online review hustlin'

There's a lot of odd hustles out there and being a curious person I do so enjoy investigating them and pondering if I could pick up some of that (do I have side hustle FOMO?  Probably).  I'm not saying I participate or even condone these activities personally... I like to learn and take a peek at other people's lives.  Somehow I came across the world of online reviewer life... is it for me?  I still don't know; follow me as I go down this rabbit hole.  

Free stuff?!..  and all I need to do is throw some phony 5 star reviews out there?  For real?  Is this too good to be true?  How do I get some of that?

Like most things in life, it's complicated.  I'm not going to pretend I know anything about how a certain online giant corporation works but it is obvious there's incentive as a seller to have highly rated products.  Giant online corporation's main interest is in making money so they have vague conduct guidelines around such topics as reviews.  They even have their own top reviewer and hall of fame reviewer lists, celebrating these helpful reviewers.  

I took a look at these top reviewers list and it is impressive.  Most have a helpful rating of 98% or above, meaning most of their reviews are voted as helpful by shoppers.  The top reviewer has 100% helpful reviews!  Most of these top reviewers have written at least 2000 reviews.  The #1 reviewer is over 5000 reviews.  Out of curiosity I checked my review number (and I've been a shopper at this company since 1995 when they started in business) and I'm at a whopping 300-something.  My helpful rating isn't visible since I'm nowhere near the top, but it's in the high 200's so I'm impressed with myself there.  Most of my reviews are out of annoyance or super high praise; with a few done out of boredom when that screen pops up asking what I think.  

Anyway, back to the free stuff.  For me, it started simple.  I bought something; I can't even remember what...  it had a card inside asking for feedback and in exchange they would send me something free.  I went there, I got that free.  I gave that feedback.  I felt a little dirty...  but life went on.  Later, I was contacted again to try something else.  I agreed; and so on and so on.  Was whatever that was an awesome thing worthy of much praise?  Probably not as I don't even remember what it was.  It seemed more like "I got my monies worth" - or like a tour guide once said to me while walking by a street market in another country - "you can get weak stuff there - they will last you 1 week!"

Smaller companies that may not make the best products, but make many products they want to sell in this giant marketplace, tend to find these ways to get the goods out there to help boost sales.   Before I knew it I was getting invites to facebook groups or websites that specialize in this type of stuff.

PPOC Club is one.  It's very easy to use and get your money back quickly through PayPal.  It limits the number of items you can get per day and the sources change frequently.  

The problem with most is they make it overly complicated and/or difficult to get your money back.  Hundsonvine used to be another good standby but looks like it's a dead link.

I keep an eye out here and there for these sites.  I'll update reliable ones once I have some experience with them.   Any tips for links to check out, please drop a note in the comments.  Thanks...  and happy reviewing!