Who's behind these faux phone research surveys?

[Roderick_Femm]

@alywhit.14

The “phony” calls you are receiving are actually legit. When you see campaign commercials with statistics on voting turn outs, these numbers have actually come from completed surveys by companies such as Promark. I worked for this company late summer last year, and also have close relations to one of the two owners. The people calling you work hard to fill quotas, and if you finish the survey with them, your number will be burned and you’ll never be contacted again.

This post is total bull. But thank you for revealing your bias by telling us of your relationship to the owners of the company.

I hate these things. They always say “it will only take a few minutes” and then it takes half an hour. Often a heavily accented voice that I have to ask to repeat questions. And I get them over and over again. And the obviously slanted questions, with obviously slanted options for answering. Do they think I’m that stupid? (don’t answer that.)

I don’t participate any more. I am actually more polite than I feel like being, I just say “I’d rather not participate, thank you” click.
Roddy

[CC]

I posted the original question and it was answered in the next post. These are push polls, and the guy who says that company is just trying to get legitimate information is naive, to be charitable about it.

[SirRay]

@t-bonham@scc.net

A list of people who own small dogs would sell quite readily to veterinarians, dog food companies, Petsmart, etc., local humane society fundraisers, politicians who supported dog runs in local parks, etc. There could be lots of potential buyers for such a list. Especially if it’s current, accurate, and known that they are willing to talk on the phone about their dogs.

And if you own a robo-calling setup, and it’s sitting unused because you don’t have a current customer, it’s good business to use it to generate a small-dog-owners list that you can sell.

Yes, I know it’s a revived thread, but the mention of this “small dog” phone survey back in 2010 reminded me that as this article mentions, the scam was that your recorded “Yes” answer would be used in approving extra phone charges.
Was that ever proven to be the case? Snopes doesn’t seem to cover it, and as expected any links are old and usually vague. I do remember a few of my friends (in NY) getting such calls, and being puzzled by it…