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When I discovered Ciao, I was enchanted with it and looked forward to receiving the fun paid surveys and collecting my pocket money thus earned after a few months. The questionnaires were well formatted, light and easy and it was interesting to be asked my opinion.

Recently, however, the surveys have changed, in a climate that sees survey sites becoming more hard nosed and asking its consumers to work far harder and answer ever longer questionnaires, while getting rid of market research call centres.

I am not one to refuse money, but recently I dropped 3 Ciao surveys three quarters of the way through because they were so long and mind numbinbgly boring.

One of them had immense rows of questions in which you had to tick answers for a lengthy list of brands. The person who formatted the survey hadn't even bothered to do it properly so that I had to keep scrolling up to see what I was actually ticking. I just got really annoyed and closed the window. It was a bit insulting also to be expected to go to all this hard work for about £1.80. I live in London, my time is limited and very precious and £1.80 won't even pay for a tube fare!

Another bad thing is the sheer length of this new family of surveys. They all range from 30 minutes to 45 minutes, far more than the cheerful 15 to 20 I was used to. this means that we are expected to toil for the equivalent of about £3.00 an hour, and that's for the highest paid surveys. It's absolutely ridiculous. I am refusing to do any more of these, it's far easier to get a weekend job if I really need extra money!