# What's the story with this kind of spam? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 25, 2009, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-with-this-kind-of-spam/482918 "2009-01-25T14:24:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2009, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-with-this-kind-of-spam/482918/1 "2009-01-25T14:24:02Z")
I have a few different e-mail addresses. One of them only seems to get spam of the following variety (it’s a university e-mail address): > [@](#): > > Dear Student, > I would like to offer you an opportunity for earning extra money and making your life easier. > Get Paid To Give Your Opinion. > Believe it or not, your opinion is worth a paycheck. > Companies spend billions of dollars a year trying to convince consumers to buy their products and services. > Understanding consumer behavior helps companies improve their products and services and make more money. > Your participation in giving your opinions on different research surveys directly influences the way companies develop products, > services and policies. > Knowing that they won’t get our help for free, companies are willing to pay people like you good money (up to $100 an hour) for their opinions, > because they know they will generate even more profits for themselves. > Companies will pay you $5 to $75 just to fill out simple online surveys from the comfort of your own home. > Get paid $50 to $150 for participating in focus group panels for 30 to 60 minutes. > Get paid to take phone surveys and you can earn as much as $120 an hour. > Participate in a focus group in your area and earn up to $600 for half a day. > Have new products sent to you before they are released on the market. > Share your opinion, and get paid, without changing your life at all. > If you are interested just reply to my email! What’s their scheme? Do they just sell live e-mail addresses? Do they end up asking for critical personal/banking info? Do they qualify the amount they pay in such a way that they don’t end up having to pay? I know it’s a scheme, I’m just wondering what’s in it for them and how it works. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-with-this-kind-of-spam/482918/2 "2009-01-25T16:54:03Z")
Most likely when you reply you get an email back asking for some money, and they will send you a list of companies/websites where you can make money by taking surveys. Of course, the amount they ask for is much greater than the amount you’ll make by doing these surveys. Even if you do manage to make good money taking surveys, the spammer doesn’t care either way because they got their big bucks for the list. Google “make money surveys” - over 1 million hits. If making money by taking surveys was that lucrative, we’d all be able to quit our jobs and fill out forms. The real money in this “business” is in the selling of the lists. ---
**Author:** ![Qwakkeddup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/90ced4/32.png) [@Qwakkeddup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwakkeddup)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-with-this-kind-of-spam/482918/3 "2009-01-25T17:03:22Z")
As I recall, without cites, The scheme is that the payout for surveys is normally very low. You are given a free sample, or $5. In order to make any real amount of money you would spend way too much time. One of the online versions my wife tried, you would search a data-base to find a survey/ questionnaire that fit you. IOW you must be between ages a & b, own your home, and use brand X. She used my e-mail addy when she joined. Spam through the roof ensued. She never received a check, free thingamajig, not even coupons. Seems to be some small print, if they reject your survey for any reason. **POOF**. YMMV of course as this was in 02-03. There are others that have special offers, like you can win a ps3, and it is kinda like those things. Quasi-legal at best. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2009, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-with-this-kind-of-spam/482918/4 "2009-01-26T01:49:37Z")
$100 an hour means 50 cents for answering a couple questions. They don’t include the time going to the site and registering and all that. Or the fact that there is only 3 of them for you to do. So yes, you got 50 cents in 30 seconds but you cannot scale it to $100 in an hour, much less to an 8-hour day. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2009, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-with-this-kind-of-spam/482918/5 "2009-01-26T01:55:44Z")
They’re not illegal or phishing or anything, it’s just misleading. If you need a quick $50 there are legitimate reputable business-affiliated surveys that exist and pay a bit, I’ve had friends that did that. However, don’t expect to be making more than 50 bucks every now and then (and by now and then i mean every few months at best). The spam comes in one of two ways, one is from the actual companies who legitimately want you to participate (my guess, the more surveys they submit to the businesses they represent the more money they make), and services that make you pay for a list of the surveys, which will (as mentioned above) probably come out to just a liiiiiiiiitle bit more than you’ll ever actually make. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2009, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-story-with-this-kind-of-spam/482918/6 "2009-01-26T06:18:29Z")
Back in the days of AOL ('00 maybe) I filled out a few surveys for them for “points” that I redeemed toward a cooler and a cd case. Friends of mine have done real focus groups, and you get paid $50 or they give you a free game console and games to play. This whole area is odd. On the one hand you have companies that need to gather this intelligence and spend too much money doing it, on the other you have people online who are spammed and not given much money. It can be very legitimate, tho, and maybe the person who’s spamming college campuses is the real deal. (That’s a much better demographic for researchers than losers on AOL, I’ll tell you that.)