Become a researcher
Sign up to become a researcher on askdownunder! Our mission is to allow the most talented internet
researchers in the world to be identified and rewarded. Researchers are paid directly by customers via PayPal™ using their
PayPal™ account or possibly even a credit card.
This requires the researcher to have a PayPal™ Premier or Business account (a Personal account is not sufficient, but see below if you want to try askdownunder before
deciding to obtain one of these accounts). These accounts have "no start-up or monthly fees, no cancellation fees and no minimum payments" (PayPal™).
You can sign up for one by clicking this link https://www.paypal.com/au/mrb/pal=SKAJHQZHHUNDA and then choosing
either a Premier Account or Business Account. Note that $USD is the currency used on askdownunder. Make sure you understand the fee structure of each type of account before
obtaining a Premier or Business account or upgrading an exisiting Personal account.
If you want to try askdownunder before getting a PayPal™ Premier or Business account then sign up using the email address you would use for a PayPal™ Premier or Business account if and when you eventually get one. You can then
log in to askdownunder to retrieve and bid on queries and begin a session with a customer. Be aware that you will need to obtain a PayPal™ Premier or Business account before the
session ends in order for the customer to pay you.
You're paid directly by the customer via PayPal™. The customer is presented with a PayPal™ Pay Now button that is configured with your PayPal™ Premier or Business account
e-mail address and the price (in $USD) you quoted to help them. Clicking this button allows them to pay you using their PayPal™ account or possibly even a credit card. The money is then credited to your PayPal™ account.
The customer is instructed not to pay you until you have finished providing the search results, and only then if they find
the service you provided them satisfactory. Under the terms of the Researcher Agreement you have
no recourse to askdownunder if you do not get paid.
Based on information on the PayPal™ site as of 25 September 2008, you can withdraw money from your PayPal™ account directly to a bank account in India or a number of other countries. In addition, you can withdraw to a credit, debit, or prepaid card in India or a number of other countries.
Notwithstanding these observations and regardless of your location you are responsible for understanding how
PayPal™ regulations affect your ability to send and receive payments and withdraw money to your country.
You owe askdownunder a commission of currently 9.60% of the price you quoted if you're paid by the customer. This rate applies for queries originating from our homepage. Queries
submitted from partner sites may have different commissions.
Do NOT however pay askdownunder until you
are presented with a notification during log in to do so. We keep track of what you owe and wait until it reaches $5-10 USD before presenting you with notification to pay askdownunder.
You pay askdownunder via PayPal™ from your PayPal™ account. Our email address to send payments to will be provided with
the payment notification. Notification to pay askdownunder only occurs online during log in.
You will never be e-mailed a payment notification or a link to make payment to us. Any such requests should be considered fraudulent.
You can reduce the commissions you pay to askdownunder by sending a personalized link to our website to people you know. Your personalized link
is provided when you sign up and is also displayed whenever you log in to Account Management.
Only
e-mail this link to people you know. To do so otherwise is a violation of the Researcher Agreement which prohibits sending references to askdownunder as spam. Your personalized link directs users to our home page where they can ask queries. You earn credit
of currently 5.30% of the price paid by users for help with queries that originate from your personalized link. This credit only offsets commissions you owe and it cannot be converted to
cash.
You earn the same credit for any paying queries that result from searches of our archived query database which yield one of the queries that you helped with. Your personalized link is embedded in a search box alongside the best link you found which answered the query. If someone searching our database for related information finds your link useful they should be more likely to submit a query of their own. Therefore its in your best interests to submit to us the one best link that answered the query when prompted to do so.
Log in to begin a new session. Queries from customers are automatically displayed and
if there is a break in the flow of fresh queries an alert will sound to get your attention when a new query is received. This saves you from having to
constantly monitor the page.
To the right of each query there is a space for you to type in your price to help with the query if you want to submit a price quote. You can
submit quotes for as many or as few queries as you want. If a price quote submitted by you is accepted by a customer then a chat room will automatically appear
in the top half of the page allowing you to communicate with the customer in real time. The rest of the page will display the query and an abridged version of these instructions for
reference.
Once you see the chat room, be the first to say Hi by immediately typing a greeting. Ask the customer any questions necessary to make sure you completely understand their query but don't ask for any
personal information, including their name. You must not represent yourself as either an agent or employee of askdownunder.
While searching don't leave the chat room - do your searching in another browser window while leaving the chat room window open. If you use the browser
window containing the chat room for internet search then you will exit the chat room.
Find the customer the EXACT web site(s) that answer their query (you need to check the web site(s) for relevancy before sending them to the customer).
To send the customer a link, copy the ENTIRE INTERNET ADDRESS INCLUDING THE http:// from the Address line of the browser window which contains the web site, then paste
THE ENTIRE INTERNET ADDRESS INCLUDING THE http:// into the space where you type chat room messages.
This will make the internet address a link that the customer can click on to open the web site in a new browser window.
TEST THE LINKS YOU SEND TO THE
CUSTOMER BY CLICKING ON THEM YOURSELF. If you have done it correctly, the link will open up in a new browser window and you can be sure it will work for the customer.
If you don't test (at least until you are sure you are doing it correctly) then the links may not work for the customer, making it less likely they will pay you.
If the links are not clickable then you have copied them incorrectly, perhaps by accidentally including some extra characters when you copied the internet address.
Example: If the query is "What is the projected market size for solar energy in South America for the next five years?" and you find that the URL www.renewenergynews.com/pubs/analysis.html has the
information, YOU MUST PASTE http://www.renewenergynews.com/pubs/analysis.html INTO THE CHAT ROOM - NOT JUST www.renewenergynews.com/pubs/analysis.html. YOU MUST INCLUDE THE http://
You must have JavaScript turned on for the chat room to work. Updating to a more recent version of your browser will
resolve most other problems.
To protect the security of your account there is no online method of recovering a lost log in number or PIN. Neither do we e-mail you a record of these numbers when you sign up so you must take
responsibility for securely storing this information. If you do forget your log in number or PIN we require, without exception, the following:
Write a letter identifying yourself and requesting the lost information and sign it. Have this letter certified by a notary public or its foreign equivalent. They must certify that you are the person you are claiming to be in the letter. Include your name and address and, if only missing your PIN, the first 5 digits only of your log in number. If you are only missing your log in number then include the first 2 digits only of your PIN. Airmail this letter to our mailing address.
After verifying your letter and attempting to contact you via your askdownunder account, we will airmail you a letter which contains the required information to the mailing address we have on record for you (not the one in your letter if it is different, so keep your mailing address on record with askdownunder up to date using "Update your information" within Account Management). There is a fee of $17.50 USD for this service to cover the processing and mailing cost.
We will never send you e-mails asking for account information or asking you to click on a link in the e-mail to log in.
If you get such e-mails purportedly from us you can assume they are fraudulent.
Notification to pay askdownunder only occurs online during log in. You will never be e-mailed a payment request or a link to make payment to us. Any such requests should be considered fraudulent.
If you like this service tell others about it to help generate queries for you to answer! You can keep track of where people are coming from by clicking on
the map below left.
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