Data entry sites - recommendations?

[RossDvd]

Hi all,

I'm looking to increase the profitability of the time I spend online and have noticed a number of sites offering seemingly reasonable rates for data entry type work.

I was wondering if anyone here has any recommendations?

Im very sceptical of sites that require me to pay money in order to begin working for them, is this usual? This just screamed scam when I read through it especially after the seemingly high returns for relatively unskilled work.

How can I verify that people are actually getting paid from these sites? What methods would you recommend?

What is a reasonable rate of pay to expect for this type of work?

All comments and advice is greatly appreciated,
Ross

[mgallone]

Never, EVER sign up for any 'work from home' site that asks you to pay first. There are genuine freelancing websites out there, try those first.

[TrustButVerify]

The value for unskilled data entry is very very very very very very very very very low.

There are about 4 million people looking to do data entry work... for the most part it's done overseas at less than $2.00 an hour.

I would look into buying a course on how to be a freelancer. Bid on jobs in elance.com guru.com or similar. Pick a certain niche or type of job and start building up a portfolio.

Here's a story about those data entry job sites:

I posted a job about doing some data entry work on digital point. The job was filled within a couple of days. About a $50 job.

For the next ONE TO TWO YEARS I would receive private messages (about once a month) from someone applying for the position. They said they heard about it on some work from home website.

They must scrape "data entry" jobs from all over the web, post them in one place and then offer/sell access to their list of data entry jobs.

[Clinton]

TrustButVerify is very right.

RossDVD, would you consider other work, or does it have to be data entry?

If you're open to other ways of making money online, tell us some of your skills and interests. It's far better to work on something you enjoy doing... and there are a lot of opportunities in every field.

[RossDvd]

Thanks for the advice guys, as I suspected as with anything if it sounds too good to be true.....

The reason for wanting to do something fairly mindless like this wasjust to increase the amount of money I was making whilst playing poker online. Basically I have reached the threshold of tables I can play and continue to devote sufficient attention to game flow and dynamics for it to be profitable. I still browse and surf in the background thou and was looking to more profitably employ that time hence something mindless that paid. I am however open to other forms of employment and would obviously be willing to devote significantly more attention to them if they were rewarding/interesting enough.

Skills and interests;

I have an honours degree in economics and have a reasonable background in econometrics and statistics.
I have a good amount of experience in customer service type roles from summer holiday work in university.
I have a small amount of experience in financial services from a summer internship at Morgan Stanley (Private Wealth Management dept).
I have a large amount of experience in sales, the last job I had before playing poker full time was in a cold calling centre. I made very good money via bonuses but eventually the enviroment and stress was not particularly enjoyable so I ventured elsewhere.

Interests;

I read alot, mainly non-fiction anything that piques my interest really. Occasionally fiction if it is recommended to me by someone whose judgement I trust.
I enjoy playing and watching football.
I am passionate about cooking and have attended a year long course at a cooking school.
I enjoy wine and whisky and attend tastings when possible I have an Intermediate qualification from the Wine & Spirits Trust (UK).
I like to travel and meet people ( but then who doesnt?)

I did a reasonable amount of charity fundraising at university through organising music events at university with attendances in the hundreds raising in excess of £5K for Shelter Scotland.

Any advice (or offers!) on anything that people think might be of interest is most welcome.

Ross

[Clinton]

RossDVD, those skills and interests open up a lot of possibilities. However, if what you want is a "mindless" job, I'm finding it difficult to suggest anything

Maybe order processing. Or some VA service. Or manning a support line/chat window.

[Alastair]

What about a food and/or drink blog? Are there any specific types of food or wine or whisky you are interested in? A blog reviewing wines sounds like the perfect combination of business an pleasure to me.

[tke71709]

If you're willing to do cold calling and the such (ugh) I'm sure you could find some web-related work in that field.

Ever consider link building as a side job? You could search for links, send e-mails and then cold call other prospects.

[RossDvd]

Hi all

Thanks for all the replies, alot of food for thought.

Yea I have been considering doing a blog re food and wine but having reviewed google and the like it seems sites like BBC and the food channel have it so dominated that it would be very difficult to penetrate this area with any realistic prospect of eventually turning a profit.

In the meantime I think I will start this up anyway as a mix of business and pleasure to gain some skills and experience.

I ve kinda of stopped looking for anything "mindless" as clearly with the amount of english speaking people in significantly poorer areas prepared to do this type of unskilled work for less it just is not worthwhile for me.

Im currently trying to look for web based sales type stuff but haven't really found much on standard recruitment sites. Any ideas on where I might be able to find this type of work advertised or alternatively companies that might have opportunities?

Thanks for the feedback guys I hope I can start putting more in in time rather than just picking everyone elses heads for ideas.

Ross

[Alastair]

One way you could drive traffic to your site is writing articles for online article sites such as EzineArticles. Take a look at this http://www.flipwebsites.com/marketin...arketing-tips/

With your knowledge of food and wine there must be loads of articles you could write.