A couple of decades ago I did survey work for a market research company here in Florida. I was a working mother so an opportunity to earn some extra cash in hours that didn’t compete with my day job was a boon. It was never anything on a regular basis and I had to qualify for any survey by meeting certain criteria to satisfy the client wanting the survey. Often things they needed to know had to do with my gender, age, family status, home ownership, educational background and income. Sometimes it was just a half hour survey about a product or company, but other times I had to go downtown to a hotel convention center for questions aimed at groups of us, and once I was part of a mock trial. Got a whopping $250 for 3 or 4 hours. Since I 've retired the requests for participation still popped up now and then but these days most of the surveys are online which I don’t find interesting. But today I got a request unlike any other I’d ever seen. I want to share some of this email with you:
Just a quick reminder that you, yourself, registered
with ______Research to hear
about paid surveys and focus groups.*
This project may not be for you, but you probably know someone who would fit into it.*
We are currently looking for people for an in-business market research project between now and February 23 (any day of the week except Tuesdays including weekends) starting as early as 5:30 am and as late as 1:30 pm.*
- Participants just have to be at their business on the assigned day to let the client team in and then leave the business (or sit in a room that is not being analyzed) while the researchers do a scan of the home collecting video, infrared, lidar, depth map and acoustic data of the inside of the business including how sound, WIFI signal, and cell service travels within the business. The results of this study will be used to develop and improve products and building design in the future. This project has to happen when the business is closed, so it is completely silent during the analysis.*
All who participate will receive a $1000 check mailed within about 2 weeks. *
- *Of course, we understand that this is different than any other project that you have ever heard of, but it is 100% legit (we have been working with this client for 10 years and have done this same exact business and house analyzation project in other cities over the past 2 years). This is the easiest $1000 that anyone has ever made with market research! ** "
(Sorry about the weird indention and font issues, I’m pretty challenged trying to type in this format)
The email goes to list a couple of links to click, one to see the criteria questions for participation in this survey or another to forward to anyone else who would like to participate. (Because I’m not employed, I would be disqualified for this survey, so I didn’t click the link)
I had to read this email over a couple of times because I had a hard time wrapping my head around what they were wanting us to do. As there was no mention of consent from the owner, it seemed to me employees would do just fine. And those employees would be paid a $1000 to let this 100% legit, but totally unknown “company”, enter the premises (without consent from the owner?) while it was closed, and then leave the “team” alone in that space to scan in undisturbed silence.
Perhaps it is 100% legitimate, but legitimate what? Paying somebody $1000 to open the door after hours and step out of a business (that may or may not be their own) while an anonymous team comes in to analyze the space does not qualify as survey work as I’ve come to understand that term. A survey would definitely be going on, but not by the person getting the $1000. To my suspicious mind it sounded like a bribe, or a payoff. It sounds like something else entirely masquerading under the label of Market Research and Survey work. Are ordinary, unsuspecting citizens being duped into some clandestine operation??
As you can see my fevered brain has swung into overtime, perhaps it’s too much time spent with the likes of you and I’ve allowed my speculation run rampant, but it just set my red flags waving as I read this email addressed to me, inviting me to participate in this!!!
I am hoping some of you more tech savvy folks can calm my imagination and can tell me what future innovative products and building designs require random surveys of currently operating businesses, and to the extraordinary extent off energetic analysis in order to develop new ideas? What does videotape, infrared, lidar, depth mapping, acoustic data, WiFi signals and cell service data from inside these businesses tell them? Who would want this information? It’s been going on for two years…