In this report, we will look into the not-so-new way of earning credits and whether or not it’s actually safe.

 

Ever had that moment where you really need to buy something, but you’re just missing a few credits? Well, back in November Habbo decided to help you solve that problem by introducing a new scheme where you can earn a few credits by simply, filling in surveys and questionnaires.

 

Sounds good so far right, quite simple and easy? But is there another side to this ‘scheme?’ Sadly, there is.

I found that for most “survey’s” they require a mobile phone number. I found this quite strange at first, because it was one of those ‘Win an iPhone 4!‘ type surveys, but I decided to enter an old mobile number, to see what would happen and after I did, I was asked for a code. 

 

I soon realised that what they actually tried to do was, send me a text which I then had to reply to. But in the small print of the survey, it actually says that if I did reply to that text, I would of been billed £4.50 every week, which is ridiculous. You’re basically buying around 1 to 8 credits for £4.50 when you could get 33 credits for that price via your mobile phone if you purchase directly from Habbo.

 

However, there was another thing that I found bizarre. On every single survey, they seem to ask you for your home address, mobile phone number, email address and other bits of personal information, which is actually quite disturbing. If you’re just filling in a survey, why do they need to know where you live? But then again, who says you have to give them your real address?… 

It also seems that you don’t get the credits every time you complete a survey. Out of the four times I have completed surveys, I only received the credits from two of them. So I went to investigate to see what was up and loaded the page with all of the offers that I have completed. Next to two of them, it said ‘complete’ but with the other two, it simply said ‘viewed.’ I was quite confused by this, because I definitely did do those two other surveys, so I decided to click on one of them. I completed three surveys on that page, however when I refreshed the ‘Check Offers Status’ page, it still said ‘Completed 0.’ 

Quite annoying really, considering I spent about an hour all together doing them. Yet I am still bamboozled at how Habbo call this ‘safe.’ How on Earth can it be safe if they are asking you for your personal details? Isn’t it Habbo that teach you not to give out personal information, yet they advertise surveys which ask just that? Oh the irony…