Sometimes I just type in a word from their question on google and cite that page. In your snow and heat example I would just type one of those. Also, sometimes when I CAN NOT find the answer I just write an interesting fact about the date like "5 years ago today ____ happened" and I've gotten 100% on those so I'm not sure if that is okay or I am just lucky!

3/22/2009 4:26:36 PM

^ good advice

If someone asks me something like " how are you doing today?" I will usually site a source dealing with whatever mood i am in.

3/22/2009 8:36:39 PM

What do you do for Opinion questions!? What do i cite!!!! Someone asked me a scary movie, I cited Rotton Tomatoes page for it. What do i do for opinions or comments!!! Is chewing gum bad when you're running!? What do i do

3/22/2009 10:59:31 PM

give your honest opinion and cite runnersworld.com

3/22/2009 11:04:56 PM

what cite do you get those "5 years ago, today happened" from?

3/22/2009 11:11:00 PM

you can look it up on wikipedia and then find a different page to cite

[Edited on March 22, 2009 at 11:17 PM. Reason : e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_22]

[Edited on March 22, 2009 at 11:20 PM. Reason : or just use http://www.on-this-day.com/]

3/22/2009 11:15:54 PM

what happens if you abort a topic or ask the customer to clarify? does this effect your ratings or anything?

3/22/2009 11:40:22 PM

aborting lowers your completion rating, but clarify does not iirc

3/22/2009 11:42:51 PM

3/14/09 85.76923077% 99.8% 565

Did kinda crappy for week two, one women gave me a zero i didn't ever have time to dispute. Aw well.

Did 200 searches tonight hanging at home for that extra 3 Sunday special dollars.

What sucks is now my hours have been pumped back at work, so sitting on my ass doing this other then nights and weekends is no longer available 2 days a week. haha. I'm glad to be working full time again though!

3/22/2009 11:53:09 PM

what about declining a Q that is your special interest

3/23/2009 12:30:56 AM

**crickets**

3/23/2009 1:45:55 AM

no kidding

3/23/2009 2:06:33 AM

I'm still new but some of these questions are tough to answer. Someone wanted to know the username of a guy on a match.com commercial. How am I supposed to answer that if it's a random no name actor and the commercial doesn't give his name or username? Then another question I was just answering that was a tough one, after 5 minutes it said I took too long and gave it to someone else

I dont wanna suck at this, I'm usually good at finding info on the internet

3/23/2009 5:52:17 AM

yeah. you will get those that are really tough, or someone just trying to stump you. You have to be creative sometimes and give a witty answer that kinda circumvents but still responds. Like someone asked me how many M&Ms would fit into this Dome building somewhere. I said.. well the Dome is this big, and an M&M is this big, so my guess would be MILLIONS! or something retarded.

Sometimes i really just say I'm sorry i can't find it. Someone asked me where in a setlist a certain band played a certain song on a certain show at a certain place. I searched all over and couldn't even find the BAND ITSELF..

I guess we'll get used to it.

3/23/2009 6:47:57 AM

ChaCha is pretty tough right now because they are almost all generalist questions. It has something to do with the high volume combined with the lack of expeditors. So you never know what kind of questions you will get. Once they get it all ironed out, you will start getting questions that are only in your specialties, which makes it much easier.

and yes, hitting abort effects your completion rating, which ChaCha wants you to maintain at 95%. If you just reject a specialist question before accepting it, it does not affect your completion percentage. I have heard mixed things about customer clarify and haven't gotten a straight answer yet, but I try to only use it when absolutely necessary. just don't abuse it.

3/23/2009 9:06:19 AM

this sounds interesting.

3/23/2009 9:25:07 AM

I used to get all specialist questions, but for the past week they have been all generalist. They are working on it though, because I have already gotten a few specialist questions this morning

3/23/2009 9:36:33 AM

i know kgb isnt as good on payout but I figured id try it. the test was pretty easy. passed in in 10-15 minutes first try.

3/23/2009 9:42:13 AM

^ they've got a call center right up the road from me in Whitsett. Are their payouts really not better? I would have assumed it would be better because you have to pay for kgb.

3/23/2009 9:44:21 AM

says $0.10 for most answers, and $0.05 for others. seems like most are $0.10 though at least after looking around online at what people were saying

3/23/2009 9:46:55 AM

oh I have to fill out a tax form? Bummer I can't do this

3/23/2009 9:52:29 AM

^^ wow, that fucking blows. I think they charge their customers $.99 per question. so that's shitty that they only give the guides, the people doing the most work, only 10%

3/23/2009 9:54:31 AM

^yea :/

^^?

3/23/2009 10:03:58 AM

You have to fill out a W-2 when you register, and its considered independent contracting work, so if you make over 500 dollars, you'll have to claim it on your taxes.

3/23/2009 10:05:09 AM

Quote :

"oh I have to fill out a tax form? Bummer I can't do this"

It is a company that pays you to do work for them. What did you expect?

3/23/2009 10:07:42 AM

^^yea I understand that, but I didnt understand why she couldnt do it

[Edited on March 23, 2009 at 10:08 AM. Reason : ]

3/23/2009 10:07:52 AM

she's out of the country.. although i'm not sure if that matters or not

3/23/2009 10:08:45 AM

^^^ some of these online deals don't make you do that.

^^ It screws up my current tax status if I earn money in the United States. It's complicated

^ Yeah, I would be screwing over my tax exempt status.

[Edited on March 23, 2009 at 10:09 AM. Reason : .,]

3/23/2009 10:08:46 AM

Quote :

"some of these online deals don't make you do that."

isn't that illegal? or possibly the other online deals don't have the potential to make over $500

[Edited on March 23, 2009 at 10:11 AM. Reason : a]

3/23/2009 10:10:35 AM

The latter.

3/23/2009 10:11:55 AM

Yeah, that makes sense then. At the current rate I am going, I will probably make about $3k this year from ChaCha. I could do more if I would set aside time to just sit down and focus for a few hours, rather than just answering questions here and there when I am bored.

3/23/2009 10:17:53 AM

This would be perfect for me right now because I have 5 hours at work where I'm doing absolutely nothing till April. Maybe I could get my mom to register for me lol.

3/23/2009 10:20:12 AM

yeahh i'd do that if i were you lol

i've been too busy to get on there lately. i like to have an hour or more to just answer questions back to back when i get on.. lately i just haven't had enough free time at work to do anything and haven't felt like doing it once i get home

3/23/2009 10:23:09 AM

I mean, it would be pretty easy to make $3600-$4000 a year if I would just devote time and focus.

If I just made $10 a day, that's $300 a month. My average question pay rate is $.13 so I'd only have to answer 77 questions per day to reach that goal.

If I focused and set a goal to answer 100 questions per day, that's $13 per day on average, or $4745 per year.

And that isn't even factoring in the money I make off of my team members, which could easily be $10+ per week if they were all working consistently.

If you read the guide forums, that's how they do it. They just set daily goals and do whatever they have to do to reach them.

3/23/2009 10:27:47 AM

how is this funded - some sort of advertisement?

3/23/2009 10:44:47 AM

ya

3/23/2009 10:46:02 AM

Yeah, send a question to ChaCha and you'll see it.

basically, when you send in your question, you get a response saying "we are working on your answer" or something like that. Then at the bottom there is a clickable advertisement. I think they put ads at the bottom of the answers too

3/23/2009 10:47:13 AM

i just didn't think that advertisers were paying more than $0.20 per text ad - maybe because the ad is targeted based on question type it's more expensive

3/23/2009 11:20:51 AM

I'm not really sure how it works. I know ChaCha is also hiring advertising sales reps. It's a commission only contractor position, similar to being a guide. I thought about looking into it, but I need some sort of a base salary right now.

3/23/2009 11:30:39 AM

I think they also have a contract with At&T so that's prob funding it a lot.

Also, Has ANYONE gotten MONEY IN HAND yet?

3/23/2009 11:43:02 AM

Still waiting on my debit card. i faxed them the verification of my address last week so I hope to get it this week sometime.

Like I said though, my sister does Direct Deposit and she gets her money on time every month.

3/23/2009 11:47:56 AM

Okay. I think i'm going to prob get direct deposit at the end of this week. I need to go open a new account.

3/23/2009 12:04:24 PM

is there any reason NOT to do direct deposit (from a safety standpoint) if you think you'll make at least $100 every month? I set it up through my current bank...just wondering if that was a dumb idea and what to do at this point if it was.

3/23/2009 2:07:35 PM

hmm, i might sign up.. any other info i need? seems like it'd be fairly easy to do.

3/23/2009 2:49:08 PM

^^ Direct Deposit is the way to go as long as you know you will make at least $100 a month. The only reason I started with the debit card was because I wasn't sure how difficult it would actually be to make that $100 a month. Plus it is a lot easier to switch from the card to DD than vice versa. Now that I see how easy it is to make the minimum, I am going to be switching to DD, probably next month.

3/23/2009 5:16:53 PM

what happens if you don't make the $100 minimum?

[Edited on March 23, 2009 at 5:23 PM. Reason : and are on DD?]

3/23/2009 5:23:05 PM

It carries over to the next month. You just won't get paid that month. Basically, they won't make a deposit into your account unless it is at least $100

If you are on the debit card, you can load it whenever you want at any time. They just charge $2 per loading.

[Edited on March 23, 2009 at 5:45 PM. Reason : a]

3/23/2009 5:27:36 PM

anyone having the same luck I am with not getting many questions??

3/23/2009 7:03:21 PM

They are WAY slower today than yesterday for me, but I have to go ahead and make it my official statement that taking the time and doing your interests is WAY worth it. I saw the category pay rates, and signed up for all that were close to .20 and I am getting so many of these, and I answer 5 and I have 1$. Some general .10 ones are thrown in randomly, but they take no time at all.

I also found that early morning hours I primarily get ONLY my interest questions... back to back to back.... Perfect way to get just a little more $.

3/23/2009 7:47:45 PM

^ yep, you are getting it figured out. Like I said earlier, before I ever answered a single question I took 3 hours to set up my categories. it has paid huge dividends.

You should also get tons of questions now for the rest of the evening. my busiest times are early morning and after 8PM or so. It's even busier when there are tons of sports games.

I haven't been on much today because I had an interview and a half-day ride-along, but the times I have been on I have been nearly back to back.

[Edited on March 23, 2009 at 7:50 PM. Reason : a]

3/23/2009 7:50:10 PM