Problems with Vivatic - warning

Grassmonster

I have been with Vivatic for some time without problem and successfully cashed out once. The second time I applied to cash out, my account was blocked. There has been on ongoing battle to find out why and I have been blocked from posting on their Facebook page and my posts asking for information removed. Here is the last communication between Vivatic and myself as of this morning.


Hi Lima,



Thanks for offering to lookat this – it has been ongoing since mid-April though contact from Vivaticceased after their last email on the 1stof May. I have tried by constantlyposting on the Vivatic wall to illicit some response since then and have heardnothing though someone obviously must have seen the posts as the wall has hadnumerous posting from Vivatic since thebeginning of May and I have been ignored. I have also forward all emails to andfrom Vivatic so that you can see exactly what information has passed to andfro.



To give you somebackground, Mr Stirling and I are in arelationship though we live about 12 miles apart. We both joined Vivatic around the same time,having seen it mentioned on another site and prior to April, have had noproblems whatsoever. I have arranged mywork schedule with my employers in a way which is mutually beneficial to usboth – I work long hours including over the weekend in order to have three daysa week off instead of two and they have someone in at times when no-one elsewants to work.



Mr Stirling and I alternateweeks staying with each other at our respective flats on my days off and duringthose days, we have access to each others computers to check emails and do anysurveys that might be available. Therest of the time, I do my surveys before and after work and, occasionally, inthe middle of the night if I am cycling through one of my insomnia phases.



In March, I had reached thepayment threshold of £25 and made a claim to be paid at the end of April. I heard nothing from Vivatic to say thatthere was any kind of perceived issue. Icontinued to do surveys as and when any were available and accrued afurther £5.98 in my account . At the beginning of April, I was staying withMr Stirling and he tried to access hisaccount only to find that he was not able to log in. he told me that he was having a problem and Isaid that maybe it was a glitch on the system and that I’d try to log into mineto see if it was just his account that was experiencing a problem or if it wasa general problem. On trying to log in,I found my account to be inaccessible too.



We both contacted customerservices via the website and asked why our accounts couldn’t be accessed. I received no reply and so sent another emailon the 19th of April saying that I was still awaiting a reply. Eventually, on the 22ndApril, I received the following :



Hi Honor,

Thanks for your email.

On Saturday 13th April at 9:31am you took the CAGBathroom survey. In the following 5 minutes we have seen 3 additional attemptsto record a completion against your account.

This was flagged in our SPAM system. On further inspection ofyour account we have seen numerous other occasions this has happened and we seeyou have been paid additional revenue for these completions.

Because of this we have blocked your account.

We take fraud very seriously at Vivatic and unless you canexplain the reasons we see this we are unable to unblock your account.

Regards,

Vivatic

I immediately sent thefollowing reply :



I fail to see how I could have been paid fortaking any survey multiple times on your site.

Firstly, on any occasion that I haveinadvertently clicked on one of the “one-off” surveys” a second time, I see amessage that I have already taken this survey or that it can only be taken once– it is impossible to do them twice. I do surveys for a number of companies anddon’t always remember which ones I have already taken with them –I don’t keep ajournal – the time spent doing surveys and the renumeration received forcompleting them is not sufficient as an hourly rate to justify spending largeamounts of time logging everything I do. I rely on the site to tell me that Ihave already taken this survey.

The surveys which I access on Populus, NewVista, SSI and Toluna require a postcode, date of birth etc to access and whena survey is completed or if I am screened out, I either get a message asking ifI want to try for another survey or that no more surveys are live at this time.Once a survey is completed, it never reappears – only the message that nosurveys are live at this time. Completed or screened out surveys don’treappear. They cannot be accessed twice - never mind multiple times.

The only thing that I can think of is that sometimes, if a page isstuck, I press the F5 key to refresh the page and sometimes this refreshes thepage and sometimes it takes me back to the previous page. I cannot remember ifthis was the case with the bathroom survey that you refer to though I have avague recollection of a bathroom survey which I was screened out of almostimmediately – I only remember this because it is the first bathroom survey thatI have ever had. I think I was screened out because I was in rented property orI said that I wasn’t planning on having a new bathroom within the next year. Icertainly would not waste my time actively trying to access a survey for asecond time if I knew that I was going to be screened out – my demographicswouldn’t be any more desirable the second time around !

On other sites, I have occasionally had problems where a surveyhas not worked properly and I have exited. This has still appeared as anavailable survey on the site and if I have tried to access it again (some takeyou back to where you left off) I have had the message that the survey has beentaken by me. On contacting the site, they have always been able to track downthe fault in the survey. On Vivatic, attempted surveys do not reappear. How canthey be attempted multiple times ?

I would be grateful if you would give me details of ALL of the“multiple instances” of trying to access surveys that I am being accused ofdoing. I can’t guarantee that I will remember them as I probably take around 25to 30 surveys a week over a large number of sites but I may be able to discernsome pattern in the data. It would be interesting to know if all of these arefrom one company with a problem with their system.

Ittook until April 30th toreceive a reply and the following email arrived with a spreadsheet attached –the spreadsheet made no sense to me whatsoever . Honor,

Thanks for your email.

Please find attached details of your surveys and have they havebeen seen by our systems.

Please note that the following surveys can only be completedonce but are seen multiple times:

CAG Confidence Survey

Win a £500 Asda Shopping Spree

CAG Bathroom Survey

You will also see from the time the survey was recorded ascompleted there is often a very short gap between them. In many instances thisis one minute or less. Our system obviously flags these as spam.

We are afraid we cannot reopen your account because of theevidence listed here.

Regards,

Vivatic



I sent the following reply the same day :



Thankyou for the spreadsheet which I have gone through carefully.

Looking at the data in the spreadsheet, almost all of thehighlighted surveys were attempted multiple times within a minute - at most acouple of minutes. The only explanation for this would be hitting the submitbutton multiple times. I would certainly do this if it looked as if the systemhadn’t responded to the first attempt –sometimes after hitting submit, nothingappears to happen – no egg timer, no response and if that happens, I press thesubmit button again assuming that it hadn’t registered the first time. I makethe assumption that either my keyboard hasn’t picked up my keystroke or thatthere is a glitch on the system. I also assume that once the survey site hasregistered that I have submitted, it will ignore any further submissions. Therewas certainly no intent to defraud by doing this. It certainly has never beenan issue with any of the other survey sites which I participate in.

The only one of these which has a significant gap betweensubmissions is the CAG confidence survey – I can only assume that I experiencea problem with this and came back to try it again a little later. The ASDAshopping voucher one if I remember rightly was one which was not a survey buton opening, was an invitation to join a site which required that I agree tothird party emails – I’m not certain but I think that was it. That I didn’tattempt to complete. On realizing that it would lead to an inbox full ofadvertisements etc., I exited !

It seems obvious to me that the system is not geared to rejectingmultiple key strokes – it is the only explanation because it is impossible toaccess surveys twice – they don’t reappear.

You stated in a previous email that I had been paid multiple timefor surveys – if you look at the spreadsheet which you sent, there are 128entries. Since joining Vivatic, I have had one payout of £25, was awaitinga second payout of £25 and there were a few more pounds accrued over and abovethis – a total of around £56 give or take a couple of pounds.

If every survey that I had ever taken with Vivatic only paid 50p,it would come to more than I had accrued if I had been paid multiple times.Given that the ones which I have mainly done pay £1, where were these multiplepayments ?

Whatever your partners are showing in their spreadsheets asmultiple submissions, - they are only paying for one submission !

If half of these so-called submissions had paid at £1:00 and halfat 50p, there would have been nearly£100 through my account, not £56 or so !

I suggest that you look at the actual money that these providershave paid to my account – it matches only those surveys which I have fullycompleted and I have only been paid for those once !

I repeat again, I have not attempted to defraud anyone nor have Ireceived payment for surveys that I haven’t taken – in fact now, my earningsfor legitimately completed surveys is being withheld by Vivatic.



I received no reply to this and so in an attempt to try to findout exactly what was happening, I sent the following email to Populus Live onApril 30th :



I have been taking Populus Live surveys via Vivatic forsome time and recently, my account with Vivatic was blocked. When I inquiredwhy, I was told that I had submitted surveys multiple times and had recievedrenumeration for multiple submissions. I explained that I couldn't see how thatcould happen as it is impossible to re-access a survey that you have taken ontheir site - it doesn't reappear ! I asked them for further information aboutwhich surveys this ahs supposedly happened with and specific details - Irecieved a spreadsheet with dates, survey numbers and times of submitting -some of these submission times are less than a minute apart - the onlyexplanation for this is that nothing appeared to be happening after hitting thesubmit button and I have hit it again under the impression that it hadn'tregistered the first time.

Vivatic are saying that I have recieved payment for thesemultiple attempts and so they are suggesting that I have been involved infraudulent practices, have blocked my account and claimed all of my accruedbalance. I keep a close eye on my balance to make sure that surveys arecredited - at no time have I been paid more than once for a completed survey byany of their partners. I would be very grateful if you would look over theattached spreadsheet (sent to me by Vivatic) and see if you can shed any lighton this matter. The other providers appearing on the spreadsheet will also becontacted - this isn't about the money so much as I have been accused of fraudand have no way of proving my innocence without information about what hasactually happened. Some of these surveys that they cite date back over a yearand they have only just raised this - not by contacting me but by closing myaccount.

Could you confirm if any of these were paid more than once? If they were, where does the credit go if not to my account directly ? Canyou help with any information at all ?

Yours sincerely,

Honor McCullagh



They were unable to shed any light on the matter as thespreadsheet made as much sense to them as it did to me – they replied :



DearMr McCullagh,

Thankyou for your message.

Unfortunatelythe ID numbers in Vivatic`s system do not correspond to the internal numbers inour system so we cannot check any details based on the spreadsheet provided.

Howeverwe have forwarded your message to our account manager in Vivatic and asked themto investigate your case again.

Hopethis will help.

Regards,

ThePL Team



On the Ist of May, I sent the following email to Vivatic :



I am inthe process of trying to find out what the information in your spreadsheetmeans. On contacting Populus Live, they inform me that the ID numbers on yourspreadsheet don’t correspond with the internal numbers on their system – Iwould like to have the ORIGINAL numbers as sent by the providers … all theproviders.. If I am to explain myself as you have requested, I need the correctdata – I require the correct references so that the various providers can lookup on their system exactly what has happened.

Inaddition, I am unable by use of Google to find any reference to Web Sourcing UK or Online Research Bureau – I am assumingthat CAG is c-a-g.co.uk - please let me have the contact address for WebSourcing UKand Online Research Bureau so that I can check with them what the data refersto.

Thankyou,

Mrs H.McCullagh



For the first time, I actually had a reply the same day :



Hello again,

I’m afraid you have probably spoken to the wrong contact atPopulus.

The data is verifiable and we can see you took one survey withthem during April. Your tracking however shows an additional one – hence thespam flag. The only way this can happen is by someone trying to circumvent ourtracking system.

This is the one record as provided by them -

p002260
rosauto1745557_vivatic_3611734
4/11/2013 12:00:00 AM

Web sourcing UKis run by SSI

CAG is indeed c-a-g.co.uk

We have verified the data with them already – hence the spamflags.

We are happy to converse over email here but please refrain fromcopying every email onto Facebook.

Regards,

Vivatic

Bythis time, I had taken to documenting lack of progress on the Facebook page inan attempt to speed up communication – I was beginning to feel that Vivaticbelieved that if they just ignored me, I would give up and go away.



Inresponse to contact from Populus Live, I finally got the following email :

Honor,

The information is as follows:

Name of the survey partner

Tracking id

Date and time the tracking was recorded

Details of the tracking pixel

Feel free to contact our partners with this data but we havevalidated it already and it shows that many of these completions did not takeplace. The only way they can be is from the partner (in which case we would seea completion in their system) or if the user attempted to fire the trackingpixel manually i.e. SPAM.

We do not see much of this as we take care in ensuring oursystems and our partners interact smoothly. In the cases where this does nothappen we mostly see this as SPAM.

Thanks,

Vivatic







The above email was the last communication that I received fromVivatic other than automated invitations to surveys that I was unable toaccess.



This was my final email to Vivatic, to which I received noresponse :



I keep hearing from you that I have tried to circumvent yourtracking system - would you please clarify exactly what I would have done to dothat ? As far as I am concerned, I haven't a clue how I'm supposed to have doneit. What, physically, would I have done on my computer keyboard to achieve this?? I can't explain why I've done something if I don't know how I've done it -repeating the same phrase ad nauseum does not clarify the matter for me.

What is a tracking pixel ?? I just do surveys - I'm not a computergeek or a fraud - if a page sticks, I refresh. If a button doesn't work after awhile, I hit it again. I have more important things to do with my time than tryto defraud a company of the odd £1 or 50p . In the absence of clear informationthat I can understand, I have to go to the source - the original providers.This is no longer about the lost revenue - this is about having been accused offraud - I have done nothing deliberately to defraud anyone and will get to thebottom of this.

Grassmonster

This was sent 1stof May – no reply. I have posted on theVivatic wall non-stop to get an answer – no reply. The money which I had claimed to be paid atthe end of April has been confiscated. The remaining balance has also recently disappeared. My account has now been closed by invocationof the 60 day rule. Of course I haven’tlogged in or completed a survey in over 60 days – MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN BLOCKEDand no-one will give me an explanation as to exactly what I’m supposed to havedone.



Since my computer literacy ends at use of office packages , theinternet and a few bespoke genetics programs, the information that I have beengiven, such as it is, is meaningless. Ihave shown it to friends with more computer knowledge that myself and it makesno sense to them. How can I explainmyself if no-one will tell me what I am supposed to have done ?



So – questions that arise from this :



1.Ifrecords are checked as stated on a daily basis and some of these so-calledfraudulent attempts date back over 12 months, why was I paid out the last timewithout a problem and why has the issue just been raised ?



2.If Ihave been paid multiple times for the same surveys, where did these extrapayments go to as they never appeared on my account ?



3.Howcan I possibly access a survey multiple times when surveys don’t reappear asecond time once you have completed them or give you a message that you havealready completed it ?



4.Ifrefreshing the page or hitting the “submit” button more than once creates aproblem, why is there no warning stating that ? If that is the case, I don’t come pre-loaded with “Clairvoyant 5.1”



My theory, for what it is worth, is thatthe spreadsheet and accusations of multiple attempts to access surveys are notthe real issue. I suspect that since [personal details removed by MSE Forum Team] and I occasionally use the same computer, someone has looked at the IP addresses andassumed that we are one and the same person with two email addresses and aretrying to access the surveys as two different people. By the time that it became evident that wewere not the same person, accusations had been made and someone had paintedthemselves into a corner. No proof, buta theory which makes a whole lot of sense to me – otherwise, why would [personal details removed by MSE Forum Team] and myself both suddenly be blocked at the same time ? As far as Vivatic is concerned, the onlyconnection between his account and mine are occasional interchange of IPaddresses.



If this is the case, Vivatic might haveto take a long hard look at how it investigates things because if invitingfriends and family to join Vivatic is going to be part of Vivatic’s strategy,they will have to bear in mind that there will be times when those friends andfamily visit and have access to each others computers and hence will appearwith each others IP addresses.



This is no longer about the confiscatedearnings – this is about appalling communication, levelling of accusations without clearexplanation and being ignored. I am more angry about my honesty andintegrity being brought into question than about the money. In terms of hourly rate of pay, the time I have spent trying to get to thebottom of this is worth far, far more than the £35 odd in question. It is amatter of principle and as such, I am willing to spent years trying to getanswers if that is what it takes.



Yours sincerely,



[personal details removed by MSE Forum Team]



Update – I have just received the followingfrom Vivatic customer services :

[personal details removed by MSE Forum Team],

Thanks for all your messages.

I’m afraid there is nothing we can do here. Our data and that ofour clients indicate that you tried (in many cases successfully) to be paid fortaking the same survey more than once.

The activity you describe is typical of someone who has beentrying to defraud us. We know you disagree with this but the data disagrees.

When our clients see this they insist that we block members.

We outline the reason why someone might have their accountblocked in our T&Cs so I’m fairly sure your thoughts on legal action willnot result in anything meaningful.

We understand you are disappointed with this but there isnothing more we can do to unblock your account.

This does not stop you from opening a new account (with adifferent email address and PayPal account) but obviously the data will bechecked as usual and any irregular activity will result in any accounts beingblocked.

Regards,

Vivatic

If Vivaticbelieves me guilty of fraud, WHY suggest I open a new account ???? Someone has messed up somewhere !

There is STILLno explanation as to what I am supposed to have done. I have not receivedmultiple payments into my account. Asfar as opening a new account with Vivatic, they have already taken over £35away from me and most certainly will not have me working for nothing again.What I want is answers as to HOW I am supposed to have achieved this so-called fraud and not suggestions thatI write it all off and start again.

And here is thefinal email from Limawho isn’t part of Vivatic, she was just manages the MVF Global website :

Dear [personal details removed by MSE Forum Team],



I spoke to the manager of the Vivatic account and heexplained to me what he explained to you in those emails. I'm so sorry there isnothing more I can do for you here.



I'm not in a position to make any changes to your account, Ijust manage the facebook site.



I'm sorry I couldn't be more help.



Lima

tonycarew

Hi Grassmonster,a very interesting read indeed and obviously so frustrating for you.

Are they (Vivatic) infering that you have taken the same Populus survey for example, both via the Populus site and via the Vivatic site?

Grassmonster

Hi Tony - no, they are trying to say that I tried to submit the same survey from their site multiple time but it finally transpires that their issue is IP addresses though they wouldn't commit to that - the whole thing is like a big smokescreen - you have read everything that I have sent and recieved and most of it makes no sense to me either. I thik the bottom line is that my boyfriend and I use each others computers when we visit each other and we both were members of Vivatic. He was blocked the same day as me. They ask you to invite friends and family to join and state on their site that members of the same household can hold an account but they have blocked us it seems for using each others computers and sometimes coming up on each others IPs. They have accused both of us of fraud and cleaned out our accounts yet have suggested we re-join with a new email address and Paypal account.

So if they think we are guilty of fraud, why suggest we rejoin ? If they don't think we are guilty of fraud, why have they taken £35+ from both of us ? It has to be one or the other - either guilty and we don't want you and will keep your money or not guilty, we screwed up and here is your money. They can't say rejoin, write off your previous earnings and we'll let you fraudsters work for us again.

I went 41 days trying to get a reply from them and eventually took to posting on their Facebook wall. Still nothing until I posted on their MVF Global wall (the main company). After the stuff that I posted above went back and forth, I was blocked from posting any further comments on Facebook. They can't justify themselves and don't like negative publicity.

culpepper

Surely their system has a safeguard in case the individual member should have a glitch with their computer?
One mouse click registering as two for example
or
Your browser shutting down and then rebooting to the same place it left off.
You cant tell what a survey is until you actually click through to do it anyway.
Okay so they have their one off surveys but it is their own fault that they stay on the portal page after you have taken them, not yours.
They should be able to code the page so that once a one time survey is taken by you,it disappears as an option but they don't and that must only be because they don't want to pay a web designer to implement the facility.
Instead they put two and two together and make 5.


Why they should suggest you join again is puzzling and sounds like a get out of jail free type comment in as much as they cannot say exactly how their findings can be proven to be fraud and are quite happy for you to go on earning them the lions share of each surveys pay out.

They are only an access portal anyway and each of these survey sites can be joined individually and pay more to do so for the same surveys.

Farce-book is just their free advertising portal.

Amber_Sunshine

Do you really expect people to read all that?

From the little I did read, you have given far too much personal information there.

Grassmonster

No Amber - I don't expect everyone to read all of it - but for those having problems with these people, and from their Facebook page, I am not alone, they can if they choose see what they are up against. If people want to read it, it is their choice and if they don't, they can leave it alone. It is my personal information to share or not share and right now, I am too angry with this mob to care.

pweggie

Hi,

Why don't you try writing to whoever the governing body is for market research companies. Is it MRS or something? It will appear as a logo on their website somewhere. If you really believe you are in the right here, then give it a try. Just as a word of warning though: I've been taking surveys for a long time now, and I've seen people get in a mess with things when they have more than one account - I'm not suggesting that this is what you have done, but just be sure you are being totally straight about things if you are going ahead with officially complaining about how they operate.

With regard to their invitation to join again, I think what they mean is that they have no system in place to block you full stop, i.e. you could rejoin under another name and email address, but it will eventually come to light on their system that you are operating from a marked IP address, as it were.

Grassmonster

Hi pweggie, - didn't know that there was a governing body - I'll get onto that. No, I definately only had one account - as I explained to them, my boyfriend who I don't live with takes surveys from my computer when he visits and vice versa but they say on their site that more than one member from a household can join - we aren't even in the same household. They have said that I have tried to access surveys multiple times and have been paid for multiple attempts - this is not the case. I have asked for the original data so that I can try to get to the bottom of it - they have ignored my emails. I have told them everything that I have done which may have caused weird results and asked if it could be any of these things. They have just repeated their accusations of fraud and given me no information to work with that makes any sense. They say I would have to explain myself but if they won't confirm one way or the other if any of the things that I have done (refreshing the page etc), I can't justify anything.

Grassmonster

Interestingly, those who have pointed out glaring errors in the replies that Vivatic have given on their Facebook page or have been too vocal in their criticism of the cavelier attitude that the company has towards its panelists have had all their posts deleted from the Facebook wall and have been blocked from posting. 4 have disappeared in the past week - dissention from the ranks appears not to be tolerated by Vivatic !

Grassmonster

An interesting one for the folk who look at reviews before joining a site - I submitted a review on Suvey Compare where all the reviews for Vivatic were 5*. It didn't pass moderators - never appeared - why ? Survey Compare is part of MVF Marketing which is the parent company of Vivatic !! So beware of glowing reviews on Survey Compare - they are the only ones that they will post !