In the first place, you sign up for a survey site that you pick up. In the signing up     process the site will take in some of the demographic details about you.

Then as soon as the site can find some survey that suits your profile aptly, they invite     you through an email. This will contain a link to the survey, the approx. time period you     can take to complete it and also the compensation that you would be getting for the     project.

If you do not want to take the particular survey then there are no obligations on you of     any kind.

Once you are done with the survey, varied sites may compensate you in varied ways.     Most of the sites send a check. Others may pay through PayPal. Yet others may give     you gift certificates or drawing entries or even prizes.

In the initial stages you cannot expect to receive many of the invitations. But then if you are fortunate enough then some sites may send you numeorus survey invitations every month and even others are there who may just send a single one in an entire year.

In case you do not receive many of the invitations in the first few months do not get disappointed at all. You have to be patient until the ball starts rolling. There on you will start getting plenty of invitations, you can even choose amongst them.

Paid Surveys are generally short. Very few are there that would take as many as 45     minutes to answer. Paid Surveys are always taken online. You receive an invitation,     take the survey and get compensated in return.

On the other hand, focus groups do require a little more of your efforts. They generally     take a lot of more time and take place at an actual physical location. Or else they may     also take place over the phone or online in a discussion. These pay a little more and     are always paid in cash.

Finally, product testing involves the process of an actual product being sent to you for     real life testing. You can there on take a survey on the product or review it in writing. In     this case the product itself is your reward. But then some may also offer some     additional compensation as well.

As the Free Paid Surveys says, in case you have certain questions which are not answered on the web pages of the site you have joined you can very well search through the online forums for an appropriate answer. You can even post a message on any of the forums if you do not get an answer even after a detailed search. You can expect to be answered as soon as possible because most of the online paid survey sites do check their forum posts daily and are always ready to answer the queries of the users.

The answer to this question is "no". Spamming is one thing that most of the online paid surveys try not to indulge in as it hurts both their image among the members and also their portal ranking at the search engines. This is also an unethical thing to do on the part of the portal as the members provide the site with their details only on a ground of trust.