gozing.com

~ Updated as at February 2006 ~

*** Like Ciao, GoZing are now part of the huge US market research conglomerate Greenfield Online. From February 2006 GoZing ceased to operate as a separate entity, as it amalgamated with CiaoSurveys.com. GoZing and Ciao now work together, but the Ciao website www.ciao-surveys.com will be the new home website for all surveys. The review below relates to my opinion on GoZing surveys before all their operations ...
...GoZing offer paid online survey work and if you want to join, then their website address is www.goZingSurveys.com. It's quite a user friendly site - well laid out and informative, and it does tell you everything you need to know about joining up with them. First you need to go to the "How it Works" section and have a read through - if you're convinced this earner is for you, then go to the "Sign Up" section. There is also a Help ... more

~ Updated as at February 2006 ~

*** Like Ciao, GoZing are now part of the huge US market research conglomerate Greenfield Online. From February 2006 GoZing ceased to operate as a separate entity, as it amalgamated with CiaoSurveys.com. GoZing and Ciao now work together, but the Ciao website www.ciao-surveys.com will be the new home website for all surveys. The review below relates to my opinion on GoZing surveys before all their operations were taken over by Ciao Surveys ***

GoZing offer paid online survey work and if you want to join, then their website address is www.goZingSurveys.com. It's quite a user friendly site - well laid out and informative, and it does tell you everything you need to know about joining up with them. First you need to go to the "How it Works" section and have a read through - if you're convinced this earner is for you, then go to the "Sign Up" section. There is also a Help Centre with a good FAQ & Rules section.

~ REGISTRATION & REWARDS ~
The registration process is simple - you click on your home country and fill in the relevant short registration form. You choose a user name and a password and away you go.

Rewards for taking the surveys are paid by either Buy.com gift certificates or through Paypal. As a UK resident you cannot choose the Buy.com certificate option, so you will need a Paypal account or you cannot get paid. The good news is that you don't need to reach a minimum earnings level before they pay you. However, the bad news is that even though you are supposed to get paid 8 weeks after each and every survey you take, in reality it can take anything between 10 to 14 weeks to get your money. You do, however, get an email from GoZing/Paypal when the dollars get paid into your PayPal account.

~ WEBSITE ~
Once registered you can log into the GoZing Members Lounge, which will let you know if there are any surveys available to you. I wouldn't worry too much about this section, as it inevitably says, "there are currently no surveys available for you to take" - most, if not all, surveys invites come by email. On the left hand side of the page, the Member's area is laid out as:

~ Your Profiles ~ This section invites you to complete some more sections on yourself so that GoZing can offer you more work. This is quite laborious with different questions to answer in 9 separate sections (basic profile, health & ailments, vehicles, credit cards, employment, technology, telecommunications, travel and video games). A lot of the questions are geared towards US residents and are simply unnecessary and non-applicable to UK residents.

~ Payout Report ~ The best bit as it shows history of surveys taken, amount earned and approximate payment dates

~ Sweepstakes ~ Monthly list of winners of prize fund

~ Referrals ~ Any successful referral made and you're entered into a prize draw to win a Tivo (NB: unlikely to be unusable in UK….)

~ Rules ~ No spam and strict privacy policies

~ Edit Account ~ Update your registration details

~ Edit Reward ~ Buy.com gift vouchers (not an option for Brits) or Paypal.com

~ SURVEYS ~
Survey invites come by email. This will let you know there is a survey available to you by clicking on the link shown in the email. The emails do not tell you anything much about the survey ahead - just how much you will earn (between $2 to $25) and how long it will take (from 5 to 25 minutes). One word of warning about the payments on offer - the email will tell you the amount you will be paid in £ Sterling, and this does not always convert to the same amount in US Dollars. I have had two surveys offering £1 in payment which has resulted in payments of $4 and $2 - so no rhyme or reason there - the dollar has not fluctuated that much! The surveys are professionally laid out and easy to do. Payment is quantified by the length of time survey will take and complexity of any downloading required. The surveys fall into two main formats:

(1) Film Surveys
GoZing will pass you through to their host - Online Testing Exchange (or OTX for short). The usual survey format is to ask you how often you go to the cinema and to list all the films you are aware of on current general release (so it's handy to have the local paper to hand). The survey will then go on to ask about your levels of awareness about specific films and actors. The surveys are easy and fun to do.

Occasionally you will be asked to download a film trailer to watch and they will then ask your opinion on it. In order to download the trailer, you will need Windows Media Player 6.4 or higher (but if you haven't got this, there is a free download link in the FAQ section at GoZing). These are slightly trickier, as downloads can take an age, and you can run into technical problems. It's no good pretending that you have watched the trailer, as they do not tell you which film it is beforehand. After you have downloaded and watched the clip, their first question will ask you to name the film you have just seen a trailer for. If you lie and guess the wrong film you won't get paid! These surveys are great because you get to see previews of upcoming new releases before they hit the cinema. You will also get a fair few surveys on soon to be released DVD's and asked for your opinion on the DVD trailer and packaging.

(2) Standard Product Surveys
GoZing also offer standard product surveys, but these are less frequent than the film ones in my experience. However, they do seem to be on the increase, as I have recently completed surveys on pet food, driving, indigestion remedies, corporate image, printer paper, cars and web based conferencing.

~ MY EXPERIENCE ~
Since I joined (October 2003), I have received over 100 survey invite emails and earned around $90.00. However, I have only qualified for a fraction of the surveys invites I've received, either because the surveys were already full, or I haven't matched the right demographic, or, most likely, because the email link hasn't worked. There is an inevitably to GoZing surveys that you won't be the correct demographic profile or the link won't work I'm afraid.

Standard GoZing surveys start off with the first question asking you for your sex and age. This will often result in you being immediately screened out and returned to the GoZing web page for entry into their monthly prize draw instead. This could be because they have enough respondents from your demographic section, so you do not quality for the survey (i.e. they only had 200 places for females of 25-30 and you were the 205th respondent). If you do make it through the age and sex hurdle, the second page will ask you what country you live in - and guess what? Living in the UK sometimes means you don't qualify either. So again, you'll get bounced back to the GoZing web page for the inevitable prize draw entry. That said, you do occasionally you do make it through to the full survey.

Upon completing a GoZing survey, it *should* show up in the Payout Report on your account, but this can take up to a week to happen. The Payout Report will show the amount and date of payment (usually 8 weeks away…but can take as long as 14 weeks). When GoZing do get around to paying you, you will receive an email from PayPal saying "You've got cash", detailing the GoZing payment.

~ CUSTOMER SERVICE ~
GoZing customer service is absolutely appallling and almost non-existent. You will often get a standard reply to an email and no real answer to your individual query. Any email enquiries I have sent detailing technical problems with their surveys have been ignored. I guess they have such a high turnover of surveys and respondents, they are not interested in whinging from someone who cannot get the link to work, as there are plenty of others who have already replied and qualified. Emails sent chasing up overdue payments have never yet been answered. The worst problem by far is when you do complete a survey and they never pay you for it. That has happened to me three times recently. Emails asking why the completed survey is not showing up on my payout report always remain unanswered.

~ RECOMMENDATION ~
On the plus side, GoZing do offer a fair amount of survey work, and if you are fortunate enough to qualify for the full survey, they are reasonably well-paid and fun to do. You'll never make a fortune but you'll get enough paid into your Paypal account to buy yourself some nice CDs on EBay every now and then.

On the downside, they are a very frustrating survey site. You can expect no end of technical problems with GoZing surveys. You will find yourself screened out of their surveys more often than you qualify. It also takes an age to extract payment from GoZing for any survey work completed. But the worst part of all is that GoZing don't give a stuff about their panel members. If you encounter any problems at all, then there is no one there to help or answer your query.

I cannot really recommend them because they are just not professionally run, and there is a high chance that there will be more pitfalls than successes with your membership, through no fault of your own.

~ CONTACT DETAILS ~
GoZing Surveys
21143 Hawthorne Blvd #4158
Torrance
California 90503
USA

Email: help@gozing.com
Website: www.GoZing.com 

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