American Consumer Panels Review – Is This A Scam Or Legit?

You may have come across product testing jobs such as the American Consumer Panels that guarantee working hours, and a hefty hourly pay. People rely on the Internet to look for jobs.

While there are thousands of jobs online, the problem is looking for legitimate jobs since many scams have infiltrated even the legit job-hunting websites. But is this true? Or is it just another scam? Read my complete American Consumer Panels review before sending in your applications, you’ll be glad you did.

• Product Name: American Consumer Panels
• Founder: Unknown
• Product Type: Consulting company for product testing
• Price: Free to join
• Best For none

The American Consumer Panels is a product testing and market research for new and existing products. It provides part-time jobs for people looking for work-from-home opportunities. However, the American Consumer Panels seems to have many red flags here and there to pass as a legitimate company.

There is more negative feedback than positives which is alarming for an FTC-verified company. Plus, a lot of things that I have uncovered which we will discuss later on in this review.

• Ratings: 0/100

What are the American Consumer Panels?

The American Consumer Panels claims to be a consulting firm that develops and conducts local and national product testing. The company was launched in March 2016. They cater to small businesses, and product and research managers who would like to submit their products for in-home usage tests.

Some of the clients of American Consumer Panels are well-known brands such as Apple, Angelcare, Babyliss, Breville, Fisher-Price, Ray-Ban, Sony, etc. Their client’s products are sent to their product testers for a thorough evaluation. The product testers are then paid for their work supposedly.

How do the American Consumer Panels work?

How the American Consumer Panels work is that they send the products to their team of in-home usage testers, then these testers will evaluate the product and send in their report.

They guarantee 15 to 20 work hours per week with a salary rate anywhere between $25 up to $45 per hour which depends on the product-testing task. Well, that was how American Consumer Panels are supposed to work. But there’s a different story in reality.

After signing up and setting up your profile, you will be given two or three links to different survey sites. These survey sites are outside the American Consumer Panels website. You will be asked to answer these surveys as part of the “qualification” process. You would have to “agree” to accurately provide the following information to them:

• Age
• Gender
• Marital Status
• Lifestyle
• Consumer behavior
• Skills
• Hobbies
• Abilities and so on…

The American Consumer Panels said that they are partners with consumer research firms to determine your demographics and detailed consumer profile. They claim that by doing this, they can identify the wide variety of products you can test which in turn guarantees continuous work.

After completing the surveys, you will wait for their advice if there’s a product that matches your profile to be sent over to you for testing.

However, it seems that the applicants were not contacted anymore. This leads most applicants to think that the American Consumer Panels is another bait-and-switch platform.

It turns out that there’s no physical product that will be sent out to you for you to test and review. The next thing you know is that your email or phone is bombarded with spam messages from them and the survey sites.

Because of this and several other reasons, it is easier to assume that American Consumer Panels pretend to offer legitimate jobs and require their applicants to take the surveys so they can earn referral incentives. The idea alone is upsetting especially when you terribly need a job for your living expenses or to support your family.

Although the American Consumer Panels started in 2016 and become quite popular for a brief moment, its website visits increased again in 2020. It is when the COVID-19 pandemic started which caused businesses to close down and mass layoffs are happening everywhere.

People are desperate to work and unfortunately stumbled upon this company. Imagine the disappointment when they found out they were deceived.

American Consumer Panels Review: Can You Make Money?

The direct answer is no, you can’t make money with American Consumer Panels. Most likely, the only people earning here are the owners of this so-called consulting firm. They earn from referring you to survey sites outside their website. And with unemployment on the rise, there could be a lot of people answering these surveys for them which in turn gives them a huge sum of profit every day.

On average, you can earn anywhere between $1 to $5 for each referral depending on the survey company. You can also earn points which you can accumulate to convert into gift cards or Paypal cash, or 10% to 20% percent of your referral’s lifetime earnings.

So if you refer about 100 people to the survey website, you can earn up to $500 from the referral incentives. Imagine if you get 100 referrals a day, for a month you can get up to $15,000.

Most likely, this is how much profit the American Consumer Panels gets from their unsuspecting applicants.

How To Make Money With American Consumer Panels?

Sadly, there’s no way that you can make money with the American Consumer Panels. The application process is a bit shady. I noticed a hint of deception while reading it. Their FAQs said that after sending your application, the consumer research firms will continue to build your profile. This could mean answering more unpaid surveys.

You may have seen their product tester’s gallery containing photos of their in-house product testers and the products they have tested. However, if you inspect these photos, they do not have dates when they were taken.

It makes you think that they are old photos. The last update of their four-page website was back in 2016. Even their Facebook page has become inactive since that year.

Pros & Cons of American Consumer Panels

It appears that the American Consumer Panels has numerous red flags but for the sake of understanding, let’s discuss the pros and cons.

Pros of American Consumer Panels

• Wide range of products to be tested (allegedly)
• Profile-based product testing
• No skill or experience required
• You get to keep the products sent to you
• Good pay

Cons of American Consumer Panels

• US residents only
• Part-time work
• Plenty of complaints and negative reviews
• The business address is a virtual office
• Unknown owners
• No products to review
• Possibly out of business

Any Negatives? Beware of Lawsuits

I was not able to find any lawsuits against the American Consumer Panels or its parent company Innovation Consulting LLC. However, you will find a lot of complaints and negative reviews online.

It wasn’t too long ago when BBB notified consumers that the American Consumer Panels may be out of business. BBB said that the emails they sent to the company bounced back.

But perhaps after this notice, they decided to reply to one of the complaints against them. They explained how they are not a scam and why the surveys were needed. It is up to you if you would believe their explanation or not.

Is the American Consumer Panels Legitimate?

The American Consumer Panels is a scam product testing company. Even if they are FTC verified, there are a lot of red flags that you can’t overlook.

First, they claim that they provide product-testing jobs but many complaints say otherwise. They bait and switch you to survey websites and earn from the referral incentives.

Their website has been dormant for years. They have never made any updates since 2016. If they were indeed hiring, you would notice new faces in their product tester’s gallery. But it’s the same group of people.

Their business address is occupied by a different company, Servcorp. This company offers both physical and virtual offices, coworking spaces, and meeting rooms.

This could mean that you can’t go there for any of your concerns and expect to meet the people working for American Consumer Panels. It seems that they are only renting the address and most likely operating from home.

The American Consumer Panels also claims that they were featured in media outlets but these are paid press release distribution services where you pay and submit your own press release article. There were only two of them, the other one leads to error 404.

Furthermore, if the company is legitimate, people would have come to their defense. But what you’ll find are countless complaints and negative reviews against American Consumer Panels. There are a few positives but it seems that the same person is writing them up.

Final Thoughts

I do not recommend American Consumer Panels if you are looking for a legitimate job. Especially if you need to get a job asap. Many people have already claimed that this company is a scam. And I think so too.

In their website’s FAQ section, the American Consumer Panels explains that they are not a scam because they never ask you to pay or purchase anything to become their in-home usage tester.

In my opinion, only scammers say that they are not a scam. The first question on their FAQ was about whether they are a legitimate company or not. If they are a legitimate company, they never have to explain themselves. The more you explain yourself the more you look suspicious at least for me.

I don’t have anything against survey websites. Answering surveys can indeed earn you some extra money. You can find legitimate survey websites and directly sign up through them.

In this way, you get paid for answering surveys and referral incentives as well. It’s a better option than answering unpaid surveys for American Consumer Panels.

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