Mintvine Review: The first bad review?

Lynne

9 years ago

I recently heard about Mintvine and the impression I got was quite favorable so I couldn’t wait to check them out and see if I could make some money. So what is Mintvine and are they all they’ve been cracked up to be? Hardly! And I’ll show you exactly why in my Mintvine review.

Just be patient with me with this one because this time I am going to walk you through what happened every step of the way. I want you to see for yourself exactly why I gave them a big fat zero!

Mintvine Review
Overall Ranking: 00/100
Price: Free
Owners: Branded Research
Website: www.mintvine.com

Table of Contents

Introduction: What is Mintvine?

Mintvine is a platform where you can surveys, do polls and take up offers to earn money or gift cards. You earn points and once you have 1000 points you can cash out. 1000 points is equal to $10.

I registered with them and I will take you through the entire process of my personal experience so can make up your own mind. I am going to take you through what happened to me with screenshots at every single turn so you can feel what I felt!

The registration process was simple and fast. They asked a few questions and once I was in I saw I had already earned 310 points by filling in some basic info. I had already earned $3.10, great now I want to see if I can make some more points and what it entails.

I moved around their website in a methodical fashion, if you look at the above image I clicked on Check out Survey Street to “take my first survey” and the result was nothing available as per the screenshot below.

I clicked on the next option for Points Place and it started to look a little more promising, 70 points per survey and 15 minutes per survey.

When I clicked continue it once again tells me that there are no surveys available as per the below screenshot. Very disappointing.

The next option was to take the poll for 5 points which I did and I earned my 5 points and made it to 315.

Now I have clicked on everything available in the main dashboard so I start exploring the top menu items. The first thing I click on is MVP. This turns out to be a Mintvine referral program. I can earn 15% from anyone I refer to Mintvine as well as receive 50 points when they complete their first survey. Yes I do affiliate programs and I am all for that… IF I believe in the product. I will never promote anything that I don’t believe in or is not worthwhile for me. I decide to first complete my investigation before I make up my mind.

I click on Local Deals and there is an error so I can’t see what this is about. I did research about this section later on and from what I can gather you can purchase things and earn points. For me personally I have one goal and that is to see if I can make money here. For me that means I can do things and earn. It does not involved me spending money or buying anything so this section does nothing for me.

The next section up is Offers, no I don’t want to play Lotto. I also don’t want to download useless things to my phone, not even if I make money. Sorry but I am not religious and I am happily married – not applicable.

Let’s scroll down and see what else they have to offer… once again I don’t want OLX, wallpapers or Gumtree on my phone. I certainly don’t want to pay $1 to sign up for a trial to watch movies and then have to cancel before they bill me the full price whatever that may be. Once again I am wanting to make money, not spend it!

Let’s scroll some more. Once again useless apps which I have no interest in. My phone, ipad and laptop are for work purposes, I don’t want these things.

I am starting to really feel bored now and scroll down a bit more. There is a game I can play for 9 points or another useless thing I can pay $1 for. I decide to try the game, what the heck I am researching right?

I click on the game and realise it is not up my ally and really don’t want to register my details in another place. I will have to play 5 games to earn my 9 points and this really looks like a game I saw my brother in law playing. I think he played one game for days on end. I have better things to do with my day, I skip the game and look around some more.

I click on another tab in the offers section and hey I can unlock High Paying Surveys! Maybe I have just been in the wrong place? All I have to do is answer a few simple questions, lets click!

Here we go this has to be it. I am not 40 mins into Mintvine and really wanting to find something worthwhile here.

I get taken through 3 sets of questions, one of which is the screenshot below. Easy enough and simple.

Here we go, it seems I have finally found where they keep the surveys. Seems a little roundabout to me, but I know where to go now.

So I click on the first 2 surveys on offer with the same results, sorry not available. I am trying to be open-minded here, but really why is it that every single survey I click on is suddenly “unavailable”?

I try out the 3rd survey and I wonder why I have been taken to Toluna Surveys and have to register again? But hey I can win money (R9 900 is approximately $800) so lets go with it. Plus I will earn 36 points.

Next page up, yes I agree to this “study” lets move along now. I really am getting bored and agitated!

I go through 6 survey questions about where I live what sort of work do I do and suddenly this comes up. Hang on, it said it was a daily survey I can take part in? This theme is getting old now. I go check my points to see if I have moved up and I am still on 315 points so they didn’t give me my 36 points.

I head back to the dashboard to see how else Mintvine can waste my time today. I find a Personly button. Clicking on it I find it is going to take me to a new window. Fine, does it really even matter anymore where you send me? I am all over the place today.

And this is where I land up. Got it? No I don’t get it at all. I don’t know where I am or what for. I click on the big green “Got It” button anyway.

No I don’t get it, really I am now on a Personly website with more offers and I can earn points. In the name of research I plod on and start clicking on various “surveys” and “offers” which you can see on the screenshot below.

And here is what happens with each and every survey.. Are you surprised yet? I am now well over an hour into this expedition.

Fine, lets click on the voucher rewards. Yes I know I don’t even want a voucher, I want cash but I want to see if anything anywhere actually works. Does anything work on any of these websites?

And here we go. I can win a voucher… Hang on wasn’t I earning a voucher? I really am confused now, I didn’t realise I was entering competitions!

Oh dear now they want my address, phone number… What the heck I’m in so deep now, lets do this.

And you know what? Here comes some actual questions. Do you notice anything strange about these questions? And there were loads of questions!

Here comes the next page, with offers on. Another long process of saying NO.

And here we go, now I can win a whole YEAR worth of groceries! Hang on wasn’t I entering this to win a R2000 grocery voucher? Well we had better keep going, who knows maybe I can win both? Yes let’s click how exciting!

And now you want my details again? Haven’t I filled my details in about 4 times since I started on Mintvine… oh wait remember I’m not on Mintvine. I am travelling through cyber space now at a rapid pace. Not even sure where I am, where I’ve been, where I am going and certainly not where I will land up in the end.

Then I had to laugh out loud what happened next. I am taken to a count down screen! I have to call that number before the line closes in 1:03 minutes. I had to force myself to stop shaking with laughter just long enough to take a screen shot. I then managed to take a good look at what was really happening here. A bit later we’ll check out the Terms and Conditions in the small print that you won’t notice in those seconds while you are frantically scrambling for your phone!

Please just bear with me while we just stop and back track. This started out as an earn voucher offer right? Then it suddenly became a win a R2000 grocery voucher. It then suddenly changed into being a year’s worth of groceries. Look at the screen shot above and see what it says? Win Computer and under that Win Groceries for a year. Now look at the screenshot below in the small print. What is maximum R6500? The amount of yearly groceries you win? I can easily spend that in a month on my family. Perhaps it is the value of the computer you win, hardly a state of the art computer for that value!

Then look at the really small bits. You will be charged R10 a minute to call them, you need to fill in an activation code and then you answer questions over the phone. You get 100 points by answering the questions correctly. The person with the most points wins, in other words you have to stay on the phone and keep answering questions? Even the way to enter the competition and win the competition is quite frankly not clear. Neither is the prize. Further more Shoprite and Checkers are upstanding companies, they are well thought of. When I think of Shoprite and Checkers I just can’t believe they would get involved with something like this. I sincerely doubt they are sponsoring anything.

Ok let’s go back to Mintvine again, there are a few things I haven’t looked at yet. I’m not sure why I am bothering, this is clearly not the make money opportunity I was lead to believe. I have now been online messing around with this for well over 2 hours.

I click on something called Peanut Labs, and I am so relieved it isn’t working, I get a completely blank screen. That probably just saved me an hour of wasted time.

I click on something called Adwalls and it tells me once again it must open in a new window. Then I get a window that tells me I will be able to Unlock High Paying Surveys. Have we heard that before today? Hey we can also win a R13 500 supermarket voucher. I click on it anyway, just for the sake of the screenshot.

And here we go. Enter your phone number to win! It is easy, although now it is a R2000 shopping voucher. Read the small print and you’ll find that if you enter your number you will be on a subscription service for umm hold on we don’t even know! What we can see is if you enter your number here you will be billed R6 per day.

I have now gone through almost all the features on Mintvine that I could find. There is only one part that I haven’t looked at and that is the support. I found it strange that a website that can waste my time like this has forums! So I just had to go have a look at all their support, help and forum features. Here is a screenshot of what they offer.

If you click on the blog it takes you to a blog and quite frankly I found the topics irrelevant to what their website is about. They claim you can make money, well then write posts on how your members can make money. Give them tips and tell them how. A post about Halloween and another about Spring? Yeah that’s nice and sweet, but what is it there for. I can’t figure it out.

The next items on the list are the Quick Help and Forums. There is a reason I put these together and you’ll understand soon. I just want you quickly to think about what you think of when you see Forums? I think an interactive community space where members can ask questions and get help from the rest of the community as well as the staff of Mintvine. Maybe I am a bit stupid and my understanding is incorrect.

The reason I put those 2 items together is because whatever you click on it doesn’t matter, it takes you to a FAQ sort of page. There is are no forums. They don’t exist. I had a brief look at the page and there was nothing interesting there. Just Questions and Answers that Mintvine has put together.

Can you Make Money from Mintvine?

I sincerely doubt it! As you can see from my experience this looks like all it does is waste your time. Oh wait and steal your personal information too of course!

But there are plenty of people claiming this is a great opportunity. Here is a Youtube video you might find interesting….

Is Mintvine a Scam?

No I don’t think Mintvine is a downright scam in itself, however they are not upfront with what they are doing and the websites they associate with are dubious.

My Verdict for Mintvine

I have to be honest here and say this was a very annoying experience and I would not advise anyone else to bother. What disturbs me the most is that I personally investigate any alleged opportunity I can find. Not only do I sign up myself, but I also search online and see what other people are saying. I did not come across any negative reviews for Mintvine before I signed up myself. I read a whole load of positive reviews and immediately thought this must be a great opportunity to share with my readers. How can that be?

I’ll tell you how. I could have done a glowing review, added a link to Mintvine. Yes an affiliate link and earned points for screwing you over! That is how people make money from Mintvine, screwing other people over.

I will not put an affiliate link on my website to anything I consider even slightly underhanded, even if I can make a killing from it. I will not do it. I despise the thought of advising anyone to use Mintvine to line my own pocket with money. No thank you, I would rather starve.

Not only that but a lot of people do not personally investigate the website. They read another person’s review instead to write theirs up and because there are only positive review they assume this is legit and a good website. This is taking a short cut. There is a reason people get conned and fall for these things. Lets not be sheep here and lets all out in our own work and come to our own conclusions based on our personal experience.

Maybe Mintvine does not have a definite scam on their website, however they are most definitely affiliated with websites that are untrustworthy. They have huge big buttons on their website sending you there! On that basis alone I give them the thumbs down. I will not associate with and start business with any person or company I feel is dishonest or untrustworthy. Mintvine has done this, they have links sending you to places to waste your time and your money.

Further more shortly after entering my details into Mintvine and the websites they sent me to my phone beeps… spam. I check my emails and I have loads more spam than usual. A little while later my phone rings… do I want to buy life insurance? Then my phone beeps twice in a row and yes it is spam. Barely 24 hours later and I am bombarded with spam from all directions.

Thanks Mintvine and friends. I said no I did not want anyone contacting me, I am not interested in any offers. How irritating. So you and/ or associated websites have sold off my private information and wasted my time?

I have seen people saying that they have made money from Mintvine, one lady commented on some or other website defending Mintvine and saying it is not a scam. She has been on Mintvine regularly for the last 2 months and just cashed out her first $10. Congratulations to you young lady! I am happy for you, but also incredibly sad that it took you a full 2 months to make $10. It must have been a long and painful 2 months. I wasted one afternoon and nearly lost it.

Yes I admit too that I refused to download apps to my iPad or phone so there were offers I maybe could have made a few points on. But really think about it, you want to make money online and so do I. Would you consider this a career, would you be proud to say you make money on Mintvine? Would you quit your day job? Would you be proud to say you made money referring people to Mintvine?

This is my personal review and through my personal experience with Mintvine and the websites that Mintvine associates with I rate them a complete time waster and annoying website. This one ticked me off big time.

Are you tired of being messed around like this? Then check out how I make my money online, a lot more fun and certainly more worthwhile!

Mintvine Review
Overall Ranking: 00/100
Price: Free
Owners: Branded Research
Website: www.mintvine.com