Toluna.com Reviews – Legit or Scam?
We’re all familiar with the concept of taking online surveys in order to make money. Toluna.com is a market research company offering you the chance to do exactly that, with a couple of twists.
First, Toluna.com does not give you direct payouts for every survey you complete like other companies. Instead, they work on a point system. You are given 500 points simply for signing up and at least 1,000 points for every survey you complete. Once you reach 60,000 points, you can redeem these points for cash payouts.
Secondly, they also reward you with being a part of their social network, where you can create polls and opinion forums. The more people respond to your polls, the more points you receive.
Finally, in addition to survey completion, Toluna.com also enters you into a drawing each month for the chance to win up to $2,500 just for being a member. If you choose to, you can exchange 500 of your earned points for an extra entry into the monthly drawing.
So is Toluna.com a Scam?
The rule for determining if a survey company is a scam is whether or not you are charged for participating in surveys. Toluna.com doesn’t charge their members for anything. Your membership and participation are completely free.
Also, Toluna doesn’t make any outright earnings promises. They don’t claim you can quit your day job, they just say you can make extra money.
But there are a couple things to keep in mind for being successful making money for taking surveys online. First, make sure to sign up for multiple companies. Surveys will only be given to you if you fit a very specific demographic. Each survey company may only get a couple of surveys each month for your particular demographic. If you sign up for multiple free survey sites you will be far more likely to get the number of surveys needed to actually make a couple extra hundred dollars a month.
Second, you need to do the research to see exactly how that survey company handles payouts. With Toluna.com, you need to earn points before you can get your payout. With other companies, you need to complete a certain number of surveys before you can be paid out, and with still other companies you need to reach a specific dollar amount before you can be paid out. This is information you should have before you begin spending you can make money taking surveys.
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April 23rd, 2012 at 10:49 am
Spent 8 months taking surveys, asked for vouchers which i received but didn’t work. 4 months down the line toluna are still making excuses, they won’t refund my vouchers, they say they’ll exchange the vouchers but they don’t, and then they stop replying to emails. Absolute bunch of time wasters who should be reported – I can’t even do this as I’m based in the UK and they’re in France so the OFT won’t do anything!
April 17th, 2012 at 8:53 pm
Definitely a scam. After two months my pitiful voucher/rewards that took loads of work to get were never processed or received. Most of the surveys have you go through loads of questions allegedly to pre-screen you, but they are obviously a survey unto themselves. So they always get lots of answers, but conveniently disqualify you.
I also noticed the amount of spam I received in the email account associated with the account went up dramatically.
Now instead of real real rewards, you will get pretend awards (cute icons)that you get the privilege of giving to the other suckers on the site.
April 5th, 2012 at 3:26 pm
This pitiful crap company is a front for a consumer research company. Mostly they give you offers for earning “points” and they flood your inbox with junk and also sell you address, I know because I had one email account for them which never received any spam email until these crooked schemers (GET A JOB) started emailing me. AND to top it off, I have unsubscribed TEN times already and STILL they send me the same stupid junk survey offers. Will be reporting them to BBB.
March 17th, 2012 at 2:35 pm
i was given an offer to Toluna to get ‘cash’ for a Facebook game. Being the cautious person that i am, i googled toluna and almost immediately saw ‘scams’ so i checked out this site. I wanna thank all of you who posted your complaints. You kept me from making a time consuming frustrating mistake. Its obvious it was more nays than yays so i’m going with the majority. We must continue to voice our concern as consumers and look out for each other because there is a lot of games being played online and people being played. Thanks again for the ‘heads up!’
February 29th, 2012 at 7:48 am
No.1 fake and scam site,i experienced
February 21st, 2012 at 2:50 pm
I was a member of Toluna for a year when I started to be harassed by another member who accused me of being a member of a “gay agenda”. I reported this member to Toluna moderators. They told me to offer him a goodwill gesture. He continued to harass me, and the next day my account along with this other member’s was deleted. So as a result of being harassed they not only deleted my account but are refusing to pay me $20 they owe me.
If you look at their boards, there are always complaints from members asking where their missing points are, why they haven’t received their voucher long after the minimum waiting period (which is 6 weeks, even for paypal payments).
February 7th, 2012 at 7:35 pm
It’s legit but not member friendly. Any payment worth receiving requires you to save up tons of points. The problem is that they’ll expire your points to keep you from getting money. It pretty much leaves you with sweepstakes entries. Those entries are like getting nothing in return.
February 7th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
I have received one (Amazon)voucher already, which took close to eight weeks to be delivered electronically. I have also done a free product trial by mail. Overall, I think it is a legit site and that it is paying, but the administration is so poor and time lagged that it makes the experience very unpleasant for the user.
I am finding that it is taking over a month for survey points to be credited to my account. Like other reviewers, I have taken multiple surveys only to be dropped 5 to 10 minutes in. I have contacted Toluna about this, but they simply sent me an automated response. The site redirects you to other marketing companies websites/surveys, which sometimes ask you to perform downloads/ executables which put your computer at risk for viruses.
After receiving the next voucher (couple of hundred points away) I think I will call it a day with this particular site.
January 26th, 2012 at 9:17 pm
though i havent recieved any money yet, but i am sure the site is reasonable and will pay me. This is my opinion in the light of experience with other sites how they operate. their surveys are interesting. And I have no problems enjoying myself in the free time.
January 21st, 2012 at 10:23 am
Come on people give me what I’ve earned!
November 26th, 2011 at 7:24 am
it s scam site dont register please end waste your time with tis group of thieves, i wasted 6 months of my time and survey with them in other to get nothing at the end, even with hundreds of surveys completed correctly
October 13th, 2011 at 7:40 pm
Toluna is a very vindictive group of people huddled around a small table plotting how to get something for nothing, They totally robbed be of a piece of my life, after months of 30 cent surveys, I finally managed to piece together enough points for a 20 check after which they told I supposedly entered incorrect data, cancelled me on the spot, dropped me dead cold, thats messed up, won’t return my email, Like I said they are a very vindictive group of people who plot like witches. I urge you to skip them and give them the bird, or lose a piece of your life to these witches and warlocks.
October 12th, 2011 at 11:23 pm
Stay away from this site ! THIS IS A SCAM !! Toluna really sucks. It will take forever to qualify for surveys and when you think you got one you will be disqualified closer to the end of the survey. Not to mention that you will get something like 50 cents for a so called 20 minutes survey which actually takes you 30 minutes or more to be completed !
Boycot this company guys. Refuse their crappy surveys ! Stay Away !
anu says:
February 10th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
truth
October 8th, 2011 at 6:12 am
Please people do not waste your time with it! It’s a clever SCAM. Yes, i agree sometimes they pay out, to look like its not a complete SCAM and they would have some proof that they paid out, but i experienced the same thing as Dee, i complete surveys and after 15 mins, sometimes near the end, they say im not qualified. What?! Keep AWAY for all costs!!!
August 22nd, 2011 at 3:31 am
You mentioned that Toluna does not require money. However, they require a substantial amount of time, mainly wasted as you will screen out of more surveys than you actually participate in. In order to receive a £15 voucher, you have to spend between 30 and 40 hours trying to find surveys (that makes a pay of £0.37 to £0.50 per hour) or create your own topics and polls (which they can remove at their own will, and without notification).
It takes between 2 to 3 months to receive vouchers, in addition to having to wait up to 6 weeks for you points to be registered following the completion of a survey. This means that whenever you complete a survey, you have to wait a minimum of 3 months before you get ‘paid’. They also have issues with common Freedom of Speech regulations. You are not allowed to criticize Toluna, or you will be silenced by either having your comments removed, or being suspended.
Coming back to your main issue: Is Toluna a scam. Yes, so absolutely. Like other scam companies, they do not have any transparency (do they actually have monthly prize draws?) in their dealings with their members, their customer service is close to non-existent, and they openly cheat in certain circumstances where they let people do surveys for up to half an hour before they tell them that they are not suitable (the surveys, however, are probably used in their marketing purposes). Their ‘pay’ is below the minimum wage of most 3rd world countries, and paid out at a time range that is regarded as unacceptable in the business world. Respectable companies do not operate like this.
August 21st, 2011 at 6:31 am
Initially I thought this site seemed good compared to other similar sites out there. On their website it says it takes up to 8 weeks to receive vouchers….in my case that couldn’t have been more wrong! I have now been waiting 15 weeks for one voucher and another for 10 weeks.
July 21st, 2011 at 11:50 pm
Toluna really sucks! I just did a survey with them, thinking I was going to get points with them. After about 15 minutes, I didn’t qualify! So, they offered me another survey, and again, the same thing happened. Toluna is very discriminatory as far as your location and your race. The second time they asked me for my race, it wasn’t even on there and I had to pick only one answer! For pete’s sake, I’m biracial, and with them doing that made me feel like I shouldn’t even been taking any of their surveys. As far as I’m concerned, Toluna and companies like them are a waste of time and they should be outlawed! Shame on you Toluna for raising people’s hopes up and then smashing them!
July 11th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
I ‘m with Toluna for 8 month, they aren’t willing to pay me, each time I try to cash out they rejected, rejected, and rejected, and never and ever reply to my email, very terrible. I’m still waiting for my check. if they don’t reply to my email, how do I know why they keep rejecting my payment??? I have contacted them 5 times, there are 5 open mails requested in my account waiting for answers, please any one from Toluna read this mail, please read my e mails ,please…
Eileen says:
February 3rd, 2012 at 3:17 am
I have the same problem as Philip starting December 2011.
My last two redemption requests were rejected due to “multiple accounts”, which is a ridiculous excuse since I only have one account with Toluna using the same email address as my Paypal account.
The Toluna support staff who replied to my email — Daisy Windsor — informed me that Toluna is having problems with Paypal.
But, if they don’t resolve their problems soon, I will be making a police report against Toluna.
I think the Commercial Affairs Division of the Singapore Police Force or Interpol’s fraud division should be able to do something about this.
philip says:
January 20th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
I have the exact problem like yours. hope they didn’t owe you too much money.
they “rejected-multiple account” when you tried to redeemed your points to paypal, same as I tried 3 times in different months. I filed a request to paypal to review my account standing, paypal said the merchant has account problem, they need to review their account after they file a request to them. I filed a ticket to toluna, updated with paypal’s reply, 2 weeks with no reply.
just unsubscribe today, decide to stay away from this company, this company does not operate their business on good faith.
people if want to give others heads up, don’t forget about youtube too, I don’t see many comment about this on toluna youtube videos.
June 11th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
the fact u need to earn points doesn’t bug me. got my gift card, yes had to wait a month but i got it in the end so not complaining.
April 19th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Toluna survey site is awesome I received my $20 check
November 25th, 2010 at 7:28 am
This is the point I was trying to get across in the article I wrote. Toluna is the exception to that rule your mum always told you about something being too good to be true it usually is. Toluna really is that good. I couldn’t be happier with all the free stuff!