Below are my suggested criteria to consider when evaluating which GPT sites to join and frequent.  Also included are obvious red flags indicative of potential sites with issues that should be avoided.  These criteria (below) are listed in the order in which I, myself, prefer to choose my favorite sites – your “order” may differ depending on your own preferences and requirements:

1. Site Stability, Honesty, & Financial Health / Backing
   Sites that look great and have great advertisements with superlative headlines boasting that they are the best site may not necessarily be the best choice.  I will do you little good to join a nice looking site, spending time earning to reach a significant internal account points balance only to find that you’ve ultimately been duped into a basically unsupported long-forgotten stagnant site that never pays out not matter what you do – chances are such a site is being milked by an administrator that:
   1. has lost interest in the site and rarely bothers to take the necessary steps to pay its members but leaves the site standing in the hopes that one day seen he/she may again suddenly start to care; and/or
   2. is disorganized or incompetent resulting in incessant excuses, delays, partial payments, and general headaches from the member’s perspective to such an extent that the site is basically useless as a reliable source of income; and/or
   3. has become financially insolvent  though he/she may have every intention of eventually paying the site’s members, never seems to have enough money when the time comes; and/or
   4. tends to delete accounts, steal from (reduce) the member’s account balance, never (or rarely) approve or credit member’s offer completions, or ban members when they have or are about to reach the minimum cash out requirement amount (playing dirty tricks); and/or
   5. is unscrupulous (fraudulent to a criminal extent) by allowing new members to join and present members to continue completing surveys and offers without any intention of ever paying those members for the work they have done while still collecting regular payments from the sponsors and pocketing it.

   How can you tell if the site you are evaluating may suffer from stability issues?  Look for red flags that may merit further investigation such as:

   1. Sites offering only private support options (a BIG tip off!) such as “contact us” forms or a private “support ticket” system while providing no publicly visible support such as a proper open support forum where gripes from present members can be openly read and evaluated (or having an open support forum but suppressing (deleting posts / banning complaining members) all gripes/complaints regularly; and/or
   2. Sites with an excessive amount of scam complaints posted elsewhere on the internet.  Take the time to Google the site name and take a look at what others are saying about the site.  Granted even the most legitimate and stable sites will inevitably have a few gripes out there from people who will never be satisfied (such as former members banned for fraud, etc.) or past issues that have been dealt with and solved but remain public because they reside within Google’s cached results or the original complaint had never been removed from the source web site; and/or
   3. Sites listed on GPTBoycott.com’s Watch List or worse, Boycott List.  GPTBoycott is an industry standard member complaint based voluntary pseudo-accreditation program offering trusted credentials to stable, paying sites while revoking credentials and publicizing issues related to sites with serious stability problems and those with documented allegedly fraudulent activities perpertrated on members.  GPTBoycott publishes a list of programs supporting their efforts and also has a rather informative and popular open discussion forum.

Most all of the offers are on the up-and-up.  But, always keep your guard up and always read the fine print!  A very few offers come with surprises that may turn out to be a headache for the unwary.  In my online travels I have run across offers that seem too good to be true until you read the fine print.

Here are a few snags to look out for:

• Offers that state in the fine print that you are signing up for some sort of service (usually voice mail, or the like) that will be billed on your telephone bill (yes, they CAN do this – even if you give them the wrong number! — they'll look you up and "correct" your obvious error (smile))   This practice is called "cramming" you phone bill (though in most cases YOU are actually signing up to be billed if you read the fine print.)  You can read a bit more on cramming here (FCC link.)  My advice is to always read the fine print and call your telephone service provider (AT&T, etc.) to "Block Third Party Billing" (beforehand.)
   

• Offers that are "free trials" that charge you some nominal fee (like a buck or two) during the trial period but if you don't cancel within the trial period you will be charged full price (usually a much greater cost) or that your credit card will be billed on a recurring basis until you cancel (Argh!)  Again, read the fine print!  Some free trial offers may make it difficult, laborious, or impossible to cancel.  Watch out!  Free/low cost trial offers that turn out to be extremely difficult to cancel (some customer service numbers run perpetually busy, or put you on hold for hours, etc.   …or some web site based cancellation links just lead you to an "error".)  Read the fine print.  Save all copies of emails you receive.  Print out any specifics such as login info, account numbers, offer agreements and terms of service (TOS), etc. that are presented on the screen.  Print and keep a hardcopy file of all confirmation screens and emails!
   

• Offers that ask for credit card or other private financial information without presenting you with a secure server.  In Internet Explorer, you will see a lock icon   in the Security Status bar.   The Security Status bar is located on the right side of the Address bar.  The certificate that is used to encrypt the connection also contains information about the identity of the website owner or organization. You can click the lock to view the identity of the website.  If you are being asked for any private financial information without them taking minimal precautions to protect that information (by using a secure connection) then move on – don't give them any information!
   

• Cell phone offers that have you enter your mobile phone number, wait for a text (sms) message containing a pin number or password, and then have you enter the number in back on the web site.  They will call this "confirmation".  Usually, what you actually are doing by confirming your pin number is giving them permission to add you to a subscription service that will bill your cell phone account some amount ($9.99, $15.99, $29.99!) on a regular basis until you cancel.  Always read the fine print!  Know what you are signing up for.  To avoid costly mistakes you may want to contact your mobile phone service provider beforehand to see if they offer some sort of subscription service blocking / 3rd party billing blocking service (beforehand.)