Sago Reviews 225

The company will blow you up DAILY via email, calls and texts to confirm that you are still doing the work for the scheduled time. The second the scheduled time passes they never answer you again.
They go unresponsive.

I worked with Chelsea Bolanas.

1 star score is TOO HIGH. They do NOT pay the money promised for consumers to participate in research studies. I wasted over 30 hours doing a study on disposable adult underwear. TWO MONTHS AGO the study was completed. I still have not been paid $175. THEY NEVER NEVER answer their phone. There is voice mail which nobody at SAGO listens to . The only have total CRAP email non-existent customer service which babbles incoherent gibberish in incoherent emails which does nothing to solve the problem

DO NOT - I repeat DO NOT waste your time on SAGO Schlesenger Group consumer research studies. I am suing them in Small Claims Court for FRAUD and BREACH OF CONTRACT - for the $175 promised to me and I'm asking the judge for TREBLE DAMAGES which brings up the court ordered judgement to $700. I can get a Writ of Execution and a court ordered lien from a small claims judge to enact a lien on their corporate bank account Im in California and SAGO is in New Jersey so NOBODY is going to travel 6000 miles round trip to dispute my lawsuit in Small Clains Court I will WIN BY DEFAULT I'm going to print out all there long list of negative client reviews - its all over the internet. SAGO is "Dirty Bids".

THEY are scammers on the level of Megan Markle "grifter" and totally non existent customer service. The net worth of this company is about 1 billion but they are severely understaffed, pay slave wages, revolving door of turnover. There staff is trained to GHOST customers and DUMP YOU.

Extremely disappointing experience working with this company. I completed and delivered a project in September 2024, and over four months later, I am still waiting for payment. While they demand high-quality work from their vendors, they fail to uphold their end of the agreement when it comes to timely payments. This lack of professionalism and respect is unacceptable.

If clients knew just how long it took for participants to be paid, they’d choose another company for their research studies. It takes about 2 weeks to be notified that “points” for a study you completed has been added to your account. Then you have to redeem the points for a gift card. It says it takes 20 business days to process. Well that’s a lie. The last few times I redeemed points it has taken 6 WEEKS to receive my payment. So expect to be waiting about 2 months to actually be paid after you complete a study. Absolutely ridiculous.

Don't be surprised if payments take 3 THREE MONTHS from the time you complete the survey/project until you actually have the money in your hands. There's the wait time after the project for everything to be approved, then you wait for the pmt to show up in your WALLET, then don't be surprised if THAT takes another 30 days. This is the last time I deal with them and I do not recommend them to anyone.

October 2025 - still waiting.......

Did a 2 day mock jury for Sago in Culver City in Jan 2024. Never got paid. They insisted they sent debit cards. They didn't. I wrote a certified demand letter. No response. I'm suing for the $655 + court costs + the $150 dollar fee the server. Court date is in March 2025 at the Superior Court of CA County of LA Beverly Hills Court House. Doubt they show. I'll let you all know.

I took a survey almost 3 months ago and still haven't been paid

Sago is a very unprofessional organization. As many others have stated, they hold your money like they don't want to pay you. I wasnt aware of this. I have been dealing with them for like 2 years. I didnt have this problem in the beginning. Now its ridiculous. I have been waiting 2 months to get paid and they still haven't processed my payment. Horrible!!!

Same complaint as a very users.
They take forever to pay and have zero customer service.
They don't answer calls and they don't return calls or emails.
It's been six weeks since my participation.And they have not even acknowledged my payment yet.
And if you know their proces, once they tell you, you have a reward available, you have to claim it and wait another month or more to actually receive it.
This time I have been waiting for 8 weeks and still no payment.
If I receive notification today, i would still have another month to wait for the payment. So three months to get paid. BUT.... I haven't been notified yet, so it will be even longer.
Horrible company

Use to be great. Would pay timely for participating in studies but now it takes months to get paid. I reached out to support for status on Payment and got no response. The use your time but do not pay. Use them with caution.

2 months to get paid. i had to threaten them with a
attorney general complaint and then i was paid. stay away. looks and feels like a kiting scheme.

Sago I believe came out of Schlesinger. I always enjoyed doing focus groups with them. Then they expanded and started buying up the competition. Now they are Sago. The problem is not the amount they pay you, that's always competitive with the market research world, it's the length of time before you get paid! Sago has become the most ridiculous of ANY company I have ever done a focus group with. They have like so many other companies, adopted the "digital wallet" form of paying us. I don't care for it but it works. However, in Sago's case you might have to wait SIX WEEKS before you are compensated! That is total BS for a digital payment. I sent their support an email inquiring about my compensation. This was their response:

“Sago is currently facing significant delays in the incentive processing workflow and we appreciate your patience and understanding during this challenging time.

Despite our best efforts, there is a possibility that we may not be able to meet our standard commitment of processing your redeemed points. Please allow up to 20 business days for processing during high volume periods. Please allow an additional 7-10 business days if a physical card is selected. All other reward choices will be delivered by email.

Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and we appreciate your continued support and understanding. Sago will keep you updated on the progress and sincerely hope to return to our standard processing times soon."

One Star is all they get.

I've done multiple studies for this group as Schlesinger and also as Sago and have been paid pretty promptly - used to be with a check as you left the facility, then later as a gift card option within days of the study. Did one on 11/14/24, they said since it was offsite it may take a 'little longer' but it took until 12/6 to even get the reward posted to my account where I could redeem for a gift card, and now the Amazon gift card request has been 'processing' for 20 days - have been told it 'could take' 20 business days plus some to account for the Christmas holidays. On the other hand, I participate in a medical study for a rare disease - had my bi-annual evaluation on 12/17 and an email for the $25 'thank you' arrived 12/24 which I redeemed on 12/26 for Amazon credit and it was in my account instantaneously. I don't know who Sago uses for their 'payment processing' but they need to talk to CorEvitas.

It took a long time to get paid for the 1st study I did. I was paid in September. I did a second study in November. They are claiming the September pay was for that. They don't show your studies on the dashboard of your account untill it is paid. There is no record when you are accepted or when you complete a study. Only your emails. The emails don't always reference the studies identifying number so it is hard to document. I suspect this is intentional. I am currently trying to get them to admit they still owe me. I will update. It could be they are just badly organized or it could be they want plausible deniability and having a poorly designed website makes that easier. Let's see what happens. The pay they promised is decent but getting it after you do the study is a pain. If they fix this I will change the rating but they really need to redesign the website so each study is shown as invited, accepted, completed and paid.

They decided they "had no record" of my second interview. I had sent mine but apparently my documentation wasn't good enough.

If you decide to do this, require an email with the survey or Interview number with each interaction. Going over mine I can see the number was on very few of the emails from them. Get written confirmation about each date and the number and also ask the person you deal with for a written or verbal ( recorded) confirmation of completion.

The problem here is proving they owe you. The money is good but either they do a terrible job keeping records or they are depending on the idea you won't put up too big a fuss if they don't pay you.

They have recently started popping up on attapoll and DQ me every survey BEFORE even asking me screening questions. I will be reporting them to Attapoll next chance I get and anyone who uses Attapoll, I recommend doing the same so they get their surveys taken down off the website. Not only do they try to DQ you, they'll straight up send a "survey declined" message which can shadow ban your account from surveys for a few hours. That's not fair to us users just because you won't even let us take a screening. This genuinely needs to become illegal with the plethora of survey sites coming up lately.

Maybe if they get sued a few times, they'll think twice. I genuinely think these companies need to be sued out the a** for the amount of time wasted and stress they put on people. Some of us nowadays have to do these surveys to make ends meet, especially us disabled folk. But they don't care cause they have endless money that they don't want to let go of cause they can just screw over naive people.

I've learned fast to block all sago surveys and get them off of my routers. Will never try to take another one again.

This company wants your opinion...unless it's about how badly they suck. I've done surveys and focus groups with this company for the past two years. The pay per survey/focus group is higher than average. Their payout, however, is insulting and tear-inducing. I've written them numerous times about not paying on time. There's always an excuse. Now the holidays are causing delays. The holidays come every year around the same time. You'd think they would hire seasonal help. You'd be wrong. If you don't need the money right away and don't mind waiting two months, this company pays well.

They refuse to pay for a study I completed more than a month ago. Customer service sent me a boilerplate response telling me to wait 20 business days. I did that then contacted them again complaining about the late payment, and now I'm conveniently locked out of my account. Can't reset my password or login. They are not holding up their end of the contract I signed before I wasted my time on their study.

STAY AWAY!!! I did a research study in July for flooring that is pet friendly. I was supposed to get $200. They called at the last minute to tell me to go to a different location and promised me $50 more. After about six weeks, I still had not received my payment. I emailed 2 different Project Managers about it and never got a reply. I’ve called but they will not answer the phone. This is the second time this has happened. After the first time, I thought it was my mistake but after reading multiple reviews saying the same thing I know it was not a mistake.
I have done many research studies with this company when it was Schlesinger and was always paid on the spot or shortly after. Sadly, I don’t think I will be doing any more research studies for this company.

Do not recommend at all. This is a highly suspect company that seems to revel in the fact that they are objectively the worst research and focus group to exist in decades. They have literally hundreds and hundreds of very negative reviews about their lack of urgency to paying out members properly and not in manner that seems more suited to slow and arduous 1980s analog. It's almost as if they are behaving with such a cavalier and non serious manner toward their members on purpose believing they are too big to fail? They use the most inefficient payment method service available that literally ZERO other research groups would ever even attempt to use knowing how sloppy, slow and inefficient it is...because those other groups wouldn't want to embarrass themselves with such sloppy unprofessional choices and lose their members. What is wrong with these people? Something is very wrong with them to continue to choose to behave in public like this. Stay away. There are plenty of other professional research/ focus groups that treat their members with respect.

They are amazing at getting you scheduled for studies and were amazing pre covid with their payment cards before they went to the virtual rewards wallet bullshit. Now it’s like a jail sentence waiting for your payment from them. Other research companies that use the virtual rewards are MUCH more timely, especially Jackson associates in Atlanta which is right directly across the street from sagos physical office in Georgia. It takes upwards to almost two months to get paid and then the virtual cards don’t always work on Apple/google wallet as they use prepaid Mastercard and not tremendous (FAR BETTER) like other companies. I hate getting booked with them at times because it takes MONTHS to get paid. Like my god I wish it was as quick to get paid as it is to get booked and receive 80 emails from them to confirm your appointments lol. Now i will say a little of the time is cut back if you do an in person study with them as they send your incentive choice email to add to your wallet right when you leave the building but it’s STILL a month and Atleast two weeks to even receive it lol. I believe it all went to shit once Schlesinger was bought out a little after covid. Sago is super odd