u/OneStopRedditor

Was off for 4 and a half weeks. It was unpaid absence due to delay in getting a fit note process.

The manager didn't send the ticket until yesterday afternoon to have the absence overwritten manually by HR admin to sickness, which goes back as far as March which is past the 28 editable period through Work & Pay.

I believe they say anything submitted by 5pm Friday before payday for manual transactions (assuming this falls under that) should be processed but could anyone confirm that? Worried because Colleague Help don't usually work weekends but maybe the team that ticket is sent to work offline on payroll weekends like this one to make sure changes requested on tickets are pushed through on time. Obviously they have to retro what should have been paid as SSP which sounds a bit complicated on older absences that have been through 1-2 payruns aa unpaid already.

So its a correction of 28 day+ <> coding changing to sickness, submitted before 5pm yesterday Friday. Solid chance it will go through? Its a good few hundred quid so obviously the steaks are a bit high for me lol especially bonus this payday too would slot nicely together.

Q: Can I make a living from Five Surveys

A: If you have no rent or mortgage to pay and can live on Sundries (general / any money coming in) sure, but be prepared to eat steak and beer on one day and vegemite / cheap cola on another. If most of your salary / income goes on mortgage / bills but live on the grain, it can also provide a bit of extra cash in your pocket as a luxury for groceries, and being honest, it can work under that setup. I'd be a hypocrite for saying that it hasn't got me out of sh*t street for food once or twice because it has, but doesn't discount the wider picture here. Something I hate above all else is dishonesty, I could be on my last tenner and split it in half if someone needed to eat with me.

Q: I made $45 today, I really don't see why others struggle to make that, they must be giving contradicting answers or really bad at surveys

A: No. This subreddit is about Five Surveys which runs under Prime Insights engine, basically the same software that runs Top Surveys etc. but ran under the hood by a different operator who pays Prime Insights to run the website and they lease the domain and hold the branding. They choose the 5 Surveys > payout option, it could be pay as you go, points, bars (like this site) or anything, but underneath it's the same old software running the decision making and survey routing.

I cannot go into detail around process and patterns because there are Prime Insights staff who look at these threads and it would be too easy to divulge openly for them to adapt, however anybody who is willing to get in touch, I can discuss the nooks and crannies.

Q: Why do I get reduced surveys quickly, even sometimes on the 2nd bar, then when I reach the 5th bar, it resets and I get maximum tiles again?

A: Because that is how the software is designed. Maximum friction, modest payout. Without going into too much detail as again, its open reading to the Prime Insights people, basically you are capped based on behavioural signals. This could range from anything from speeding through surveys to reach payouts to getting screened out on the website with pre screening. When it decides you are throttled, you will be paced according to luck and quota at the time.

Q: I am a new user, I get "technical error, please contact support" when I try to cash out and disqualified on all surveys, why is that?

A: It means your account is banned, Five Surveys do not have a direct and honest approach to this, but if the claim button doesn't work and you are not able to launch surveys despite tiles, you are unfortunately shadow banned and cannot appeal. Do not waste your time contacting support, they are minimum wage agents who have no system access and cannot change anything at all. Once again, there are more details around this on request but it is not for open forum.

Q: Are the half surveys worth doing

A: An inaccurate way of describing Prime Insights as a whole since it all runs the same software is like traffic shaping on the internet. It runs through a core engine and manipulates the schism. Yes, some may take 3-4 minutes, but most run through the same payout algorithm as a full survey would... and in fairness, some do actually credit as a full survey despite launching as a half bar, but most do not correspond correctly to effort with full / half.

They also strongly throttle your ability to ride half surveys on this basis, notice how similar to reaching 5 surveys, all the opportunities light up atfter 5 surveys. It calculates cost versus input from 0 to 5 bars, and its designed to make damn sure you haven't cashed 5¿ of any currency in your region unless you've earned it.

Q: I know Top Surveys, Prime Opinions etc. so is that linked to Five Surveys?

A: Yes, it is. Its the exact same software, customised on a client basis for companies willing to throw cash behind a domain and pay Prime Insights to run the engine behind it. Support agents wise, I haven't been able to clarify, but based on my understanding, the reason they are so utterly useless, is because pretty much anything beyond canned response level, needs to be forwarded to Prime Insights to pull the data from and then for them to forward back an excuse to either rip you off.... or rip you off. That should sum it up nicely.

Q: How much do Five Surveys get paid versus the one bar > ¿1 (your currency)?

Its not really easy to say, however rest assured that surveys completed on full, are paid at least ¿1, often more. You may occasionally get an easy survey but often times it is an AI / media firm paying good quota money for low input but high quality output data, these can be up to ¿2.50 where they are considered the high class escort of survey taking and some users on certain apps that shall not be named but everyone can guess get offered on an algorithm/loyalty basis but happen to spring up on Prime Insights from day to day. Of course, you are only paid one bar as a reward metric regardless of survey value. So, do with that, what you will... or more appropriately choose.

Q: Why are you posting this?

A: Because I am sick to death of playing into a system which is heavily aggressive towards users but ironically crooks within their own setup, I almost admire abusive users more than genuine, not literally I love both sides with a big red heart, but because if the scales were and have for a long time been balanced, they would be making so much more out of you, than they (users) could ever make out of them. Bootstrapping bad AI/ML never works, it just reduces their user base and margins which hasn't been unnoticed the last 24 months.

Q: Is there anything I can do to stop this?

A: No, not really. I'd love this to be some magical ad that leads to a winner formula, but the fact is, there isn't any snake oil. I'm posting this because honesty is the posion above honesty. But like I said, on certain points, if anyone needs clarification around Prime Insights, I'm happy to help but don't be surprised if I'm automatically suspicious that you are P.I staff 😆 so I'd rather you didn't contact me but if you must, I'm happy to give tips, and if you're someone from Prime Insights then do make my day by pretending not to be 🤣 I'm up always up for a laugh that's the next best currency over Euros.

We're performing a set at a venue in Vauxhall, London, part of our performance is to smoke on stage, which is considered an indoor public place under the smoking ban in that country since its fully inside.

After negotiation with the venue (I offered to pay both our fine and the venues if Westminster & City Council issue it) there was concern around licencing if they blindly agreed, however they have consulted with their legal advisor and we can go ahead.

The fine is up to £2500 for the venue and £50 per head for us. There is an exemption in the smoking ban for artistic performances which include smoking as context and we have notified the council of this, but as far as we've been informed the fine will still be issued if reported on the night and we appeal, with no effect on the venue so we have been given the go ahead. It is partly in protest to newer laws on my British partner's side banning the choice to smoke for new generation adults going forward and taxing & restricting vapes for people who have and want to give up cigarettes. Whilst we can't encourage people to follow and the fine would be on your head in the extremely unlikely event someone from the council turns up and captures your details, the audience is welcome to light up.

A lot of red tape, but we believe adult venues should come with freedom of choice and while it is against the law, it can also be settled with money and so that's what we'll do, we did ask our event goers on Facebook too and had overwhelming support to do it.

I'm really looking forward to visiting London and really overwhelmed by the number of people who want to come and listen to us. Its a wonderful city.

Perfectly fine, happy as larry, fully functional and getting paid for surveys, payout working, no issue.

Logged into the website on desktop because they have in-app frame for surveys, which means some of them have bad optimisation for buttons etc. plus its easier for me to do on a keyboard.

"Login attempts....blah blah blah, disabled temporarily" that's rubbish, never failed a login because I've only ever used it on my phone after signup since March.

Reset my password assuming some random error on their side and this would resolve it... bang, surveys empty, payout of my balance is blocked.

Contacted support, explained exactly what happened, no funny business either completely genuine action, even offered to send photo ID.

Next day, support gave the usual corporate generalised but trying to sound specific bullshit response that apparently the tech team reviewed my account (lie, the block was system based not by a human), that survey partners said quality of responses were poor, I am banned and legal action if I reopen another account (charming... also lie), funny how the block happened purely because of logging into my PC and seconds beforehand worked perfectly fine and dandy.

Why do companies lie like this? Admit your software is 100% automated, you have no control over it, that the block cannot be removed despite being innocently placed, explanation given plus offer of photo ID, which is more than I should rightly need to give given they already have my verified PayPal linked and are not a bank.

Dodgy! I know people sometimes post out of frustration and there's more to it than they say, but trust me on this... the site worked perfectly fine then minutes later purely because of trying to login to another device on the same IP address, utter grifters. I know I didn't do anything wrong, but because these companies employ cheap staff who aren't trusted to actually manually control the system, all they do is spew canned responses, it had nothing to do with survey feedback or quality control, other users have reported regular issues with login, and they openly advertise you are free to switch between devices to use their site.

Be careful and cashout as much as you can, they withhold the balance if you get caught like me, and have the cheek to call it fraudulent 😂

Someone said they were taken over by an American company recently, typical AI driven software, false flags and support just regurgitating without actually seeing my case is innocent and removing the block. Because they can't. I knew as soon as that happened it was done because I know what these grifters are like.

A lot of the surveys are badly optimised for touchscreen devices, mainly because Qmee insists on in-frame loading.

I went to login on my desktop, bang error message, despite never failing to enter my password.

I reset my password to try and override this seemingly login error and it worked, but now payout is blocked and no surveys avaliable. I contacted support but I assume it'll be a thousand years if at all, and my guess is that once their system blocks you, it won't be removed because everything is software driven these days.

Another user posted the same issue via website login, so it can't just be me, but even resetting the password (to the exact same btw, not even new), shouldn't FUBAR the account. So what's going on there? One of those situations where literally zero reason to cause this, except if something is wrong on their side.

Not being funny but why block over a password reset anyway, the only place you can withdraw to is your hard linked PayPal account and even if someone magically did a takeover of your account, they'd have to have access to all your accounts so makes no sense, its not a bank account.

Anyone with experience what will happen? They have the tightest re-creation of account prevention because they hard link your PayPal and there's no way I'm risking closing my PP to make a new one as I have an established history.