Reward Apps: Scam Or Real?

Welcome, one and all, to an unusual little posting. You see, I’ve been noticing more and more so-called ‘Reward Apps’ popping up on the Google Play Store. If you don’t know what these are, they basically involve you completing tasks and, most importantly, watching ads in order to get real money. They’re promote as essentially being money for nothing. Sounds too good to be true, right? The question is, are they all as scamtastic as they sound? Well, I spent two weeks playing three different reward apps in an effort to find out the answer. So, let’s have a look at what happened.

Fishing Journey

One of the two most prevalent styles of reward apps are ‘fishing games’. The basic idea is similar across all of them, but looking at this one specifically, it is thus: you cast your line into the water and move it left and right to catch fish. Each different type of fish is worth different amounts of in-game coins, and these are used to upgrade your line. You also get ‘cash bottles’, which contain real money, ranging (in my experience) from $0.01 to $2.00. Once you hit $10, you can claim the cash.

So, this one started out well. It’s dull, of course, but the graphics are colourful and stylized enough to counteract that a little. In the beginning, I was getting around three cash bottles for every full run of thirty line casts. As I edged closer and closer to the magic $10 mark though, the cash bottles began to dry up. Since hitting $9.51, they’ve disappeared completely. I cast the line a couple of hundred times since then and found no money whatsoever.

I checked a few reviews and saw that other users had the same experience. In the spirit of fairness, I e-mailed the team behind the game. Twice. I got no response. Given that mine is a common experience, I suspect the game is simply built this way.

Final View: Scam.

 

 Plutus Doll

You see this type of game less. Basically, it’s a bit like an arcade machine. You have a limited number of balls, and use these to shoot at plushies that are moving across the screen. The plushies are worth coins, and these can be exchanged for rewards. The game also throws out cash wads that you can shoot down and gives you bonus coins and cash for logging in each day. Much like with Fishing Journey, you need to get your cash level to $10 before you can claim it.

So, this is an odd one. In terms of the coins, they’re slow to build up. The smallest reward you can claim is $10 via PayPal, and that costs 30,000,000 coins. Which will potentially take you months to build up. I honestly don’t have the patience to push that through to the conclusion, so it may be that the app does pay out on that.

It certainly doesn’t on the ash though. I managed to build up $9.90, then shot down a $0.10 wad. The total didn’t go up. The same thing happened when I was awarded $0.50 or my daily log-in. Multiple times. I checked reviews and saw that this is a common thing, and so, I sent two e-mails to the developers. No response.

Final View: Scam on the cash, uncertain on the coins.

 

Lucky Money

The most common type of reward app is the scratch card app. Which is what this is. Here, you scratch off scratch cards in an attempt to win cash and coins. You can also take part in raffles, a lottery, crack open prize eggs, play wheel of fortune style spin games, and use slot machines. The cost? Watching ads. The payout levels vary, with the cash being $10, and coins ranging from 3,000,000 for a £2 Amazon voucher to 47,500,000 for £40 via PayPal.

This was a mixed bag for me. In terms of cash, it’s the same old story. I hit $8.45 and haven’t had any more cash since. The raffles are all for cash, and I haven’t won once yet, even after building up more than 200 tickets in one or two. Again, this seems to be a common occurrence. I do keep playing though, and here’s why: it did pay out on the coins.

You see, it’s quite generous on the coins. Sometimes, you only get 3,000 one a card, sure, but if you match one number on the lottery you get 50,000. The eggs too have given me 250,000 a few times. As such, I was able to build up enough to claim £8 worth of Amazon vouchers. I made my claim and was told to expect the voucher in my e-mail within 14 working days. It arrived after a little over a week, and it worked. In fact, I’ve now done this multiple times!

Now, there is only a limited number of each prize, so you do need to wait for a refresh sometimes, but…given I only spent about 30 minutes a day in total to get this far, I’m not too worried by that. The ads are bad, mind you.

Final View: Possible scam on the cash, but definitely not a scam on the coins.

 

So, there you have it. It would appear that not all reward apps are entirely scams. But what about yourselves? Have you used any of these apps? Have you used any others and managed to get a payout? Let me know in the comments below.