As I mentioned, there are a couple of ways that you can make money with the Panda program, but this article is going to focus on the survey taking portion of the site. After you’ve created your account, they will start sending you any survey opportunity that you qualify for. With some members, you could have a survey as soon as you sign up, but other members could wait a day or more to get their first invitation.
One of the areas that Panda shines it the high payout from some of the surveys. Some of their high-end opportunities say that they pay around $40 for completion. This is well higher than the other survey sites on the Internet. Obviously, these higher payouts come with a longer survey that can take you an hour or more to finish, and those opportunities are scarce. The rest of the surveys that you get are going to be around a couple of bucks ($1.50 – $3) for finishing them. The problem is that the majority of surveys come with a catch. You’ll only get paid if you complete the survey, which typically has an offer at the end and you need to participate in the offer to get your money from the survey. Not all of the surveys are like this, but from the member reviews, a vast majority of them are.
When you’re ready to get your money from Panda Research, online payday loans Georgia they will remind you that they pay their “employees” on the 1st and 15th of every month, and only through PayPal. Another restriction that they place is that you have to accumulate at least $50 before you can request a cash out to your PayPal account. This is a lot higher than their competitors. The majority of other sites have a lower threshold around $20, which is a lot easier to reach. Unless you get one of those $40 surveys, it could take you a while to get up to $50.
Complaints
It’s obvious that there are a lot of pitfalls of Panda Research. If you do a simple Google investigation on the site, you’ll find plenty of angry members. One of the most common complaints that I saw was regarding the payment process when they are trying to access their money. There are dozens and dozens of members out there they say they never received credit for completed surveys, and when they tried to cash out, they never got the money in their PayPal account.
Another common complaint is a lack of customer service. There are clearly several problems with the site, and when members reached out to the company for assistance, they got no response. This is one of the biggest red flags about the site. There are a lot of things that you can overlook, but a non-existent customer service team is not one of them.
Panda Research does tell you upfront that the verification and waiting process could take a while, but there are reports of it taking 90 days before they saw their cash
I don’t think I really need to tell you some of the other frequent complaints, but I’m going to anyway. The fact that you have to try different “special offers” to complete some of the surveys is a big no-no. Sure, some of them are free offers, but others require your credit card information, and you are not going to get your rewards unless you accept the offer to finish the survey.
For me, this is a difficult question to answer. I can’t honestly say that Panda Research is a “scam” based on the definition. Technically, they will pay you for surveys, and you will get your money, but there are plenty of hurdles that you have to jump through and you could wait several months to get your money. With that being said, there are DOZENS of other sites that I would join before Panda Research. Sure, there is a chance that you’ll land one of those whopping $40 surveys, but you don’t get them enough to justify all of the problems with the program.