The bad news is that this particular industry is rife with scammers.  If you are interested in getting involved with GPT programs, you’ll have to do your homework and take special precautions to protect yourself and your computer.  Stick with those programs that have been recommended to you by a reliable source.  All the GPT programs listed on this site (www.DrGPT.com) have been tested by me to be 100% trustworthy legitimate paying sites.

For many WAHMs, the GPT programs are a fun and easy way to earn some extra money when they need it.  People who have experience with the programs recommend that you never rely wholly on GPTs to pay your monthly bills.  But they can be a perfect solution to earn money for a special occasion or holiday shopping.

Just what are GPT programs?  They fall into three basic categories: get paid to read e-mail, get paid to fill out surveys and get paid to try products. Each type has its own pros and cons.  Before you start any GPT program, you should take some steps to protect your personal information.  You will be required to give your personal information for many of these programs and the less you actually say about yourself the better.

To start you should register a separate e-mail address for your GPT purposes.  Many programs can result in a lot of spam mail, so you’ll want to keep your main e-mail address separate.

Get paid to read e-mail programs will pay you a few cents for receiving e-mail and clicking on links.  Normally these e-mails offer special deals on products or encourage you to sign up for programs.  Sometimes, depending on the e-mail program, you will get more money or “points” if you try the offer.  You are not obligated to try the offers, and will get paid a small amount just for clicking on the link inside of the e-mail.  There are many popular paid e-mail companies.  Do some research before you sign up for a program to make sure that people are actually getting paid.  Try not to sign up for too many programs at once or your GPT e-mail address will be swamped.

Getting paid to fill out surveys works in a similar way.  You will sign up for a survey program and then fill out some personal information.  You will be matched to surveys that are looking for the opinions of people in your income bracket, of your age or one of several different qualification factors.  Depending on the company, you will get paid per survey, or completing surveys will earn you points that can later be redeemed.  Just as with get paid to read e-mail programs, do research on survey companies before you sign up.  There are hundreds out there but only a handful are worth the time and effort.

Finally there are get paid to try products programs.  These programs pay significantly more than the other GPT programs.  However, you will be required to pay anywhere from $1 to $10 to try the products.  When you use these kinds of programs, you have to be careful to take complete records of what you will be receiving and when you need to cancel service or return the item.  Most of the time you will be registered for recurring billing for a monthly service, which can be canceled within the initial 7 to 14 days if you are so inclined.  You can call the companies and cancel the service, yet still be paid for signing up for the GPT program if your find the product or service undesirable.

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.

A GPT or “Get Paid To” site (sometime called a “free paid survey” or “offer” site) pays its registered members rather substantially to perform specific online tasks such as responding to a simple survey, completing a free trial offer, ordering products & services you may already be seeking, visiting sponsor’s web sites, viewing advertisements, signing up for newsletters, and such.

GPT sites are an excellent source of easy spare-time money.  These sites will definitely give you a healthy boost of income proportional to the time and effort you put into them.  Many, including myself, have made GPT sites their full-time job replacement allowing you to be your own boss while paying the rent and all of life’s expenses with money to spare (though getting to this stage requires much devotion, time, attention, and the wisdom that comes over time in exploring and getting an expert feel for how these sites operate.)

Many of the trial and purchase offers are for products and services you would normally buy – Only at GPT sites they pay you an incentive to try or buy them through their sponsors.  It’s almost like shopping at a steep VIP discount.  Their sponsors pay them for the marketing exposure and they pay you for your time and consideration – it’s really that simple.

By giving your opinion and through your feedback on the free paid surveys the GPT site sponsors (many are large well known corporations) gain valuable insight into a potential customer’s thought process that assists them in making improvements and getting a feel for a potential new product’s probable initial reception.  GPT sites are valuable resources for sponsors to do informal cost-effective market research at a moments notice without a lot of lead time, preparation, and personnel resources used.

The vast majority of legitimate GPT sites will never ask you for any sort of registration fee.  If a site does ask you for money up front (rare, but they are still out there) then I would advise you to leave that site and place it in your “something’s fishy about this site” category.  There are, however, many free to join GPT sites that offer optional membership upgrades that offer benefits such as free referral credits, increased referral percentage structure, advertising package discounts, and exclusive offers – I would advise you to get a feel for the site for a while (several weeks) before/if you opt to pay for an optional upgrade.

Now please don’t confuse the GPT sites (sometimes referred to as PTSU “Paid To Sign Up” sites) with your standard extremely low paying PTC (Paid To Click), PTP (Paid To Post), or PTR (Paid To Read ) sites that are generally a big monotonous unhappy waste of time – and usually only offer fractions of a penny per action. These are definitely not the GPT sites I speak of.

DrGPT is a GPTBoycott supporter!

GPTBoycott.com – Fighting the Get-Paid Scams!. There are many companies on the internet which promise to reward or pay you for various activities. Some require you to read e-mails, click links or to complete online surveys, while others require you to participate in investment programs or to shop via their website. These types of website are known as “get paid” programs, and are the focus of GPTBoycott. Many users have found that by joining and participating in these “get paid” programs it is possible to earn some extra money each month. This reflects the fact that most online “get paid” programs are honest and pay their members as promised. However, there are other sites which look to take advantage of their users by acting dishonestly, improperly or fraudulently. The aim of GPTBoycott is to name the offending ‘get-paid’ companies, and to urge our visitors to stop using them. If you’re tired of companies stealing your time and money, and if you want to know which sites to avoid, take a look around this site, and help us stamp out fraudulent behavior online!