Survey Vampires

I got the below email from a survey company and responded to it.

I have been surveyed by car companies and been paid between $200 and $300 for my time, traveling to the place and participation for 2 hours. I wonder what others think of this: do you ache to do this to help out the EV movement, or Nissan?
Do you feel ripped off by companies that want to pick your brain, profit from it, and share none of it?
Is your time for sale for free?


On May 25, 2011, at 3:26 AM, Strategic Vision wrote:


Congratulations on your new NISSAN LEAF!

Strategic Vision is a leading research company in buyer feedback and emotional response studies. We have been in the business over 35 years and are committed to providing constructive buyer feedback to vehicle manufacturers who strive to delight their consumers and improve their products. We compile and analyze anonymous buyer responses that detail your purchase and use experience.

Follow this link to the Survey: http://svi.qualt....

Note: Your survey link will remain open and available for completion for 48 hours after the first time you click on it.

Please feel free to read about how we found you, your privacy, our appreciation and charitable donations for completing this survey.

How we found you: We are able to contact you either from information provided directly by the manufacturer or through companies such as R.L. Polk, who provide vehicle registration data to use for research purposes only. Your responses help determine winners of awards such as Strategic Vision's 2010 Total Quality Award™, which are publicly announced. You may have seen our awards in recent television commercials!

Your privacy: We want to assure you your name will only be used to enter our drawing. We recognize the personal nature of some of our questions and assure you all your identifying information will be removed from your responses. We take pride in our ability to continue to maintain the utmost privacy for our respondents as we have for the past 35 years. Please be assured we are not selling anything, your name was not sold to us and your name will not be given to anyone else. You will not be contacted for sales purposes of any kind. See www.strategicvision.com/privacy.php for additional information.

In appreciation for your time: When you return your survey via postage-paid envelope or complete our online version, you’ll be automatically entered in a drawing to win one of the following prizes:

One First Prize winner - $10,000.00

Two Second Prize winners – An iPad*

Ten Third Prize winners – An iPhone**

Our $10,000.00 charitable donation commitment: As a thank you to all who complete and submit a survey, we also donate a portion of this amount to the charity of your choice. Just mark your favorite charity from those listed on the questionnaire.

If you have any questions, please visit our website at www.strategicvision.com, email us at [email protected], or call us at 800-528-3299. Thank you very much for your valuable assistance. By taking the time to complete this survey, you’ll be helping to shape the future of the cars and trucks you drive.

Sincerely,

Alexander H. Edwards
President, Automotive

Follow the link to opt out of future Strategic Vision emails: http://svi.qualtrics.com....

I've done several of those. I got a whole dollar from Consumer Reports!

thankyouOB said:

I got the below email from a survey company and responded to it.

I have been surveyed by car companies and been paid between $200 and $300 for my time, traveling to the place and participation for 2 hours. I wonder what others think of this: do you ache to do this to help out the EV movement, or Nissan?
Do you feel ripped off by companies that want to pick your brain, profit from it, and share none of it?
Is your time for sale for free? <...snip...>

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I usually take a look at surveys and decide if I think it's fun or not. I have a lot of free time. I don't look at it as "picking [my] brain [to] profit from it" but rather as a chance to give my opinion. If I have something better to do I ignore the survey.

Political parties send surveys which are really just begging letters ("Give us your opinion and your money," but they don't give a hoot about your opinion.) I give them my opinion (which is NOT favorable) and put a big dark X over the part asking me for money. (I have, on very few occasions, given money to a candidate, but never in response to a survey, and in all but one instance, it was a candidate who was a personal friend of mine running for a local office.) I mainly fill out the political surveys so they'll have to spend a few cents to receive the postage-paid envelope.

But "legitimate" surveys I don't mind.

And I always fill out the Consumer's Union surveys.

I've been sent a few Leaf owner surveys, both paper and on-line versions. If I have time, I'll try to participate, but many times several of the questions don't apply at all to the Leaf: MPG, auto or manual transmission, regular or premium fuel, etc. When I run across those questions, I close the survey or pitch it in the trash...

C'mon, people, it is an ELECTRIC car....If you can't write a custom survey for it, I won't be bothered...

I got the Strategic Vision survey email today. Has anybody actually completed it? How long does it take? The last one I did for the AutoPacific VehicleVoice took way too long that I don't care to do another long one like that again. But if it's pretty short, then I don't mind doing it.

This is the new survey company competing with the famous JD Power's initial quality survey.. essentially it balances how you like the car with the severity of the defects it has.. unlike the JD Powers survey which strictly counts initial defects, giving equal weight to all defects, no matter how minor. Expect to see lots of ads touting good results from this survey by VW and Ford, dont ask me how they make their living. This survey is popping up all over the place.

If you really love the color of your new Leaf perhaps that would ameliorate your disappointment if it catches fire while charging.. enough for you to still give it a good review.

I received and answered part 2 of their survey today. The funniest questions were how many miles per gallon I got in town and on the highway. The response must be a number. I left it blank and told them how many miles per kWh I get in the free format general survey feedback at the end.

Has anyone else gotten this email?

Nissan North America, Inc. is conducting an online survey to better meet your needs and the needs of valued customers like you.
Your responses will be kept strictly confidential, and no purchase will be required in order for you to participate in this survey.
All recipients who complete the survey will be entered into a random drawing for a $250 gift card to the retailer of your choice, as a small “thank you.”
Simply click on the link below to begin!

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What appears to be the "Start Survey" link isn't really a link, but there's an opt-out link. The whole thing looks phishy.

Bah, humbug. Pay me, I'll participate. A 'chance to win' - no way.

I went through a few questions before closing it. This survey is about your OTHER non-LEAF car and what you would choose to replace it when the time comes...My answer was not on the survey, which is "I make that decision near or when the time comes, not now"...Depends on what's on the market in a few years....

I did my rock bottom recently--$175 for a session. they wanted some Leafers and Volters mixed in with other car buyers as they were apparently thinking about adding an EV version to a gasoline line of subcompacts.

It was mostly looking at different subcompact models and answering questions about preference and pricing. no interaction among the folks doing the survey, just with the survey tool. there were also some floor models to view.
i was in and out in about an hour, as I would not consider for purchase any of the multiple gasoline models compared with each other.

I am an EV guy now, and will not replace the Leaf with an ICE or a hybrid.

For the last couple of months any of these emails I receive I marked them junk and deleted them. Prior to that I was a 100 year old lesbian retired school teacher living on social security with 5 cats and who voted for Paul Harvey for president and had 1 million bucks in investments in the Cayman Islands.

That should tweak their statistical pool.

thankyouOB said:

I did my rock bottom recently--$175 for a session. they wanted some Leafers and Volters mixed in with other car buyers as they were apparently thinking about adding an EV version to a gasoline line of subcompacts.

It was mostly looking at different subcompact models and answering questions about preference and pricing. no interaction among the folks doing the survey, just with the survey tool. there were also some floor models to view.
i was in and out in about an hour, as I would not consider for purchase any of the multiple gasoline models compared with each other.

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FWIW, when I lived in the Seattle area, I used to sometimes participate in focus groups/studies for http://www.fieldwork.com/Facility/Home.aspx?FacilityID=28" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. $175 for 1 hour is VERY good compensation.

I think most of the ones I went to pay less than that. I don't remember the amounts but I'm thinking they were typically $50-$100/hour. They had nothing to do w/cars though. :/

Consumer Reports wanted a survey filled out. And in recognition of my "valuable time", would put me in a drawing for a free subscription. The odds were about 4200 to 1. :roll:

So I wrote back thanking them for their consideration and that I was considering filling out their survey as well, and my current estimation of the chances of that happening were about 4200 to 1. :twisted:

LTLFTcomposite said:

Has anyone else gotten this email?

Nissan North America, Inc. is conducting an online survey to better meet your needs and the needs of valued customers like you.
Your responses will be kept strictly confidential, and no purchase will be required in order for you to participate in this survey.
All recipients who complete the survey will be entered into a random drawing for a $250 gift card to the retailer of your choice, as a small “thank you.”
Simply click on the link below to begin!

Click to expand...

What appears to be the "Start Survey" link isn't really a link, but there's an opt-out link. The whole thing looks phishy.

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You know, you could be right, and if so I sort of fell for it. No, I didn't try the "opt out" but I did look at the source and tried entering the link manually. That took me to a non-existent file at a real website. Since the URL included an &pass= key they have a log of who took their bait if that is what it was.

Don't forget that someone broke into Nissan's database recently. The odds are good that they harvested your email address and mine.

Ray

The payback to me is that by collecting the information, they can then give back detailed data on reliability, usage, and the like that is of interest to me. I fill out their survey every year religiously for that reason. They are a non-profit and I don't expect them to pay me for that. Non-subscribers may see it differently, but they get something like an astounding 80 percent response from their subscribers to the annual survey so clearly the vast majority feel as I do. I've been a subscriber for as long as I can remember and it is the only lengthy survey I happily do for free.

Nubo said:

Consumer Reports wanted a survey filled out. And in recognition of my "valuable time", would put me in a drawing for a free subscription. The odds were about 4200 to 1.

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TomT said:

The payback to me is that by collecting the information, they can then give back detailed data on reliability, usage, and the like that is of interest to me. I fill out their survey every year religiously for that reason. They are a non-profit and I don't expect them to pay me for that. Non-subscribers may see it differently, but they get something like an astounding 80 percent response from their subscribers to the annual survey so clearly the vast majority feel as I do. I've been a subscriber for as long as I can remember and it is the only lengthy survey I happily do for free.

Nubo said:

Consumer Reports wanted a survey filled out. And in recognition of my "valuable time", would put me in a drawing for a free subscription. The odds were about 4200 to 1.

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All well and good. But they shouldn't go on about rewarding one for their time when the "reward" is a raffle ticket. I probably would have filled out the survey except for that.

OK, tear it up and pretend that they gave you nothing! :lol:

Nubo said:

All well and good. But they shouldn't go on about rewarding one for their time when the "reward" is a raffle ticket. I probably would have filled out the survey except for that.

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I haven't had very much of that sweet, sweet cheese these year...only $200 worth in total! If I were a mouse I'd be really thin. Guess I got super spoiled with all the action last year!

i do the consumer reports stuff for free.