PineCone Research remains one of the better paying and reliable survey companies, with a payout of $3 (check or PayPal) for each 15-minute online survey. The annoying part is that they only take applications intermittently. Here is the current application link at Pinecone Research, which is again accepting new members. (May expire at any time, so apply now if you’re interested!) Looks open to all, but only one person per household can sign up. Thanks @gbhargav for the tip.
Some users have reported a recent increase in unpaid “weed-out” surveys, while others seem to remain happy.
Other legit survey sites in my experience are SurveySavvy, InboxDollars, Opinion Outpost, GlobalTestMarket, NFO MySurvey, and BzzAgent.
More thoughts on paid surveys in general here. I call them Bored Money – not terribly efficient but you can do it at your leisure and occasionally get to try some neat things like shampoo, dog food, new soda flavors, and once a new $100 Sonicare toothbrush which I got to keep.