Is ChaCha a scam?

October 30, 2008 5:28 PM

Is ChaCha a scam?

Note: This is absolutely, positively not an advertisement for ChaCha. I'm trying to figure out what exactly this company is offering and if it's legal or not.

So, one of my friends recently heard about someone answering questions on this ChaCha thing and getting paid for it. She decided she wanted to do it and told me I should, too.

Apparently, you receive questions that people send in via text message, and you have to research the answer and respond to them somehow. My friend heard that you get paid $0.10 per answer, and $0.20 if you get good at it. Supposedly, you get paid either with a debit card from some bank, or through direct deposit to your own bank if you earn more than $100 in a month.

So, is this legit? Obviously it won't pay very much (If you answered one question a minute, you'd make $6 per hour) but it seems like it might be kind of a fun way to learn about more things online, and get a few bucks on the side. I don't want to have anything to do with it if it's a scam, though.

Does anyone have personal experience with this company or know anything about it? Any input would be extremely helpful. Thanks!

posted by DMan to computers & internet (22 comments total)

Well, it's a legitimate service for ChaCha users. I have a friend who likes to get drunk and send them inane questions to answer. They get paid, he gets mild drunken amusement.

I don't have any information about how reliable they are for answerers, sorry.

Here's a very mildly NSWF screenshot of ChaCha in action.
posted by svolix at 5:38 PM on October 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

No, not a scam. I did ChaCha for a while, basically until I got bored with it, and made a little over $100 which was deposited directly into my bank account. They also have tons of bonuses if you answer questions during specific hours or nights.
posted by Ugh at 5:39 PM on October 30, 2008

Keep in mind, your job is to answer the questions whether that question be "what is a dirty sanchez" or "what's a funny racist joke." If it helps, you can set preferences which will route certain questions you have knowledge in directly to you.
posted by Ugh at 5:51 PM on October 30, 2008

I've done ChaCha too...definitely not a scam, but pretty easy to get bored with. People ask dumb questions.
posted by logic vs love at 6:03 PM on October 30, 2008

Do they compensate you for the cost of sending the answer to the asker? If not, then $0.10 to $0.20 per answer vs an, on average in Australia, 18c to 25c SMS charge sounds like it would end up costing you money to be involved.
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:16 PM on October 30, 2008

Effigy: I think they send the questions via sms, but the answering is done through a browser.
posted by pompomtom at 7:21 PM on October 30, 2008

Correct pompomtom, the answering seems to be done in a browser.
posted by DMan at 7:23 PM on October 30, 2008

Also, they seem to be only after Americans - which is a bit silly really, given the bonus they'd get through exchange rates.
posted by pompomtom at 7:26 PM on October 30, 2008

Their Legit. The guy that founded it was featured in Fortune magazine... can't remember the issue though. Never used it, sounds like a lazy man's answer to Google. I say give it a go and see what happens.
posted by bkeene12 at 7:30 PM on October 30, 2008

For answering 10,000 questions a month, I'd make more money being hired as a reference librarian.
Does anyone make a living doing this?
posted by bad grammar at 7:50 PM on October 30, 2008

For answering 10,000 questions a month, I'd make more money being hired as a reference librarian.
Does anyone make a living doing this?

I highly doubt it, I think it's more about the mindset of a hive mind, sort of like an instantaneous AskMeFi. The payment is just a sort of encouragement.
posted by InsanePenguin at 7:57 PM on October 30, 2008

It is legit and is good for some spare cash. If you work in the late evenings on the weekends you can make more than $6/hr if you type/quote/paste fairly quickly. I sure as hell wouldn't quit my day job for it though.
posted by CwgrlUp at 8:14 PM on October 30, 2008

It seems "legit" in the sense that one does receive money as advertised if the stated criteria are met.

The questions tend to be totally goofy and are often impossible to answer in 140 characters, or at all: "Who is jane smith from new york city usa?", "Does billy like me?", "Should I break up with my girlfriend?", "Can I get pregnant from fooling around?", "Send me a bedtime story", etc.

One can start to feel like one is a 16-year-old working at McDonalds (or Cutco/Vector) from the tone, content, and frequency of emails they send their "associates". Also, judging from my experience as a user of the service, a large portion of the people working for them don't bother to do their jobs correctly, so it can be something of a race to the bottom in that regard if you're looking at it as a source of income.

A URL reference must be included in the answer to every question. One is not allowed to refer to Wikipedia or other such sites when answering questions; a ridiculous policy since most of the questions of a serious nature are of the "quick reference" variety for which Wikipedia would be ideal, and more authoritative than most random websites.

Also, their business model appears to me, as a matter of personal opinion, to follow the:

1. Pay people to answer questions for free over SMS
2. ???
3. PROFIT!!

business model. But, I guess they've been around in various incarnations for a couple years, so who knows.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 9:46 PM on October 30, 2008

I've done it a little and actually have gotten totally legit questions - I answered some tonight, and got things like: what was the Louvre before it was a museum, what is acerophobia the fear of (answer: sour things!), what is the name of the outfield wall in Fenway park.

The only difficult one was giving directions from this hotel to a local airport - difficult due to the word limit.

I sit around on the computer a lot, bored, so it's interesting. The URL reference is annoying, though, especially when I myself know the answer (for instance, the fenway park one.)
posted by Solon and Thanks at 10:14 PM on October 30, 2008

Solon: I actually got that exact question (I had to do a 10-question test thing, and I'm guessing they gave me real questions but had a paid person answer them) and it was hard to do the directions in the word limit.

It does seem to have some strange things (no wiki) but I guess it's legit. Thanks guys!
posted by DMan at 10:24 PM on October 30, 2008

I was doing the 10-question test thing, too - (outing myself as a newbie, hah!) I guess they give everyone the same questions, eh?
posted by Solon and Thanks at 10:42 PM on October 30, 2008

I didn't get the others that you had.

Another caveat is that they won't direct deposit the money to your account unless you earn over $100/month, which would be an astronomical amount of answers (well, 1000 I guess).

I'll report back in this thread with how this thing works out.
posted by DMan at 10:59 PM on October 30, 2008

Yeah, it's legit. I tested it for a while and made $60. They're very particular about how you answer the question though; there are definite rules and guidelines, and if you don't follow them, you won't get paid for your answer. They're even picky with how you write the word "chacha." If you don't write it out exactly how they want it, ChaCha, your answer could be flagged and you don't get paid.

And you only make $0.10 per question answered until you're a top guide. Top guides maked $0.20 per answer. You get that by answering, if I remember correctly, over 200 questions per week at a 95%+ acceptance rate. Not too tough if you read the guidelines and answer appropriately.

There are plenty of people "making a living" with ChaCha. There are a ton of house moms, it seems.

At my best, I could answer about 80-100 questions an hour, or about 40 seconds per answer, but I'd be burnt out after just an hour of doing it. So that's 90x$0.20=$18 per hour. I couldn't imagine doing it for 8 hours a day, but those who can will make a decent amount of money.
posted by nitsuj at 6:03 AM on October 31, 2008

ChaCha is legit, yes, but now might not be the time to start investing a lot of energy into it. TechCrunch has reported problems with the company twice in the last few months, starting with them cutting pay, and now there are reports that guides aren't getting paid on time or at all. My guess is they'll be on the forefront of the inevitable Web 2.0 meltdown.
posted by joshrholloway at 7:04 AM on October 31, 2008

Looks legit to me. The only problem I'm having is that in trying to sign up as a guide, the W-9 drop down where you put your state, there isn't a place where you can choose "DC" as a state. What's up with that?
posted by onepapertiger at 4:12 PM on October 31, 2008

I make most of my money on ChaCha.
I still work in a retail store, mostly out of a sense of obligation - but I make more money per hour (about $10 - $11) on ChaCha than I do at the store. And I can watch Law And Order while I work! The part that I like the most is that they mail you a debit card that you can add money that you've earned to whenever you want. So if I need some beer money, I can get on and work an hour or so, and then go pick up some beers.
posted by clcapps at 7:59 AM on November 1, 2008

Do you get to ask clarification questions? If someone asks "How do I get to O'Hare?" do you get to say "from where?"
posted by fatbird at 10:29 PM on January 7