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Who really does surveys? C level executives or the bored unemployed


Siegfried

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I have been doing surveys intensively for about 6 months and by 12 hour a day dedication, accumulated about  £500 in that time. It struck me fairly quickly that no one who had anything better to do with their time would pay more than casual passing attention to earning pennies for possibly half an hours work, often of a tedious and repetitive nature. The puzzle seemed to me that so many surveys wanted the CEOs of billion turnover companys to respond, or if not that high  placed, workers who would be earning plenty of money and have far better things to do.

 

Is it reasonable to assume that all surveys are completed by imaginary people, created by people who for one reason or another, simply have nothing else to spend their time on?

 

 

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Yeah, i'm sure I mentioned that before as well with some surveys wanting people who are CEO of a business earning a lot of money. That's why there's lots of them available as the required people won't be using survey sites.

Yes I think a lot of unemployed people do surveys but also people who work and have free time to earn some extra cash. 

It can depend on what someones lifestyle is like. If someone splashes out on luxury, instant consumable items like expensive meals at restaurants and posh supermarket food, the idea of earning pennies won't appeal. A month of taking surveys, many hours for just a 1hr restaurant meal, maybe a few 30 minute luxury meals at home.

If someone doesn't waste cash like that then surveys will appeal to them. Knowing that after a month of surveys they can buy some new clothes they can use many times or items for the home that will last years. It's stuff for "free" afterall

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I see those types of surveys quite often in the Partner Surveys at SurveySavvy. They come from one survey company (Opinion Inn) and are either for some specific employment type (architect for example) , high level executive earning mega bucks , or are so specific in their requirements that few could ever qualify. In the last case , I have had them where I fit the requirements (specific age , state , and  gender combo) , but still get a DQ. Why bother offering those?? Just wasting time.

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Recently, a survey rather than asking me my income, asked what social grade I was! 

Taken by upset and anger, I ticked the highest grade and that I bought the most expensive whitegood in the next page. I did not qualify anyway ha ha ha

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You'd probably need to be an A or B to be familiar with the social grade nomenclature.

 

Shades of 'Brave New World' and the Epsilon minus super morons.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I technically fit that category (business of 10-15 employees and under $1mil revenue but still...) and a lot of those surveys are actually screeners for panels that pay you what averages out to about $80-250/hour. It’s usually either an ongoing message board for a set period of time prior to a product launch or a one-off focus group. Works the same as the surveys that end in offering you a 2-week trial of a new shampoo. You get your $0.25/hour for the initial survey, but the real bucks are in what you’re invited to because of completing it. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I guess you could say that I do the surveys out of boredom because I refuse to participate in certain kinds of surveys.  For example, the second they start asking me about investable assets I will close out the survey.  If the survey sites persists in sending it back to me again, I will simply lie in order to disqualify.  I will not answer tedious and intrusive questions.  I sit on the porch or by the pool and pump out a few surveys sometimes because I am retired, but I am not going to give in to the demands of scammers who want to know what my assets are which do not include real estate, employer-sponsored pension funds etc.  In other words, they want to know how much cash you have or liquid assets you have that they could separate you from without having to wait for escrow or anything else which could give their mark too much opportunity to think over what they are agreeing to hand over.

 

I am sure that my age gets me screened out a lot of the time anyway because old people and young broke college students are certain to be overrepresented on survey sites, but sometimes I have bought things as a result of doing surveys because the surveys were about things of interest and about which I did not know before.  I don't jump on all the newest techie stuff so I am not game for the surveys looking for gamers so I soon lost interest in a survey site which seemed to aim largely at those who wanted to spend their "rewards" on video game projects and accessories.  I do the surveys related to travel now that my wife gave up her business and retired with me.   She is in poor health and could pre-decease me in spite of being ten years younger so if we are going to see the world after all of these years of hard work, we need to get on with it.

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On 4/27/2019 at 11:38 AM, OldMan said:

I guess you could say that I do the surveys out of boredom because I refuse to participate in certain kinds of surveys.  For example, the second they start asking me about investable assets I will close out the survey.  If the survey sites persists in sending it back to me again, I will simply lie in order to disqualify.  I will not answer tedious and intrusive questions.  I sit on the porch or by the pool and pump out a few surveys sometimes because I am retired, but I am not going to give in to the demands of scammers who want to know what my assets are which do not include real estate, employer-sponsored pension funds etc.  In other words, they want to know how much cash you have or liquid assets you have that they could separate you from without having to wait for escrow or anything else which could give their mark too much opportunity to think over what they are agreeing to hand over.

 

I am sure that my age gets me screened out a lot of the time anyway because old people and young broke college students are certain to be overrepresented on survey sites, but sometimes I have bought things as a result of doing surveys because the surveys were about things of interest and about which I did not know before.  I don't jump on all the newest techie stuff so I am not game for the surveys looking for gamers so I soon lost interest in a survey site which seemed to aim largely at those who wanted to spend their "rewards" on video game projects and accessories.  I do the surveys related to travel now that my wife gave up her business and retired with me.   She is in poor health and could pre-decease me in spite of being ten years younger so if we are going to see the world after all of these years of hard work, we need to get on with it.

I am 81 and in a rural area so do not always qualify.

Go and enjoy. Life is always too short.  I am so glad my husband and I traveled and did things we wanted.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/6/2019 at 4:55 PM, samp28 said:

Yeah, i'm sure I mentioned that before as well with some surveys wanting people who are CEO of a business earning a lot of money. That's why there's lots of them available as the required people won't be using survey sites.

Yes I think a lot of unemployed people do surveys but also people who work and have free time to earn some extra cash. 

It can depend on what someones lifestyle is like. If someone splashes out on luxury, instant consumable items like expensive meals at restaurants and posh supermarket food, the idea of earning pennies won't appeal. A month of taking surveys, many hours for just a 1hr restaurant meal, maybe a few 30 minute luxury meals at home.

If someone doesn't waste cash like that then surveys will appeal to them. Knowing that after a month of surveys they can buy some new clothes they can use many times or items for the home that will last years. It's stuff for "free" afterall

Most ppl, myself included are low income ppl who do surveys to get gifts for friends and family otherwise we couldn't afford to give gifts. It bugs me that so many do them just to support their starbucks addictions.

 

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On 4/27/2019 at 9:38 AM, OldMan said:

I guess you could say that I do the surveys out of boredom because I refuse to participate in certain kinds of surveys.  For example, the second they start asking me about investable assets I will close out the survey... I am not going to give in to the demands of scammers who want to know what my assets are which do not include real estate, employer-sponsored pension funds etc.  In other words, they want to know how much cash you have or liquid assets you have that they could separate you from without having to wait for escrow or anything else which could give their mark too much opportunity to think over what they are agreeing to hand over.

I... don't really think that's true. Makes complete sense to me that investable assets is a pretty common demographic question surveys ask, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with them being fronts for scams trying to steal your money. That's pretty paranoid - how would they do that, with nothing personally identifiable to go on, and without asking you to buy anything? Now, every once in a while a survey does ask for personally-identifiable information, and unless it's my address because they're going to send me a product test, I either close those surveys immediately (if they ask at the beginning), or put in gibberish (if they ask me at the end), because there's no other reason they should be asking for things like my name, phone number or address. But surveys that want to know your liquid assets generally just want to know that because it's a good approximation of your social status, because it helps determine whether you're the target demographic for the products they're asking about, etc. I don't see any problem answering that. I'm not sure what you're imagining they would be asking you to "agree to hand over"? I've categorically never seen a survey tell me to go buy something. (Well, technically I've seen a couple that have told me to go to a grocery store and buy something small with my own money and take a picture of it, but that's totally different.)

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