Not long ago I did a review on a fairly new program called Cash Gopher and there were too many question marks for me, so I ended up taking a wait and see approach. As usual you all shared your thoughts, and as part of that I kept hearing more about a program that I've known about and has been around for awhile called the Gomez PEER Zone Community. So it seemed the right time to add a review about this company since it appears to be a viable alternative to Cash Gopher which I wasn't really feeling. I still love you MyLot though.
So what is Gomez PEER Zone?
If you're thinking it's a new Latin restaurant then you're wrong. But it may address your appetite for legitimate ways to make money at home. Gomez Peer Zone is basically a subsidiary of Compuware Gomez which was established in 1997 and has a decent BBB rating (if that holds a lot of weight with you). This is important to note because it goes to show you this company has been around and established. It's not in beta!
In any event, companies hire the Gomez group to run tests on their website's performance. This helps business owners identify network bottlenecks and any performance problems that can basically affect user experience and thus their money. The type of things they test is how website performs depending on the type of connection (Dial-up, DSL, Cable, etc), browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc), number of users, etc. It's not practical for Gomez to buy multiple computers and trying to replicate real world usage and scenarios. So instead they get folks like you and I to join their PEER community and they tap into your computer to run these tests and get the data they need. Are you now wondering how this is all done?
How to get started with the Gomez PEER Zone Community?
You fill out an application, download their free PC Based only PEER software. Then keep your computer turned on so Gomez can see your PEER is ready and waiting. At this point you are in “pending” status. Your account will get turned on and in “active” status at some point in the future. This often depends on demographics and they will tend to pick those whose computers are always available. When you become active, they will start using the software to test the speed and performance of websites. It runs in the background and you can set it so you never even see it unless you want to check your stats.
Allegedly, this software has no clue about what you are doing and where you do it. It is not like all those other cookies that advertisers drop hither and tither to target your habits. All they can tell is if your computer is on and the PEER software is running.
This all sounds harmless enough in theory. But I'm still wary by nature and I'm sure you are too. It's a good thing to be in this industry. However considering the longevity of the company and what I've read thus far, I feel a lot more comfortable with this company. If you are still concerned about it then that's understandable, you can always look at some of my other work at home recommendations like Swagbucks.com, Inboxdollars.com, Surveyjunkie.com, and Fusioncash.net these websites have a safer business model. You can also have a look at my #1 Free Work At Home Recommendation.
Computer requirements
You must have an Internet connection, a 500 Mhz Pentium III or better, Windows XP, NT, 2000 or 2003 Operating System, 128 MB RAM, and 40 MB of free hard disk space. You must also have the ability to visit secured or SSL encrypted pages.
How much can you earn?
We are not talking big bucks here. Like Swagbucks.com, Inboxdollars.com, Surveyjunkie.com, Fusioncash.net and so many of the other opportunities I promote, this is one small part of a larger plan of multiple streams of income. Money is money I always say and every little bit adds up especially when it doesn't involve doing anything but turning on your computer.
One of the things I like is that the monthly threshold to get paid is so low. It is only $5. Considering how little they pay you, it's a good policy to keep the threshold so low so it's relatively easy to reach.
So what is the exact amount you earn?
Well it depends on what country you're in. Basically, you get paid a teeny fraction of a penny for each minute they hook up with your computer to run a test. Sadly, the USA has one of the lowest pay rates ($0.000125 ). Our fine northern neighbors in Canada and the others in the British Commonwealth have the highest rate $0.0005000. Most of the rest of the world will get you $0.000250. Why is there such a discrepancy? My guess is supply and demand like everything else. You have to keep in mind there are already endless streams of “techno” information available about USA Internet connections and usage. Oh by the way, don't try to be slick and claim you're in a higher paying country when your ass is right here in the US. They go by your IP address although I know that can easily be faked. Either way I wouldn't encourage you to do it.
Online time is credited in 15 minute increments and the max is amount is $.08/a day. You could almost reach the monthly threshold of $5 just with this, if you were logged on 24/7 which I am.
How To Make More Money?
Like damn near every online opportunity I review there is a referral program. You're probably seeing more and more why I choose affiliate marketing as an online career. You can check out my #1 Free Work At Home Recommendation if you are interested. In any event, you're paid $1 per referral. But they have to reach an active status in order to get the credit. This makes sense for the company. Anyone that has done a good amount of referring knows a lot of your referrals are deadbeats users that aren't active. So Peer Gomez isn't trying to lose money by giving you a $1 for people's data they can't even use. Like most companies with a referral program they provide you banners to put on your website.
How To Track Your Money?
A Status Page is part of your PEER download. You can choose to have it pop up each time you open Windows, but a better, less annoying, option that most people choose is to just let it do its thing and open it from the status bar icon to check their stats. It will tell you exactly how many minutes you have been logged on, how many minutes they used your computer to process a request and how many active referrals you have. No secrets here, you will always know where you stand.
How do you get paid?
Simple and clean. After you reach the $5 threshold, you get paid on the first of the month via Pal Pal The maximum monthly amount is $45.
Here is what I like:
– The threshold is $5 and to me that is hardly even a threshold. That shows me that are not going to make you wait around forever.
-They have gone through several payment plans, but thankfully they settled on Pay Pal as their payment method, and my guess due to the reputation and stability of Pay Pal that will be where is stays.
-They have been around for a number of years which is an eternity in Internet years. So it is not one of those beta things or test drives. They have a track record and that is always a good sign in my book.
-For a computer geek like me who spend half my life online, the fact that you earn by being online makes this something that is appealing to anyone!
-Anyone that has access to more than one machine can put this on all of them just use the same email and user name account and get double the rewards. I read one guy owns a store and has it running on like six machines!
-One of the reasons I disliked Cash Gopher was that their software changed ads and did some other funky things. As a website owner anything changes ads on my site is stealing money from me. I know it's not something a regular user would care about. But either way I appreciate that Gomez PEER has nothing to do with that.
Gomez Peer Complaints
As usual I have to take a look at the down side of these things or you would never get the full picture. I definitely like this a lot better than Cash Gopher, but it is far from perfect. So here goes.
– To me I would think one of the ways to take the best advantage of this thing is to leave the PC on overnight and let PEER do its thing. However, in order to do that, you have to disable the ‘sleep' mode and automatic shut down features, that are energy saving devices. I know people with laptops that need it to shut down for a few hours because if they stay on endlessly the performance goes wacky. So be aware of that. Will the pennies earned counteract the power used? I don't know, but something to ponder.
– Not everyone gets to active status and those that do sometimes have to wait for months. As with surveys there are certain demographics they are looking for and even though you download the software and keep it on and available, they may not activate you. I read the complainers going on and on about this, saying that makes it a scam, when it is probably just demographics. Those same people will say a survey company is a scam because they don't qualify. We here know better. The good news is you can still refer people and get credit for them (only when they are activated) even if you are in the pending or inactive mode. They say to keep your computer running two hours a day. I would keep it on all day, every day at first until they activate me, so any time they check, it is up and running!
– This software is PC only. As a Mac only house, I hate when companies don't support Macs. But I understand that it's just business. There are more PCs than there are Macs so it only makes sense to support them. Fortunately I have a Mac running as a PC so I can still participate. But if you don't have this option on your Mac, you're screwed.
– Earning potential discrepancies. As we stated earlier there are certain countries that will make a lot more and thus reach payout faster. For folks in the U.S. it will take longer to bring in earnings. But how do you complain when you're getting paid to do nothing but keeping the computer turned on? You can't but I know some of you are bound to. So it was worth mentioning.
– Pay Pal. I love Pay Pal don't get me wrong, I think it is the one of the best ways to go these days with quick and secure payments. I exclusively use it myself. But paypal isn't always loved by many people for various reasons or isn't an option. So that may turn some people off. By the way when you sign up for this thing, be SURE the email address you use is the same email address you use with Pay Pal. A lot of you use the free Gmail or Yahoo for your surveys and GPT sites which is something I highly recommend. But for this when you sign up you need to use your Pay Pal email or you will never get paid.
– Computer may become sluggish. They claim their program won't slow down your computer. Yeah in most conditions that is probably the case… but what about if you have dial up? What about if your RAM memory is almost used up? What about if your computer is on it's last leg and just older than a VCR? These are all things that could could affect your speed when they are using your PEER software to process a request. So if your computer already tends to run slow then you may want to avoid adding anything else that will contribute to that problem. But if your computer is up to snuff and purrs like a kitten then chances are you won't notice any changes. However I just think they should better qualify their claim.
So is the Gomez PEER Community a scam?
From everything I can tell this seems to be a legitimate opportunity to get some extra cash into your Pay Pal account each month without a whole lot of energy on your part. They have history and a record of making regular payments. It gives companies helpful information about the performance of their websites and pays you a little change for the terrible “trouble” of letting them use your computer. Sure It's not much, but hey, you know my mantra. Every penny counts especially when you don't need to actively work to get it.
You do not have to depend on this website alone for your extra income, you can always pair it with one or more of my suggestions to earn online such as Swagbucks.com, Inboxdollars.com, Surveyjunkie.com, and Fusioncash.net. These site are also good ways to earn money for doing things you already do online.
Either way, let me know what you guys think about this company. Would you give it a shot? Have you tried it? Let a brother know below.
By the way, if you were rolling your eyes as you read about the money earned with this program and are looking for “real work from home jobs” that pay a lot more, you can:
You can also visit our daily updated work at home jobs page by clicking here.
See, was all that attitude really necessary? lol
I’ve been using this off and on since August 2001. In total, I have made $447.90 over the past 15 years. It definitely does not pay more than the cost of electricity. But, I leave my computer on all the time anyway. It does ramp up the CPU when it is actually processing, and therefore costs even more in electricity. The application says I have been online 7,985,010 minutes, which is more than 15 years, but I run it on multiple computers.
Processing time: 791,052 minutes (Average payout: 0.000566 ¢/minute)
My computer with the screens off uses about 180W of electricity when idle.
Over a month that is about 130KWh or 0.003KWh/minute. 0.003KWh costs about $0.00033.
Processing time is about 10% of online time.
100 minutes online = $0.03 of electricity
10 minutes of processing time = $0.00125
= Loss
Thanks for sharing your experience. I guess when you factor in the numbers it’s not worth it.
I am from India and I am using it for months still pending state. It even shows processing time but never a payout because still pending. I guess if you run it on many pcs then you can have enough processing time to make it active(as I have figured out)
Thanks for sharing your experience Rahul. Keep us posted.
Gomez Peer is a SCAM, FRAUD, FAKE, RIPOFF…all these words apply. I was a member for over 1 year, using 3 separate computers running 16 processors, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They intentionally send people enough work units to keep them under $5 per month so that they won’t have to pay them anything and still will get work done for free on those unfortunate people who have been duped into thinking they could make money. I think they need to be reported to the Federal Trade Commission and the US Attorney’s office for a detailed examination of their business practices. They are a complete FRAUD.
Sounds like you’ve had a crappy experience with this company. You should definitely report to them to anyone you think could help. Either way I appreciate you sharing your experience.
SCAM SCAM !!!! STAY AWAY !!!
Maybe back in the day they where not a scam, but now they are. They don’t Activate accounts anymore. I been running there program for over 3 months. Half of there website has broken links, along with the program. There Contact System gives errors on trying to send a message, you can’t tweet them on twitter.
So they are using your resources for free, making a buck off your back, and giving you a fake dream.
I search around, I found one forum with a user who works for Gomez selling active accounts for $20 with confirmed buyers. So yes, they are a money hungry scam site.
Stay away and don’t waste your time on them.
Sorry to hear about your experience with them. I wonder if that’s the recent experience for others as well. Thanks for sharing either way.
So far its a scam, I’ve been in pending status for over 6 months. The program has been using system resources the entire time without compensating me. At this point I feel its just wishful thinking that they will activate me.
I’m sorry to hear that Mig. Maybe it’s time to call it quits with them.
Hello, Eddy! Have you been using Gomez programm until now?
Hey Oleg,
No I haven’t. I never felt comfortable with the idea of them being on my computer. But others have. Why do you ask?
I am just interested. I have read your article and decided to ask you about this programm, because I have never use a such programm. Thank for your answer.
Sorry for my english, I’m from Russia and English isn’t my mother tongue.
Oh no problem Oleg.
I’m from the US and my English isn’t that great either. LOL So don’t worry about it.
Ah, looking into the google screenwise I came across your recommendation for this program, although I cannot benefit as I do all of my browsing between a mac, a chromebook, and my phone. Alas.
Fortunately there are many other ways to make money using what you have listed here:
https://www.workathomenoscams.com/i-need-to-earn-some-extra-income
Don’t go with them…they will use you… and then when you have some money in your account they will place your account as pending or inactive with no pay out!!!
Sorry to hear about your experience. It wasn’t worth the effort anyway.
Not bad! Thanks for coming back and sharing! Enjoy that warm and beautiful weather. I envy you right now. =)
I have been running gomez peer for over 2years now and they pay every month. It only take 14-16 days to pay. and for my account it took about 3-4 days to get active from pending so just keep the program running 24/7 …”referral link removed by staff”
I have been running the Gomez Peer for over 5 years. Something happened to my first account it was active for roughly 4 years and then it went into pending state. I emailed them and never heard any thing back, I went ahead and signed up a new account and it is working. I have been paid regularly throughout this time period. They do pay. I have it running on about 5 machines and do get paid every month. Yes they are slow to pay. It takes almost a month for me to receive my money but I do receive it.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m looking forward to hearing when you get your first payment. Brazil must be nice and warm right now! Lucky you! Thanks again!
So, I got it. I earned almost 7 dollars for 20 days online last december. I hope, as I improve in gomez rank, to reach the top amount per month. And…yes, in Rio, where I live, is really warm and beautiful. But the vacation is over, so, back to work!
Hello there, I ´m from Brazil and have been running gomez for 20 days so far. It took me about a week to get activated and right now I have about $5,00. I hope next month that cash will be in my paypal account. Maybe a good advice is, if possible, run gomez in many computers as you can after being activated.
I was using Gomez for awhile but had to stop and uninstall the software from all my PCs. Why? Because my machines started to play different audio ads all by themselves. From commercials to news announcements. When I was finally able to catch it playing I opened audio properties and found it was Gomez playing. First thought I had a big reformatted my desktop but after I reinstall everything including Gomez, it (audio ads) came back.
Not worth the little bit of money I’m getting to be awaken by my computer talking.
That’s a first. I guess it could be worst and installing a virus. lol I’m in the habit of turn off my volume anyway because then I hear the email notifications all night long which is a guaranteed way to keep you up at night. lol Either way thanks for sharing this with us. I wonder if others have experienced this as well.
I have been using the program for 2 years, and got paid only about 20 dollars. 3 days ago the audio ads started. I just uninstalled it.
Yeah I don’t blame you. It doesn’t really seem worth it.
Ran into this too. Kept freaking me out. Finally narrowed it down. I’m not sure it’s actually intentional but all the same it’s not good. I tried it again recently and it hasn’t been doing it so maybe it’s fixed.
That said I’ve gotten paid out plenty but I’m not entirely sure I’ve come out on top with electricity cost vs. earnings.
Sounds good. Just remember it won’t be a lot of money. But it will be more than what you’ve been earning with your idle computer in the past which was nothing. 😉
Keep us posted.
I got my account active today,and really excited about it,lets see what I earn this month as I run my PC 24X7.
I’ve been using Gomez Peer for about 3 and a half years now and been paid multiple times. I use the computers of the friends and family that I have stayed with over the years. I had a chance to see the if you have multiple computers to install on it does pay out faster by doubling the amount paid hourly. Depending on how much its used it could take 3 months of just surfing a few times a week for a few hours to get paid but why not its just a small working program in the background. Never tried the affiliate referral program yet but if it works than I would believe that it would make some money too!
Thanks for sharing Rod!
I have several computers at home and with family members. I may install it on all them to make me some passive money.
Hi, it’s me. I finally received the payment via paypal. $6.3 in total. However, it is a real hell of waiting, LOL.
LOL, Thanks for coming back to report what happened! A lot of these companies make us wait a long time for our money so I’m accustomed to that. As long as they’re paying then it’s all good. It’s nice to see our computers paying for themselves literally. lol
Thanks for sharing.
I dont know about Macs, but the client application works fine under
Wine/Linux (I am using Fedora 15 and the client installed and started
flawlessly).
Sounds good. Keep us posted.
I got activated in 3 days, and currently got $5.27 but I haven’t been paid yet because the payment day was over before I got enough. So I’m waiting for the next payment day to receive my money.
I hit the $5 and they never approved me 🙁
That stinks. Did you ever email them to figure out why this happened. Maybe you violated some rules unknowingly?
So this really works? I am considering on doing it but i don’t want to mess my computer up.
Read the article and comments below.
Just my 2 cents.. I been with Gomez Peer Zone for 2 years now. It took me 1 week to get approved but I have friends that it took 2-5weeks, and other friends just never got approved due to location or not running gomez long enough. For the last year or so I been making a 5-8$ pay out ever month or so, with no active referrals.
Current account stats..
Lifetime Earnings: $128.52Current Account Balance: $3.85 Earnings Close Date: 2011/08/31
Thanks for sharing your experience!
We’ve already discussed this in the cons section of this article. Be sure to read it.
sir i am using gomez peer more than 2months until now my status is pending. will it take time to get active…
because i am not getting money
I dont know why some people would lie as bad as this.
Gomez peer is a SCAM and some people are just hoping that they might pay them so they start to say some good things about them or probably they are working for this company and of course if you can call them a company.
I was registered for 4 for months and this program was taking too much of my bandwidth. but when I finally mailed them and asked them about my membership status they said we can’t guarantee you to be an active member. the funny part is my potential money was more than 100$.
Amir, just because you’ve had a negative experience with a company doesn’t mean everyone else has and therefore need to lie. It sucks that it didn’t work out for you and that’s fine to share with the world. But don’t run making up stuff just so you can get back at a company that you feel has wronged you.
When you have top news agencies that use Compuware Gomez statistics in their reporting, I’d consider that to be a good indication that it is not a scam (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44290480/ns/business-press_releases/t/which-sports-media-sites-offer-users-top-mobile-performance/#.TmeZEmrQ71o for a sample article from MSNBC). This company is basing its reputation on giving quality data about web traffic, so they wouldn’t go far if they started scamming the people aiding in this service. I too am sorry that it didn’t work out for you, but that doesn’t mean that it is a scam.
Larry,
I’ve seen this happen so many times with legitimate companies. Someone has a poor experience for whatever reason and because they are upset they run around the web calling a company a scam. This is why it’s important to try to take a lot of different data points and feedback and make a decision based on that. So I’m happy you provided this article. If 9 out of 10 are saying a company is good then chances are that’s what it is. The 1 negative report is probably the exception to the rule. That being said it doesn’t take away from the person’s experience who may have actually been wronged for no fault of their own. But in most cases I have found that the person crying foul has violated some rules unknowingly or purposely.
Hey Guys,
I’m actually one of the “successes” with this opportunity. When I first started it, I was working at a school that ran the Community Grid, and I got to wondering if there was a paid program that did something similar. I guess for awhile there was some buzz about an “open” program that you could earn credits to allow the software to run in the background, and cash the credits in for money, based on their current value. Businesses could also purchase credits to spend on the “processor farm” to study / solve some large computational task. I guess it was looking promising in the late 90s early 00s, but interest eventually waned (computers continued to get better and cheaper, so companies didn’t really need this resource).
But then I found both Gomez and CashGopher at about the same time, and started to do my homework on these companies. I first searched this sight, but alas Eddy hadn’t gotten to them yet. I also checked out BBB, and at that point Gomez was the only one that had anything on it (CashGopher was just too new, I guess, but since it advertised that it was from MyLot, I saw that MyLot had a decent rating). I also read thru a bunch of reviews and forum posts about these companies. Many people had trouble getting CashGopher to run (it sounds like from Eddy’s previous article that it may have something to do with the anti-virus), so when I eventually tried to install and run it, when it failed to function properly, I just gave up on it.
Gomez, on the other hand, did work and I had to concur with some of what I had found in my research. One major con that continuously came up was the waiting period before you got your account Active. I guess when Gomez first started, they were their own private company, and the waiting period was even worse than it is today. Add to that that the company was basically unheard of, many people claimed it was just a scam. However after Compuware bought them out, the waiting period isn’t as drastic and the “scam” claims have subsided a bit. The other major objection was the poor pay rate. It seemed like it works best if you have a lot of machines running for long periods during the day. I heard one story (not sure if it’s the same that Eddy heard) about a guy that owned a couple of internet cafe / coffeehouses and had Gomez installed on each PC in his shop. Like Eddy, I’m constantly on my computer, so for me it’s just an added benefit to have it running whenever I’m on. But I’d still take into account your energy costs before trying to hook up all of your old PCs lying around the house… It’s not worth it to pay the electric company more than what you bring in thru Gomez!
To date, I received my first cashout in October for $5.24 and since that time, I have earned $1.27 towards my next cashout. So it does take quite a while to earn enough to cashout, but considering that I don’t have to do anything to get it, it’s worth it for me.
One last thing I wanted to mention. I was surprised a few weeks ago when a news program used some study performed by Gomez to look at internet traffic during the holiday season. So it goes even further to show that this is legitimate, and that other businesses actually are using Gomez in their studies. If Gomez does make a name for themselves (just as Neilson has for television viewership), you could expect that you’ll earn more as more of their customers need processing time.
Larry,
Thanks for sharing your detailed experience with this company. I really appreciate it.
I would also like to confirm that Gomez Peer works splendidly. We’ve received multiple payments and are increasing our ROI significantly with some creativity. I would recommend this program to others and give it a perfect 10. Great community and well regulated. Hats off to GomezPeerzone!
Thanks for sharing! Hopefully whatever “Creativity” you’re using is within the guidelines of Gomez Peer. 😉
Hey Memphis,
Thanks for following up with the additional insight. That’s good to hear.
I brought you back huh with AllAdvantage huh? Those were the days. If knew all the stuff I know now back in the days, I’d be a billionaire today. lol
Thanks, I gave it a try. It reminds me of programs like Community Grid or Folding@Home, with the exception of course being those programs didn’t pay you. I had to install it on my husband’s computer because I’m on an old laptop that’s good for surfing but not much else.
I have to surf around the FAQ on the site a bit, because what I’m wondering is, what happens with multiple user accounts on one machine? Like, if my account is logged on, but then my husband comes home and logs into his Windows account, will the program still track?
You’re welcome Memphis. In addition to those companies, It also reminds me of AllAdvantage from back in the early 90s. But eventually that company disappeared too.
In any event, that’s a great question. You should probably email them directly to see what they have to say. Please let us know if you do hear from them about it. Thanks for chiming in.
I actually tested it myself to find out. I logged into my Windows account and installed the software. Then I switched users to my husband’s Windows account and left myself logged in. I checked back a few hours later and it did still track my time, so that’s great.
Also as a test, I did install it on my old laptop too, and I’m happy to report I haven’t noticed any performance impact at all. I do shut off this laptop at night but at least I can have it running during the day.
And, oh wow — AllAdvantage. What a blast from the past! Those were the days LOL!
As usual you share the many ways you think about business with the rest of us. Another “Shoulda listened the first time” is echoing through my head. I did the stupid thing and recommended Cash Gopher and ended up apologizing.(Learning curve). Thanks again!
Cathy,
You’re welcome. Don’t worry it happens to the best of us. It’s a learning experience. It’s just better to take a wait and see approach. Sometimes this requires a lot of patience. But it tends to work out better in terms of maintaining people’s trust. Then they are more inclined to join later things you recommend. I’ve literally waited weeks to introduce certain opportunities to you folks just so I could document that it works and was legit. But it always ends up being worth it in the long run.
Gomez has a facebook and Twitter account now where they are actively answering questions – it might be worth checking out.
FB: https://www.facebook.com/pages/gomezpeerzone/260880210593012
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/gomez_peer
Thanks for sharing!