Microworkers: First Impressions

Okay so thanks to one of you I've found a new website like mTurk and oDesk that allows you to complete assigned tasks and (hopefully) make money online. The website is called Microworkers.

 My first impression, as usual, was that the site looks a little dodgy. One thing that you really MUST be on the lookout for is potential scams. There are a lot of websites out there that promise payment for completing surveys or tasks and they actually require YOU to pay to complete offers. So not worth it. Remember, time is money. My golden rule when deciding on whether or not to use a site like this:

Rules of the Road #1 -- Never spend a lot of time and/or effort on a website if you aren't sure it will pay!

Likewise, be wary of offers that promise a lot of money for minimal effort! But more on that later.


So I signed up on Microworkers and picked a task called "Vitamin Product: Review." The task was to write a 50-word (positive) review of a given product. Easy enough, right? Here is a screenshot of the task page:

So, as you can see, pretty straightforward. The task pages lists the "employer"'s requirements, how much it pays, and exactly what you have to do. Typing up the review took me about 30 seconds, copy&pasting it with the required information took another 30. Pretty easy. After you submit the task, you get this screen:

And then if you follow the link to "See tasks you finished" you get this:

Of note here: the employer has to review the work before you get paid. Cool. Secondly, tasks are reviewed in 7 days. Which I suppose isn't that long of a time, but it means I personally won't be doing anymore tasks on this website for a week, until I "get paid."

And that's the other thing. They have a wonky pay system:

(The $1.00 on my account is a "sign-up" bonus. I guess it's supposed to give you incentive to keep working there.) The minimum withdrawal request is $9 + fee. They pay out to PayPal, Moneybook, and AlertPay. Which is okay, and I can sort of dig the withdrawal minimum. I'm just not sure why they would need to confirm mailing address with a PIN. Oh well.

So that's a quick run down of my first impressions of Microworkers. I won't do anything else with the site until a week has passed and the money from the first task gets put in my account. If you are going to sign up for Microworkers and you don't already have an account, please use my referral code: http://microworkers.com/?Id=60147c7f

That's that. Anybody have any experiences with Microworkers you wanna share? I'm very interested.