Church (1993) showed in a meta-analysis that pre-paid monetary incentives - if compared with postpaid and non-monetary incentives - consistently exert the largest positive effect on response rates in Mail surveys. Recently, several new Web-based services have been introduced which can transfer money to people online (e.g., Paypal and Igain). Sending out cash equivalents via e-mail (e.g. with the aid of Paypal) could be one solution, but does this really have the same positive effect on response rates as shown in traditional Mail surveys?  In an experiment completed in fall 2001, we investigated this question experimentally in the context of a Web-based survey among members of a professional association in Virginia randomly assigned to one of the following experimental conditions: group 1 received $2 via Paypal within the first contact (´prepaid group´), group 2 was promised to receive $2 upon completion of the survey (´postpaid group´), group 3 was promised to participate in a prize draw upon completion of the survey (two $50 and four $25 prizes, ´prize group´) and group 4 was requested to participate without offering any extrinsic motivators (´control group´). Contrary to the expectations, no significant differences existed between the prepaid, postpaid and control groups concerning their willingness to participate. Surprisingly, the prize group showed the highest participation rate.