“Congratulations! You’ve won a trip to the Bahamas for two for seven nights! All you have to do is to fill the the survey.” “Congratulations on finishing your survey, you are now eligible to complete our online survey to win a trip for two to the Bahamas! We thank you for your participation!”

I don’t think I’m the only one who has received a call like this, and I also don’t think I’m the only one foolish enough (or curious depending on interpretation) to have completed it. The temptation of winning a free trip to the Bahamas is more than just appealing, especially given I’ve done absolutely nothing to win it. Unfortunately, that is precisely how these scammers are out to get you. When you first receive the phone call, you tend to think that even if its just a possibility to win a cruise, what do I have to lose? That train of thought continues on as you are flooded with more and more questions, eventually reaching the point where you are asked to provide your credit card information. Now some maybe wondering, well its an obvious scam since you are asked to give personal information to a complete stranger, how can anyone actually fall for that? How? After almost an hour of badgering, most people tend to simply give up! Some may even start packing for the cruise already, all to only find out weeks later that somebody overcharged their credit cards in a Mexican resort (presumably got there with a legitimate travel agency).

Yes, these kind of tricks are played everywhere in the world, but for any one survey that is a scam, there are at least five that actually want to gather user information for one purpose of the other. These however small amounts of fake surveys destroyed the entire society’s confidence in phone surveying, and myself once involved in the business, I absolutely despise such an act.

Images courtesy of:

http://www.abbotsfordtoday.ca/whats-up-with-that-whos-paying-for-the-phone-survey-and-why-is-it-being-done/

http://www.travelperch.ca/tag/cruise-travel/