Poll without questions? What's going on?
I've got the phone bell turned on this week, running phone tag with a contractor.

Since the phone bell is only on for about a week each year, I'm not accustomed to dealing with incoming calls. I grab each one, wanting to get the contractor stuff over with so I can turn off again.

About 4:10 a junk call came in, but it didn't start with the standard 5 seconds of silence so I didn't hang up instantly. It was a Chinese-sounding female doing a poll on voter choices. Since she sounded pleasant, I went ahead and responded. After verifying my name and address, she said the standard thing about call being monitored, then said "We have no questions at this time. Thank you for responding."

Huh?

Shortly thereafter this email came in:

Washington Opinion Research is conducting a survey about issues concerning registered voters in your area and would like to invite you to share your opinions.

If you'd like to participate, please click the link below. Again, this is a survey about issues in your area and there will be no attempt to sell you anything or request any personal information. Your opinion does matter!

Link: CLICK HERE

Thank you in advance for helping us with our research efforts.

Many thanks,
Washington Opinion Research
1232 Q Street Suite 100
Sacramento, CA 95811
916-443-4722

Sounds like the same text. I clicked the link and found:

"This survey is closed at this time. Thank you for responding."

Clearly the same thing in two forms, nearly simultaneous.

Google shows the outfit in Sacramento is an actual polling company, not a made-up address. I probably shouldn't have clicked the link, but AVG takes care of such things reliably.

Why would they waste money on the caller and email if they're not asking any questions? If they're just looking for people who WILL respond, this isn't the way to do it. Now I'm suspicious and WON'T respond the next time. If they had asked some real questions, I'd be more willing to do it again. (Basic human nature, understood by salesmen forever. People enjoy answering questions about their own opinions.)

= = = = =

Next day: SE-LU! Loosen yourself to SOLVE the problem!

In fact this is the first HONEST political poll. There are no questions because there are no QUESTIONS. "Both" "parties" agree 10000000000000000000000000000000% on everything AND MORE, but speak in slightly different accents.

Labels: se-lu, Unasked and unanswered

  ¶ 4:56 PM