These days you can't go anywhere online without seeing an ad for paid online surveys. There are thousands of websites offering everything from free ipods to $50,000 for taking a survey. With claims like this, the first thing most people ask themselves is "Is this a scam ?".

The truth is you actually can get paid just for giving your opinion. There are market research panels you can join that will pay you to participate in online surveys. Finding one that actually pays can be the hard part. Most of the ones that offer free products or large sums of cash are not really paid surveys. They are just trying to get you to sign up for stuff or get your information so they can spam you, call you, and send lots of mail to your house.

A real paid survey will usually pay between $2 and $20 and take about 15 minutes to complete. There are no products to buy and nothing to sign up for to receive your payment.

Paid surveys are not something new. Market research firms have been paying people to participate in their studies for over 50 years. It has just recently started to spread across the internet.

The best way to find legitimate paid survey panels is to use a search engine like Google or MSN. Try searching for something like "top 20 paid survey panels".

You will find that there are hundreds of legitimate panels you can join. Most panels will not need you everyday, or even weekly. You may be invited to participate once a month or even less. That's why it is very important to sign up with as many paid survey panels as possible. That way you can insure that you receive paid surveys regularly.

There are about 20 or 30 panels that send surveys frequently. You should always start by joining those panels. These are known by everyone as the "top paid survey panels". A search for top paid survey panels should bring them up. By joining the top paid survey panels you are almost guaranteed to receive paid surveys daily. You will probably not make enough to quit your job. But you can easily make a couple hundred extra dollars a month just with 20 or so panels.

These top paid surveys are all free to join. There are no fee's at all. All you have to lose is time. You are never obligated to participate in a survey. You can take the ones you want and just ignore the ones you don't.

Once you find a good source for paid surveys you will see why taking paid surveys online is the most popular of the work at home opportunities around. It is far better than reading emails for a penny or surfing the net for .20 cents an hour.