Is MyPoints Safe or Should You Avoid It?

When most people search for a way to earn some extra money online, one of the first things they’ll stumble across is a paid survey site. But there tends to be a stigma that surrounds them. 

Lots of people immediately associate them with a scam. And that’s totally understandable – some survey sites are legit, and some are fraudulent.

With MyPoints being just one of the many that are out there, you might be asking yourself if MyPoints is safe to use?

MyPoints is safe and legit, it’s a paid survey site where you can earn up to $2.50 per hour completing surveys, tasks, watching videos, and more.

They have security measures in place to protect your personal information from being lost or misused, but they do sell your info, which you consent to when you sign up.

Read on to find out more about how safe MyPoints is, what it’s all about, and how much you can earn, to see if this site is right for you.

How Safe and Legit Is MyPoints?

MyPoints is considered a legit, safe website to use for a few reasons. 

For one thing, in the security section of the MyPoints Privacy Policy, it states that they “maintain security measures” to try and protect against loss or other types of misuse of your personal information.

And while that sounds great – and there’s no real reason to believe it’s untrue – they don’t actually state what those “security measures” are.

And actually, when you dig a little deeper into it, you run across some unsettling information.

On the FAQ section of MyPoints, there’s a question regarding how personal information is used.

In the answer, MyPoints states that they don’t share any of your personally identifiable information with their advertisers “without your express consent.” They go on to say that they’ll always ask if it’s okay to share that information. 

It sounds good until you realize that you’re basically giving your consent when you sign up.

There’s a button at the bottom of the home page that says “do not sell my info.” The reason that is there is because the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 says that, as of January 1st 2020, you have the right to opt out of the sale of your personal information. 

And to exercise that right, you have to fill out a request and send it to Prodege either electronically or by mail.

And what’s worse is that you’re only able to opt out of the sale of your personal info if you live in California.

Now, this doesn’t mean that MyPoints is just some shady site that goes and sells your information to people looking to use it maliciously. 

A lot of companies do this, and it generally just ends up being used to market certain things to you. It isn’t generally something that is going to affect you in a bad way. 

But, something a lot of people are concerned about getting out online is credit card info or bank account numbers. So, if that’s something you’re concerned about, you could just use the gift card option for redeeming points so you don’t have to give sensitive information out like that.

What is MyPoints and How Does It Work?

MyPoints is an online survey company that has been around for quite some time, having been founded in 1996. 

They are run by the parent company Prodege LLC, which has developed some other well-known survey sites such as ySense and Inbox Dollars.

Many people may be familiar with the standard structure of these paid survey sites: you complete a quick pre-qualifying survey and (if you’re eligible) you move on to the real survey and earn points for completing it. 

MyPoints isn’t any different, but they have something up on some of the other sites. Similar to PrizeRebel, MyPoints offers a variety of different ways to earn points, such as through:

• Surveys
• Referrals
• Watching Videos
• Searching the Web
• Shopping Online
• Playing Games
• Local Deal vouchers such as Groupon

Signing up for MyPoints is easy. You just go to their website to create an account with your email and password. 

You’ll then get a confirmation email to complete setup. Once you click on that, then you’re ready to start earning points!

And when you’re ready to redeem those points, there’s multiple methods available to you. You can:

• Convert points into gift cards
• Get a Visa gift card
• Get a PayPal deposit (for cash)
• Add travel miles to a UnitedPlus Mileage account 

And while this is definitely an advantage over other survey sites, you might be wondering how secure the whole process is.

How Much Can You Make With MyPoints?

How much you can earn on MyPoints is directly related to how many points you earn. So, it’s important to understand the points structure so you can know how to best spend your time.

The points system breaks down as follows:

• Surveys: 50-100 points
• Playing games: 5-10 points
• Watching videos: 1 point
• Referrals: 25 points, plus additional 750 for you and 1,750 for them if they purchase $20 or more qualifying products within 30 days of signing up

So, it’s clear that referrals and surveys are the best way to earn the most money. But how many points will reward you with cash or gift cards? Well, here are some examples:

• $25 cash (the minimum threshold): 3,970 points
• 2,500 travel miles: 6,900 points
• $5 Barnes and Noble gift card: 700 points

Taking those numbers into consideration, if you wanted to do all surveys, you would have to complete almost 80 surveys at 50 points apiece (or 40 at 100 points apiece) before you could get $25 cash. And the average survey takes about 15 minutes to complete.

That means that – with those numbers – you’d be earning anywhere from $1.25 to $2.50 per hour completing surveys.

That’s clearly not enough to sustain a full-time income. Honestly, that’s barely enough to count as earning part-time income. It would work if you were really in a tight spot and just needed something, but there are far better work-from-home options out there.

Conclusion

In the end, MyPoints seems to be a safe site – although you should definitely exercise a bit of caution before giving out your financial information or anything like that.

Yes, you could earn a little bit of money on the side, but honestly in my opinion it doesn’t seem like the best way to spend your time. There are so many other online money-making opportunities out there that will pay you far more than that.

But if you do decide to give them a go, always use personal discretion and common sense!