Side Cash

Don’t Work for ShortTask.com

The Good / Well, it got you to this page and you'll find out about legitimate alternatives.

Join These for Some Quick Wins
  1. Inbox Dollars - Get paid to check your email. $5 bonus just for signing up!
  2. Survey Junkie - The #1 survey site that doesn't suck. Short surveys, high payouts, simply the best.
  3. Nielsen - Download their app and get paid $50!

The Bad / You'll get paid 5 cents an hour to spam the web. By the end of the week, you can buy yourself a burger from the McDonald's dollar menu!

My Recommendation / Don't even think about signing up for this one. Go with a more reputable company like Swagbucks. It's free to join, you get a $5.00 offer just for creating an account, and their tasks pay much more and won't leave you spamming the web.

ShortTask Review

There have been a few programs popping up lately that offer to pay people to complete small mundane tasks. For example, you might get paid to post a comment on a blog, or write an article, or get in contact with people.

The most reputable program around is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program, but there are some new programs opening up, like ShortTask.

What is ShortTask?

When I first stumbled upon the website, I thought that this was surely going to a great way for you guys to make money online. You complete a few small tasks, accumulate money, then get paid. I even sent an email over to our good friend Eddy at http://www.workathomenoscams.com/ to cover ShortTask as well. Shortly after sending that message, everything went downhill and I quickly apologized for my email.

I started glancing through the available tasks. There were a few high-paying tasks available. For example, you could round up a few resumes and earn $5.00 or write a 300-word review for $3.00. The pay wasn’t impressive, but for someone who has time to kill and desperately needs money, working at ShortTask could make all the difference. It was around this time that I found out you needed to have accumulated $50 in order to get paid. This was warning number one. If you were completing work, why couldn’t you get paid immediately for the work you performed? It would take quite some time to earn enough money to cash out.

I started digging through the tasks a bit more and it quickly became clear that there was no way in hell I was going to give this a positive review. It seems that the best paying jobs were put up front to entice you to join ShortTask and perform work. However, dive a few pages deep and you’ll find tasks for no more than 5 cents per hour! Five measly freakin’ cents.

You’re better off wandering the streets looking for loose change! I was mad when I saw the five cents per hour tasks, but I was furious to see another task offering to pay $0.02 for an hours work. TWO PENNIES. TWO MEASLY STINKING PENNIES. Are you kidding me? No one is that desperate.

Once the initial outrage subdued, I wanted to find out more information on who was running ShortTask. I stumbled upon quite possibly one of the best online smackdowns I’ve ever read at “SHORTTASK.COM IS THE NEWEST SCAM WEBSITE BY ANDREW HARRISON BARNES”.

I found out that the person running ShortTask.com was Andrew Harrison Barnes. A short time ago, Mr. Barnes was banned from Amazon’s mechanical turk program for life for paying people to spam the web for him. With nowhere else to go he founded ShortTask so he could continue to pay people a pathetic amount of money to post false endorsements for his various spam websites. The following is an excerpt from the post above and I highly suggest you read it all the way through.

The main purpose of Barnes’ “tasks” on ShortTask is to get people to post false endorsements of his scam websites. By doing so, it causes postings on other blogs and websites to fall down in the search engine listings related to him, thereby making him and his scam sites seem legit. Therefore, when someone tries to look up relevant info on Barnes or his scam sites, the first thing that comes up is the numerous more current postings of him which are no doubt positive, since he is offering to pay individuals to post them.

Many of the names of the individuals making positive comments about Barnes are false names and aliases and in fact posted by Barnes himself. In fact, many of the names of the so-called “employees” or “representatives” of Barnes’ companies are made up.

They are, in fact, Barnes himself. Andrew Harris Barnes is low class and low rent. He has created a sophisticated facade of himself on the internet by using aliases to pretend he has so many employees and properties and business locations. The truth is that Barnes uses answering services in almost every city in which he claims to do business. He owns little to no property. Even the buildings placed on his websites can be found in stock photo images of buildings or are addresses to buildings which he does not own and holds no leases. Didn’t I tell you he was prolific?

The Bottom Line

Stay far away from ShortTask. The pay is awful and the “work” you complete could potentially land you in a lot of trouble. If you are interested in making money completing tasks, then sign up for Swagbucks. The company is reputable and it’s a good way to earn a little extra side cash in your down time.

Have you had any experience with ShortTask, Barnes, or Mechanical Turk? If so, leave a comment below. We’d love to hear from you.

43 thoughts on “Don’t Work for ShortTask.com”

  1. Gosh, was literally just about to sign up and see if it was a decent way to earn some extra money, but thankfully my mind told be to check some reviews on Google and I came across yours. After reading this I’m glad I didn’t sign up…I’ll definitely be staying, not worth my time at all!

    Reply
  2. When I joined shorttask, I thought it was unusual that Termination was at the discretion of the company. But my trust was earned back when the policy was for me to ‘protect my identity’ and always use the credentials I signed up with (the legal name and billing address), now I fear I’ve lent my name and genuine information to the slanderer of slanderers. When I authenticated my account and logged in, there was a bullentin for “Solvers” in India who were not able to access funds. There was also an exciting development: Now you only needed to make $10 to withdraw your wages. A glance at the titles and I knew the tasks were spamming, false membership gigs. I went to account settings to attach Paypal/ Delete all money ties- and no such function exists.

    My moral: Don’t just read the fine print. Ask yourself if you are desperate. You’re probably stretching your ‘seems legit’ senses if you are desperate.

    Reply
  3. I’ve worked several tasks and only got emails that my 2 of my submission tasks have been rejected.
    Even though it’s just a simple task and very little pay (especially because I’m from Indonesia), and I don’t think I did it wrong.

    too bad I didn’t google it first :( wasted time

    Reply
    • I’ve been doing this since 2014. I got my payment of USD 10 at the first time (surprisingly, Shorttask paid me).
      A year later I redeem another USD 10, but no pay to me after about 2 months.
      Already write to them tons of email but no response.
      My advice is stay away from this website.

  4. I pay 35 dollars, i post a task for a survey. The task don’t was working correctly and anyone can solve it. I am trying to contact them since a lot of days. I use the contact form around 20 times, anyone answer… Go away from these site!

    Reply
  5. I’ve been doing HITS for Amazon for about a month now. I’ve earned about $40. The money isn’t that great but being able to find something to make money from home is worth it. I’m hoping to be able to make more money when my kids get back into school. The main problem that I’ve had has been transferring my funds but I think that I’ve got it worked out now. It just seems like there are too many steps. So far so good.

    Reply
  6. Rewards You Have Earned
    Value
    Approved Tasks
    $0.46
    Bonuses
    $0.00
    Total Earnings
    $0.46

    I’ll forget about this then. ;)
    Thanks much. Wasted few hours.
    San

    Reply
  7. Inboxdollars.com pays you and it’s easy to acquire the money, lowest pay out is $30 I believe. I have received a check from them. It takes about a month for your first check after requesting it. But it can be very week after that. I also think you can get it through withdraw to PayPal or to a bank account. But you do get paid. I’ve been using it for years. Hope this helps.

    Reply
  8. Damn this shorttask website! This makes people works for slave and just pay peanuts as reward!!! I’m currently registered there and wow, the jobs completely sucks! u have reason not to work for scam…. I didn’t knew and now i no longer desire to waste my time there ever again!

    Reply
  9. Wish I had seen this earlier. Definitely tried shorttask out and I keep having my work rejected even though they are simple things like, “click on 3 ads in my site and post the urls they take you to here” or “comment on my youtube video.” Waste of my time if you’re going to make me get money for your site adds and boost your ratings on Youtube if I don’t get anything.

    Reply
  10. I wish I had read this before wasting time yesterday completing tasks which were all rejected. They were simply to leave a comment on certain sites. I followed the instructions exactly and still had all my tasks rejected.

    Too much aggravation for so little return.

    Unfortunately mturk rejected my application to join. Most likely because I live in New Zealand and I’ve encountered regional problems/restrictions before.

    Reply
  11. Pal I m just open up my account with them and suddenly thought came in my mind to check review about it.I was concern when I saw their website.It was looking unprofessional and unattractive.Thanks for the info.

    Reply
  12. CloudCrowd is also a legitimate company. You get paid daily through paypal. This is good for people who can write good and edit work. I have been doing their research projects which only pay 1 cent per task.. I take a couple minutes out of my day literally and make about 50 cents lol. If you know how to write well though, you can make a lot of money. Mturk does always pay but it is just so low for the amount of time spent working on the tasks (for me anyways). It takes me about 10 minutes to make 2 cents! When clickworker has good jobs available, I make 2 cents every 2 seconds and average out at about $12/hr.

    Reply
  13. I have been working for clickworker for about a month. They are legit. Paid weekly through paypal or monthly directly to your bank account if you choose. I have always gotten paid through them. I do all my work through UHRS jobs (crowdsourcing). I have been making just over $100 per week.

    Reply
  14. Caution: Shorttask absolutely won’t pay you. In other words, you’ll withdraw the money to your PayPal account from ShortTask Interface – but they’ll never actually “Send Money” via PayPal to you. Site is utter, complete scam… still alive to ripp of ass many people as possible. It’s practically a criminal operation going on.

    Reply
  15. I also signed up for shorttask but the amount it pays turned off my high spirits. I am currently working with clickworker.com for a few weeks. Can anybody give me an update on this ??

    Reply
  16. I was really glad to find this article before I signed up with short task. First rule of finding good sites online: research!

    I love what Mturk can do, and I spread the word everywhere I can (blog, natch), but please remember that it’s not Amazon doing the hiring. What they do is provide a PLATFORM for requesters to hire taskers. There are many trustworthy projects and users on Mturk, but you should still exercise due caution.

    Reply
  17. I also want to thank you for this review! I have a blog about working from home and I’m always looking for info that will help my readers! I took a look at this site myself and the pay that they are offering is TERRIBLE! and for the amount of work that they want you to do the pay that they are offering is ridiculous!

    There are far better more ways to be able to make money online – and more legitimately too!

    Reply
  18. I spend about two hours per day on mturk and have made more than enough money to finance my childrens birthday parties, as well as gifts for outside birthdays. I find some of the tasks fun. Even though it is not a real income, it has saved us out of pocket money for birthday presents and such. I am a stay at home mom and it gies me a way to kill some time. Last month I made $156. I also like it because I do most of my online shopping at amazon.com.

    Reply
  19. I am currently a member of Shottask. I completely, 100% agree with the fact it is a SCAM. I have $19.55 in tasks completed, I was only approved for $1.50 for them when they were all the same tasks and done exactly the same. I contacted shorttask. and NEVER got a reply. I contacted them 3 different times. Still no answer. So I am cancelling my account and posting this link to my friends so they cancel also.

    Reply
  20. Oh God. Thanks you tell me to discover this site. I just join with that shorttask, advice from my friend. Fortunately I found this article first. Thanks for your warning. So, What do you think about microworkers? is that scam too?

    Reply
  21. I’ve started using Mturk as well, and am too, not a US citizen. The only option is to transfer the money into an Amazon gift voucher.
    Good thing is that Amazon sell almost anything you can think of.
    And they ship it internationally for a small price.

    I’m glad I found this article, I was about to sign up to Shorttask myself.

    Reply
  22. I use mturk for the last 12 days, it is fun, now im collecting $4.7..but i m thinking to close my account, i am not U.S citizens, and i dont know what can i do with the money in mturk account..

    anyways, shorttask is a big scam!!!

    Reply
  23. I agree that shorttask is a biggest scam in the web. First, they pay money for posting and after some time they make false replies telling that you have posted wrongly or something other than that. They are really the biggest scam…………..

    Reply
  24. Short task is the biggest piece of %*$% i have ever encountered in terms of working online. rather than waste your time with that site you are better off looking for those cyber begging site or simply walking the streets in search of pennies like someone suggested earlier.

    Please rather work for them go to sites like Mturk,elance,getafreelancer and render your service at a price that will not make you have suicidal thoughts now and again.

    My 2 cents (just like short task)

    Reply
  25. I was also excited about finding this site. Checked it out and asaw that the amount you had to accumulate it get a check and paled. I tried a task worked great for a .05. Then is looking around found that they were essentially asking oyu to scam other sites in their tasks. Post somebody’s job offer in as many job sites as possible for like .10 since i am looking ofr working and had seen the bogus posts it seemed dishonest to provide other folks these posts do I just eliminated them from a place to look for work. Nice to see the blog and find out this guy is a bigtime fraud!!

    Reply
  26. I acquired the 20 dollars needed to get my withdrawal from short task and they never sent me a dime of it. I requested to speak with someone there 4 times about the issue and never received a single response.

    DO NOT use the site it is a scam and a waste of your time.

    Reply
  27. I am trying both mturk and shorttask.. Tasks in shorttask seems to earn more, but after reading your article, I am thinking whether I can continue there or not. Did anyone got paid through shorttask? If so, kindly reply me to my mail ID or discuss here… Thank you…

    Reply
  28. I have been a registered user of Mechanical Turk for a long time.I have still to make enough to cash out but the pay per task is small.BUT they are honest and I am getting there.Depends on what kind of task you want to do, the easiest are low pay and more timely ones pay more. But I like the site and if I have time to kill I go there.

    Reply
  29. Interesting…someone was just recommending this site to me. Thanks for the warning! Yeah it doesn’t seem like there are too many sites of its kind that are actually legitimate. Although I have come across a few that are but you have to jump through hoops (posting resume, taking dozens of tests, providing sample work, etc) before any tasks become available to you.

    Reply
  30. I tried Mechanical Turk, it seems easy enough, was happy to find a 25 cent task that was actually fun (experimenting with online software). I did get bored of MT quickly, I started to think the time I am spending online I could be building a profitable website, or creating a blog with a following instead. This is just my take on it though.

    Reply
  31. Mechanical Turk is great. For the most part, the pay is super low, but they’re usually very quick tasks and if you’ve got an hour or two to kill you could rack up a little change rather quickly. The first night I tried it, I made a whopping 13 cents – but for a very short amount of time, and would have gone quicker except I was getting used to the system.

    It’s a decent way to earn a few cents here and there as long as you keep your expectations low as to how much you’ll make, but it’s there to be had – I mean, heck, I got paid a cent or two to follow someone on Twitter – how difficult is that, right?! Easy, easy money (and some more $$ if you care to take on a little more difficult stuff).

    Reply

Leave a Comment