Forthright Reviews

This USED to be a decent survey panel. Unfortunately, those days appear to be over.

In March, I signed up for a month-long daily diary study that advertised a bonus well north of $100.

The only stated requirement was that participants complete at least 50% of the daily surveys in order to qualify.

What they didn't emphasize was just how difficult that would be. Each survey invitation was only available for one hour from the time it was sent, and invitations arrived at completely random timessometimes early in the morning, sometimes late at night, and everywhere in between. It often felt as though the study was designed to make meeting the requirement as difficult as possible.

Despite that, I monitored my email religiously for an entire month and estimate that I completed approximately 84% of the surveys while missing only 16%. This required many hours of effort and constant attention.

After the study ended, a month went by with no payment and no communication.

When I contacted customer service, I was told that payments run 3-4 weeks behind while responses are validated. I waited another three weeks and contacted them again. No response. After a third inquiry, I finally received this message:

"Our records indicate that you didn't finish enough surveys.

The minimum is to finish 50% of the surveys provided."

That was it.

After devoting a month of my time to this project, I was simply told that I did not qualify, with no detailed explanation and no way for me to independently verify their calculations. Since participants do not have access to the underlying data, they are forced to rely entirely on the company's records.

In my opinion, the process lacked transparency from beginning to end.

Between the vague bonus language, the extremely restrictive one-hour survey windows, the long periods of silence after the study ended, and the ultimate denial of payment, I was left feeling that my time and effort were not respected.

I had been a member of this panel for years. Not anymore.

Based on my experience, I can no longer recommend BeForthright and would encourage others to proceed with caution, especially when participating in bonus-based studies.