NATURE OF WORK AND PAYMENT
BigSpot promotes itself as a paid survey site, but I'm not certain that they ever actually offer direct paid surveys. The site instead appears to be a referral portal to various other survey sites, any of which you could simply sign up with independently instead.
I'm only bothering to review the site as they have run a rash of commercials on TV in recent weeks. This is the first time I've personally seen them, but apparently they've had fits of these TV ads across the nation going back to 2010. The ads are always the same format -- they begin as if they're some low-budget infomercial, then a cartoon character walks out and says "Wow, that was bad! Don't you wish you could tell them that!"
Before even visiting the site I'd heard negative things about it just being a parasitic middleman portal to other sites that offer paid surveys. I signed up with an old throwaway email account just to verify firsthand for this review, however, and also because language in certain parts of the site seems to indicate that BigSpot also directly provides their own surveys -- for example, here (" ... The surveys presented may be administered by us or other third parties you may sign up with")
If they do provide their own surveys, I have no idea when or where they do it, or how often. After signing up I was taken to a very basic portal page (seen below) that offered signups for Ipsos i-Say, Global Test Market and Toluna. These are all third-party survey sites that you can sign up with independently without having to bother with Bigspot. The site seems to offer nothing else at all.
SITE HISTORY / LEGITIMACY
While you can't call it an outright scam site, Bigspot is providing a service that is effectively useless. You're not losing any money, but they do seem to collect quite a bit of information from your browser by way of tracking cookies, including "URLs you've visited".
You appear to get paid by the survey sites you sign up with through BigSpot. The site is owned by Varsityplaza LLC, according to their Terms page. They were formerly owned by a market research company called Instantly that was acquired not too long ago by a Connecticut-based marketing company called Survey Sampling. I'm not clear on whether Varsityplaza is a subsidiary/offshoot of Survey Sampling or an independent entity that acquired Bigspot somehow.
The difficulty digging up firm information on this company is a little disturbing, as is the fact that you appear to not only have to rely on them for timely payment, but also the independent survey companies they are connecting you to. So we have multiple layers of potential Flake in payment here.
In the meantime, I can't dig up anything in the way of complaints about not being paid ... but I also can't dig up concrete information on how their payment system works! Looking at the three survey companies they offered to link me to, however, appear to be legit but have very mixed user comments on SurveyPolice -- Ipsos, Global Test Market and Toluna.
INTERNATIONAL ACCESS
Unclear, since I'm not even certain how they pay out. You may be subject to the individual terms of each site you sign up with through them.
STARTING OUT
Don't bother.
PROBLEMS WITH BIGSPOT
The central problem here is just lack of information. I am still not clear on whether this is simply a portal scheme so that BigSpot can make money on signups to other survey sites, or if they have a deeper relationship with and integration to these sites. I mean, either way, they're simply making money on referrals to sites you could have signed up for on your own anyway, but is there any way that they add any sort of value to the arrangement? It seems like they just add an extra layer of complication.
Do you make less for these surveys through BigSpot than if you'd taken them directly through the company they're referring you to because they're taking referral fees? I don't know, but I don't see any reason to mess around with it.
FINAL VERDICT: WASTE OF TIME
With it being very unclear if/when they ever offer their own direct surveys, there's no point in signing up for this. They aren't doing anything you can't already do on your own by cruising through SurveyPolice (or King of Pennies!), and you'll get more information there as well as cut out a middleman layer that could potentially complicate your payouts. They appear to just be taking advantage of TV viewers who aren't already aware of paying survey sites for referral signup bonuses.
I have to admire that the hustle is working so well that they can afford national TV spots for years, but if you're high-information enough to read sites like this, there's no reason to waste your time at BigSpot.
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