Review: National Consumer Panel – A Total Waste of Time
About ten years ago I applied to and was accepted into a program by National Consumer Panel lured by the prospect of earning great prizes in exchange for a little bit of my time each week.
Who doesn’t like great prizes?
I would use a scanner supplied by them to record my weekly purchases by scanning the UPC barcode of the things we purchased, and entering the prices. Our data would be transmitted back to NCP from it’s charging base which was connected to my broadband service. Participant’s shopping data, as well as results from panel surveys completed online would be used to give customer opinion and shopping trend feedback to retailers.
Here’s where the great prizes come in.
Each transmittal of data, and each completed survey would earn points. The accumulated points can be traded for products in their gift catalog. Although as a new member I didn’t have a feel for how fast I would accumulate points, there were some nice products in their gift catalog, and I was excited to get started.
After a few weeks, my wife and I fell into a routine of scanning the items each time we went grocery shopping. I would place the purchased items on the counter all around our kitchen. My wife would then read the items and their cost from the receipt as I entered each item into the scanner. I also spent about 20 minutes a week participating in online surveys.
For almost two years participating in the NCP program was part of our shopping routine.
Scanning all our groceries added about 10 minutes to the time it took to put groceries away, and even though life is very busy, it didn’t seem like much of a time hit. After all, we were going to earn some of those great prizes, right? Unfortunately, our points total grew very slowly, and over time that 10 minutes seemed more and more inconvenient. My wife began grumbling that we had to take the time to scan everything and my survey participation began to decrease as well.
We were losing interest in the program.
Last week, as we were scanning our groceries, my wife put down the pen, looked at me and asked, is this really worth it? I figured it was at least worth doing a little investigation to answer the question. I logged into NCP website, and looked at the gift catalog to see what we could get in exchange for our efforts over the last two years.
The best gift I could find for the points we had earned was a $50 iTunes gift card.
Estimating the time we had spent:
2 (years) x 52 (weeks per year) x 30 (minutes per week) = 3120 minutes or 52 hours spent on program activities.
That means we earned less than $1 an hour!!!!
I ordered the gift card, and immediately dug out the box and pre-paid return label to send the scanner back. We’re not participating anymore. What seemed like a great opportunity at the time, turned out to be a really big waste of time.
Have any of you participated in the NCP program, or anything similar? What was your experience?
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Brock is a software engineer by day and personal finance blogger at night. He is a fitness junkie and enjoys grilling and smoking meat. Married with two children, Brock strives to improve his skills as a husband and father, and is always on the lookout to stretch his family’s budget as far as he can.
@Kathleen – That’s a LOT of points! I’ve gotten a few offers for special surveys too….but they’ve mainly been things like “log how much toilet paper you use and we’ll send you $3” kind of things. No. Thanks. 🙂 keep doing what you do, you’re killing it!
Well, I just received my scanner today and decided to do a google search about whether it is worth it before even asking my husband to install everything. Looks like I will be shipping everything right back to the company. Sounds like it is no where near worth the time and effort that goes into this. If the rewards were great, I’d pitch this to my husband, but this sounds like a flop. Too bad 🙁
I’ve been an NCP member for a few years; I’m on the fence about the whole thing, currently. After ordering and returning a kitchen appliance from the gift catalog (that didn’t function properly), I looked into other gifts offered. By and large, most of the items offered have terrible track records/online reviews. With only so much energy to go around, I’m not sure if the benefits outweigh the time/effort required.
@Mona – I’m on the fence again here too. After the post went live, I called to cancel. They convinced me to stay by giving me a whole bunch of extra points (which never showed up, and I never took the time to call them and complain). Two years later, the amount of points I’ve accumulated don’t add up to much potential when it comes to the prizes. I gotta just cut the cord and be done with this thing.
Do people expect to get a brand new car from this program or something. Prizes are prizes. Even if it is a5$ gift card. So what if it takes a minute to earn things. If you just do it every time u shop u will go to it one day and might be surprised how many points u have. Just do it for the fun of it and u will never be disappointed
@Chris – no, people don’t expect to get a new car from the program….but it is worth asking the question as to whether it’s worth the time and effort. Would you put in 40 hours of work for a single $5 gift card? I wouldn’t.
I just got my equipment within the last week and have scanned 3 shopping trips. As there are three adults and two teens in my household, we buy a lot of stuff. I am also a big coupon and sale shopper, which increases the scan time immensely. This has been really time consuming.
Wondering what my time is really worth, as they don’t tell you before you join, I open the webpage to see what I have earned. I have 1150 points. 1000 were for joining and 150 for my first transmission. I will get 150 a week, as long as I scan and transmit for the first 6 months. Every 6 months it seems to make little jumps to at 6 years of participation I will earn 325 points a week. So, I pull up the rewards catalog, to see what I can get at what point; Get a goal in mind. At this rate it will take me a year of scanning to get a $10 gift card. Uh….NO. This is a big job! I thought the compensation would be higher.
I would consider myself on the pro side of taking surveys and earning points/cash and this is the lowest I have even been compensated. I usually pull in $20 to $30 buck a site per quarter, if not more. I reached out to Google to find this helpful article and am really questioning my decision to join. So, the question…is it worth my time? Right now I am at a firm, No.
Thank you for letting me learn my lesson sooner than later.
@Kristy – Yeah, No…it’s really not. I got to the point where I didn’t even scan every time I shopped. I would only scan my major grocery shopping trip. It still didn’t seem worth it…..
Thanks for sharing. I just signed up but after reading this and all the comments might as well cancel my membership. I’d rather signe up overtime/extra shift on work and gain more money 😊
@Lei – You’ll definitely make more money signing up for extra work at your job…..without a question.
@Monica – it is a lot of effort for very little reward. The plus is, I guess, that you can get pretty efficient at it over time.
Wow I’ve been waiting 3years to be accepted, and now I find out it’s not even with it, Grrrrr.
@Angela – Wow, I didn’t know there was a waiting list……yeah, I’d just forget about it. Sorry for the bad news!
It’s a big pain in the rump .. boxed my unit up tonight and its going in the fed ex box in the morning .. Ive had it about a year .. the time spent is just not worth the rewards. And if you dont transmit weekly they blow your phone up. You probably could get points for things like carry out food and gas .. stuff bought at a mini mart. But when we go to walmart its generally a big trip and recording all those items individually is just not worth the time. I belong to IBOTTA and once I scan the bar code on the item .. I just had to scan the receipt and its over .. but its a rebate site not a tracking site .. but if they can make it that simple I would think NCP could too. . This panel you scan the bar code .. wants to know how many you bought .. it doesnt ask for pricing at walmart but for everything else you have to enter the price paid .. it wants to know if you used coupons .. just way too much trouble for what you get back.
@Melissa – when I first started I had to enter the prices of Walmart….towards the end of my time that changed. But it doesn’t matter how many times you transmit, or how many places you visit…you only get points once per week. Otherwise I’d probably be rich right now because it seems like I have to go pick up a little thing here or there every day!
I see a lot of disparaging comments. I have been with NCP for over ten years. For those who are unsatisfied, I would ask: Have you ever heard of “Fieldwork” ? Just google them and you are on your was to $50/hour, about 1ce a year. My 1st scanner was “Dial Up” that is : you hold the scanner to your WIRED phone, and don’t move for about 30 to 90 seconds while it squeales away. And you had to remember to do this every week. Now I have a new one that you don’t have to swipe, and the charger is connected to the net so as long as I store it in that, I keep getting extra points for being consistent. I some times take my scanner to the store and scan as I filled my cart.
@Ray – Scanning *while* shopping….I never thought of that…that might have been a time saver…
How do I sign up to be on the panel?
Oh dear. From listening to all these comments, I don’t think this is going to be as easy as I first thought (or as easy as they say it’s going to be). I just entered my serial number to receive my scanner or transmitter or whatever the devil it is they send you and now I’m worried that this is all going to be a big fat waste of time. Not having a job presently, I figured it’s something I can do with the ‘extra’ time I have when I’m not looking for a job (and I certainly would not count it as a full time job or treat it as such, bleck!). I am curious about a comment I read though stating you could only transmit once a week. Does that mean only one shopping trip counts? Cause if so, it is DEFINITELY not worth my time.
@Stacey – you can go to their website and apply to join.
@Stephanie- It’s definitely a personal choice sort of thing…as far as scanning, you only get points once for the week. So, you can enter every purchase (gas, groceries, clothes, vending machines, convenience stores, restaurants, etc) and get X points for the week. But you can also just scan and enter your grocery shopping trip and get X points for the week. As mentioned in a previous comment, you can get more points by doing the surveys online….
I have been a panelist for NCP for two years. I spend no more than 20 mins a week answering surveys and scanning purchases. I have accumulated 67,620 points making me a gold member. Before I signed up, I read about the program and how many points it would take to obtain the highest level prizes. I figured between 5 and 6 years. To me, it is well worth the few minutes a week to get something that would normally cost me a couple hundred dollars, even if I have to wait a few years. ITS FREE
@Donna – It’s certainly a personal choice – and if you think it’s worth your time, then go for it. I wouldn’t call it “free” if you add up all the time you spent (20 minutes a week for 5 years is over 80 hours of time) to get one “free” item. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I just opened the box my scanner came in. I read through the instructions and thought, “What have I done?” I’m going to send it all back tomorrow. I have a large family and I fear that I’ll be doing nothing but scanning groceries. I’m not even going to bother my husband with this (he’d probably make fun of me anyway). After I made the decision to send it all back, I found this site, which confirmed my fears. Oh well!
@Angela – It’s up to you….I tell you what though – after doing it for several years, the change to being able to just come home and put groceries directly into the cupboards was AWESOME.
But imagine what else you would be doing with that time. You are either sitting on the couch making no money while watching TV or something–or you’re sitting on the couch, scanning and reporting while watching TV or something-AND making money.
It’s all about perspective. You can add up how much time you spend on facebook-and that’s probably WAY more time than you put into the logging of your purchases, and you don’t get paid for that at all.
I’m wondering – is there no other option in the panel? I just got alerted (after a six-month wait) that I was going to be receiving a scanner. I’ve been waiting to be on the panel, though, to do the product reviews and such, and to take surveys (if not the product reviews). So, I’m not sure if this is just that one part (this is just the scanner, and I’m still waiting for the review panel), or if this is all together (if the scanner comes with the other two parts – reviews and surveys)..
Because, as it stands, the scanner alone wouldn’t be worth my time.
But the other options/factors would make it easier.
Maybe I’m confusing the whole thing. Let me know.
There certainly are other ways to earn points, Samantha……but again, it takes time and effort to do so. I never found the surveys to be an effective use of my time either….