AW Surveys

I came across this site from one of my friends. This site offers a very lucrative policy but what moved me was that it was absolutely free. You only needed to have a Paypal account(If you are not a US citizen). The stats were as follows

• On joining, you get a welcome survey worth USD $ 6.
• Other surveys will earn you USD $ 4 each.
• Every month you get a bonus survey worth USD $ 1. This survey qualifies you for a monthly lucky draw which they say is worth USD $ 500. It expires at the end of each month if not taken in time.
• For every referral you get USD $ 1.25. You can get referrals either by direct referring link or HTML image codes that you can paste in your emails, websites or blogs.

Each survey consists of two websites. You need to view each website and give your reviews in not less than 3 sentences. Payment is made either through check(For US citizens only) or Paypal. The minimum payout is USD $ 75. Having more than one account per household is not allowed. I searched about this program on public discussion forums, as I do usually. It returned a mixed opinion. Many said it was a scam but few others claimed that they got paid(hmmm...I doubt). I still took a chance and joined it. But certain things made me suspicious...

• The graphics and layout of the site didn't look professional enough.
• The registration procedure was awkwardly simple and short. This was unlike other programs that truly pays.
• Even if you provide a wrong email ID it accepts your application. This was definitely odd. Other professional e-commerce sites usually insists on email confirmation. I came to know about this from one of the forums and tried it myself.
• Furthermore they never send any registration details to our email even though in the registration page they wrote-"Please provide a valid email address, your log in information will be sent to it. We will never give out your email address or other personal information."
• The image verification code in the registration page seemed to repeat and not auto-generated.

So is it a scam really???On joining I completed all the available surveys with haste and saw my account balance rising instantly after completing each survey. I completed 5 surveys + 1 welcome survey + that month's bonus survey to see the account balance reading USD $ 27 in less than an hour. It felt great. But, since then I never received a survey to take part other than the bonus surveys of each month which pays only USD $ 1. It has been 4 months since I joined. I recognised that referring friends was the only option. So even before ensuring that it was not a scam I started referring my friends and relatives. Slowly but steadily I saw my referral count and balance rising and rejoiced over it. Immediately when I saw my balance above USD $ 75(which was the minimum payout amount via Paypal), I hit the redeem button. You wont believe, they deducted USD $ 25 as their service charge and put the transfer of remaining USD $ 50 pending for their verification. After two days, they send me an email saying that my payment was terminated because of fraudulent activities. Not only did they waste my time and energy but also made me refer my friends and family to this cheat. Now its up to you to decide whether it is a scam or not.