'Market Research' - Cold Call in Disguise!

[MagicCats]

I had a call yesterday which started with "Hello, I'm carrying out some market research, can I ask you a quick question"

Now, I have had genuine calls like this, and they have taken just a minute, so I agreed. Then she hit me:

"If you could replace any one of the following free of charge which would it be; kitchen, windows, driveway, bathroom"

At this point I asked for which market research company did she work for After a game of cat and mouse for a minute she admitted working for Everest who are a home improvements company.

I took great pleasure in then telling her I don't appreciate unsolicited cold calls, more so when there is an element of subterfuge. One wonders what the OFT guidelines on these calls are, specifically the rules on non-disclosure of who they actually work for.

Still it was fun playing Jeremy Paxman making his give a straight answer

[Zedicus]

These devious bar stewards are the pits.

[Lube]

Agree with that.

I wouldn't want Everest if they were the last company to exist and all my windows and doors were blown out and it was minus 20 outside and I was freezing.

Even then I wouldn't want Everest, not then not now, not ever

Originally Posted by Zedicus

These devious bar stewards are the pits.

[pmduk]

It's known as sugging (selling under the guise of market research). It's frowned on by every professional body. But when have Everest ever behaved reputably?

[HB58]

I am getting these a lot at the moment (not from everest, although we used to get them a couple of years ago), it seems that they can circumvent the TPS by doing this.

[Abbafan1972]

[CharlieBilly]

Dont forget you need a 2nd mortgage to get products. I was once quoted 22k for front of house house was worth at time 80k at best

Originally Posted by Abbafan1972

[jc808]

Originally Posted by MagicCats

I had a call yesterday which started with "Hello, I'm carrying out some market research, can I ask you a quick question"

Now, I have had genuine calls like this, and they have taken just a minute, so I agreed.

this has been your previous mistakes

[Kite2010]

In future if you get any calls saying they are carrying out market research say no thanks and put the phone down. All they are after is details to sell onto other companies/charities.

[FrugalFranny]

Had one of these the other day, I was cooking at the time but listened in on what my partner was being asked. Luckly my partner knows to not give any useful information and had a nice long chat whilst leading the fellow in circles

The chap left a flyer and on having a poke around the net it turned out they'd been on watchdog a few times and were known to cold call via the phone a lot causing a lot of people to complain.
Even if it was a legit 'market researcher', he did seem very interested in the contents of our house (got net?...what on?...ever heard of crimestoppers?).But according to my partners responses we live by candle light and use a two cups with a string connected to talk to our friends

[SpammyTheSpammer]

and we could only dream about two cups with a string connected to talk to our friend...

[bargainbetty]

I got one from the Consumer Lifestyle Council asking me to help complete a survey. When I said that I would do it on the understanding that my details would not be passed onto anyone, they tried to tell me that I had to agree to my contact details being passed on to companies I might be interested in. I said there was nothing that I was interested in and refused.

He hung up. They are nothing more than intelligence gatherers for other irritating sales people.

[roh999]

i love to give hardcore abuse to these people.