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Election Survey Hoax?
Posted By:
Lothar Ignatius
Oct 13, 2004
 I just got a phone call from a recorded message claiming to be from Citizens for a Free America. The recording said they were doing an election survey and that all participants would receive a $20 American Express gift certificate. Then the recording told me to call a 1-800 number.

My question is this is some sort of scam (where I will incur charges from the 800 number) or whether this is a legitimate survey.

If it is a legitimate survey wouldn't the idea of paying people for their participation skew the results?

I think it's a scam but I've never heard of it before so I wanted to throw it out there...
Category: Politics, Scams; Replies: 4

Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
Page 1 of 1 pages
Matt
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 | 02:09 PM
I don't think you can incur charges directly from calling a 1-800 number. However, they may charge you for "services" used during the call - although these can be disputed if they pull something exceedingly sneaky. For example, I heard of one company that bought an 800 number one digit away from a widely called one. Then if you dialed that, a message would say that if you meant to dial that other number, you could reach it by pressing 1. Then they charged you for their "forwarding service." Wish I could remember where I read that one...
Brenda Layland
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 | 02:40 PM
Companys will give out a 1-800 number and then without telling you swith you to a 1-900 number. I had my phone company put 1-900 blocker on my phone to stop this.
Alex B
in San Diego
 Member
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 | 02:49 PM
I haven't heard of 'Citizens for a Free America' and a google search doesn't bring up much.

Sometimes people get paid to complete surveys, so that doesn't necessarily mean it's a scam. But $20 seems like a lot for a simple phone survey.

I'm guessing it's a scam.
Matt
Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 | 12:43 PM
Ah, here's a useful link that I found today poking around on one of the links from the MoH front page:

http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/Crimes/Telemarketing/Inbound/MinorIn/cramming.htm
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