you want to earn anything from the “Special Offers” section. That section has some good and easy points, but a LOT of scams as well(that section is run by various different companies). 3.)Set up a separate e-mail account if you want to sign up for things to get points(a few of the sign-ups are good,but 90% are spam mail). 4.)I don’t bother with the surveys, because Swagbucks takes about half the commission earned from the original survey site and many of it’s surveys suspiciously kick you out after answering a lot of questions.
All in all, you won’t get money fast, but it earns me enough for beer and electronics that I couldn’t normally afford.
January 2nd, 2012 at 5:56 pm
Swagbucks is a legit site if your willing to take some time to do some of the things on the site, you will earn swagbucks, the more swagbucks you have the betters things you can get from giftcards to tv’s.
December 31st, 2011 at 10:38 pm
I just signed up and the site doesn’t work. I completed two tasks that involved answering questions about Websites, and both times I was prevented from finishing because Swagbucks kept telling me I had not opened the other Websites–even though I had. I will not be using the site again.
December 22nd, 2011 at 5:17 pm
I created my account today and went to work at earning some swag bucks and was very disappointed. I decided to try the surveys and, even though I took my time to answer the questions properly and thoroughly, it kicked me out or “disqualified” me out of every single one I tried. Then I decided to try the tasks. It was the same thing. The instructions clearly stated to select what I would believe to be the best result for researching the topic I needed to search and NOT to click on any link. I was to just copy and paste the green link below the title of the result I chose. On my first submission it said I got one of the questions “incorrect” because the green link was abbreviated since it was too long. The second time I submitted my answers once again it said I got a questions incorrect even though the link was legit. This website is nothing but a waste of time.
November 23rd, 2011 at 5:52 pm
This site is good as long as only one person of the house hold is a member. if you have other members in the family, then they will deactivate all accounts when you redeem your points for any gift. again keep in mind they won’t deactivate as long as you are just using the site. so it’s a waste of time.
November 5th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
this website is legit and i love swagbucks
September 12th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
I have been with Swag Bucks for a while and they have yet to disappoint me. It is not a scam in any way, If anything had to be a scam, it would be the people providing the offers. If Swag Bucks can’t get a confirmation for what you have completed, then you won’t get the points. But the fault doesn’t go to Swag Bucks.
With a little bit of time each day, it becomes very easy to rack up some serious bucks. I have done this and I have redeemed some pretty awesome stuff. And shipping is completely free. I love Swag Bucks and so have thousands of others. I hope you found this information helpful!
September 1st, 2011 at 7:21 am
So here is my take on Swagbucks. It sounds harmless enough if big companies like Amazon and WalMart are pledging dollars to it. I think its more about learning web users traits online then anything else. Its about creating better target marketing. So they pay a few people to do what they would do anyway,right? But to me it skews any results because users will typically do something not ordinary if they will get paid for it. Would you not watch more video’s and go to different web sites if you received credit for it? As I said Swagbucks obviously tracks you and they have to track you specifically otherwise you could not get paid. So the question in my mind is if you don’t mind Swagbucks tracking your web surfing then I would say its perfect for you. If you would rather not have someone doing so. Then maybe the payback is not enough.
August 28th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Pretty good. I earn ten dollars in amazon gift cards a month usually. It’s not bad.
August 21st, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Swagbucks is a website that really works. Swagbucks can help even a kid earn prizes and cash if you just search with it daily and vote in their polls. Usually, it takes about 5-10 minutes per day to have an Amazon gift card in no time. It’s at least worth a try.