30 Minute Survey for a Chance to Win a $25 Amazon, Not Me!

[Whatatay]

Here is my reply to an email (below my reply) to a survey group who noticed I didn't complete their 30 minute survey for a chance to win a $25 Amazon. I suggest others who got this email send the same type of reply.

---Email with my reply------

Maybe no one is doing this because it isn't worth 30 minutes for a chance at a $25 Amazon gift card. Basically, you are asking people to spend 30 minutes for absolutely nothing. If the information is important to you, try fairly compensating people for their time.

--- On Sun, 6/14/09, Cornell Attitudes and Beliefs Survey wrote:

From: Cornell Attitudes and Beliefs Survey

Subject: Participate in an online study and win $25!

To: xxxxxxxxx

Date: Sunday, June 14, 2009, 09:40 PM

Hello xxxx,

This email is to remind you of the study opportunity described below, about which you were contacted about previously. You are receiving this email because you have not yet completed the study. We would greatly appreciate your participation, and participating earns you a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate -- odds of winning should be better than 1 in 20.

You are invited to take part in a study of attitudes and beliefs, which is a follow-up to a study you participated in during the fall of 2008 (CASE). The study can be completed entirely remotely on a home or public computer.

The study consists of an approximately 30-minute online session during which you will be asked to complete several surveys and evaluation tasks intended to measure your attitudes and beliefs toward a variety of issues and topics.

In exchange for your participation, we will be offering a chance to win one of 15 $25 Amazon gift cards to participants in this study, holding a lottery to determine who will receive the prizes. Because we expect roughly 300 people to complete the study, this puts your odds of winning at approximately 1 in 20.

You may complete the study any time between now and June 30th. At that time, we will be conducting the lottery, and contacting participants who won the gift card. You are only eligible for this study because of your participation in the previous study. As such, the code below is your unique password to the study, and cannot be shared with anyone else.

To participate, please go to http://xxxxxxxxxxx/ and enter this code exactly as it appears here:

xxxxxxx

We would really appreciate your participation in this study, and your responses are very important to this project. Thank you very much!

If you have any questions or problems with the site, please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your participation!

[Whatatay]

If you read to the bottom of the email you will see that they say my answers are very important.

If you do the math, fifteen $25 Amazon gift cards is $375.

If you divide $375 by 300, the expected number of particpants, this comes out to a whole cheap @ss amount of $1.25 per person for 30 minutes. Doesn't sound like my answers are that important.

Now, they expect 300 people. If they get less will they still give out 15 gift cards or will they reduce it? Worse yet, if they get more than 300 people, are they going to have some sort of upper limit, or can 5000 people take the survey? In that case they will have spent pennies for thousands of responses.

So based on 300 people, 285 people will spend 30 minutes and get absolutely nothing. 285 people x 30 mniutes = 142.5 hours worth of information and data for zero compensation. Sounds like a great deal to me.

[SurveyBang]

if im not guaranteed payment, then i dont bother with the survey.

[Whatatay]

Here is the reply I got. Lots of excuses for shafting people.

"I completely understand your concern. We would love to be able to compensate everyone for this study, but unfortunately, as underfunded scientists, we simply can't afford to do so. Our decision to offer a chance to win rather than a sure thing is not does not mean we are taking our participants' time for granted. On the contrary, it is exactly our participants' time that we depend on for our research. As such, we always strive to treat you and compensate you as well as we can afford.

True, some people are not ultimately going to be compensated for their time, but remember that we are being up front about the odds and the payoffs. The same way that some people are willing to buy lottery tickets and some are not, we presume that some people will consider these conditions reasonable and will be willing to participate, and some will not. I hope that this alleviates your concern somewhat, even if you prefer not to participate."

[lastninja]

such surveys should be forced to say '30 minute survey for a 100% chance to win a waste of your time'