Prolific Academic Survey Alerts

Cordie

Has anyone tried contacting Prolific over the last few days their online form doesn't appear to be working for me.

Blue_Mermaid

Retired_Saver said:

I hope you hear soon, Blue_Mermaid.  I hoped for a reply but did not expect to be paid so the 78 pence was an unexpected bonus.  Since it was "An error at their end"  I hope you, and the others, hear soon and also receive payment.

I don't suppose we'll ever find out what the word was supposed to be.

I heard back from the researcher today. They informed me of the following:-

Dear participant. As you are aware from the discussions on the forum, there was a technical error on our side. We received hundreds of messages about this and were in the process of going through the emails and verifying participation. Unfortunately, possibly due to reports on this error and complaints filed, Prolific locked my account as of Sep 12th or 13th, and the finances button on my profile is completely deactivated. I cannot run any more research studies on Prolific. I am doing all I can to fix this but Prolific is yet to respond. All I have been able to do is to access messages.

MollyR

Interesting - what forum are they talking about?  I am not aware of any Prolific-run forum;  but surely Prolific researchers are not snooping on this forum?  It seems very odd.

Tommo2448

MollyR said:

Interesting - what forum are they talking about?  I am not aware of any Prolific-run forum;  but surely Prolific researchers are not snooping on this forum?  It seems very odd.

Hi, they might mean the Prolific thread on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/ProlificAc/)- there is some traffic there saying it was down yesterday for an outage at their end - users (mostly US I think) were reporting blank pages (briefly noticed that myself actually, although thought it was an error in my browser). 

Prolific Support posted a comment there sometime yesterday saying, "sorry about this folks! We're back up and running, just a minor issue behind the scenes, nothing to worry about. Just message Support here: https://participant-help.prolific.co/hc/en-gb/requests/new if you need any further help or had anything impacted by this brief outage".

Or alternatively, maybe they mean this, which appears to be a forum for researchers only ?  https://community.prolific.co/ - does not appear to be anything recent on it tho'.  Actually surprised that appears to be readable, might be worth a look in slower time !

Blue_Mermaid

MollyR said:

Interesting - what forum are they talking about?  I am not aware of any Prolific-run forum;  but surely Prolific researchers are not snooping on this forum?  It seems very odd.

I wondered that too MollyR.

When I messaged them yesterday, I just mentioned 'a forum', when explaining I had read there was a technical fault with their study.

I have seen both the Reddit forum and the Prolific researchers forum in the past that Tommy2448 mentioned in his reply but I don't know which the researcher was referring to.

theonlywayisup

Not sure if this has been reported yet?

There are changes coming with Prolific.  Very basically, they are proposing to charge 10p per withdrawal and studies will come in pounds, dollars and euros.  You will have to transfer those balances in other currencies to your paypal account to change into pounds (at paypal's ridiculously expensive rate). 

I can't say I am surprised at what is coming but it will no doubt change how people withdraw their money.  10p on a low amount is going to impact.  Less so on larger withdrawals. 

olliebean

theonlywayisup said:

Not sure if this has been reported yet?

There are changes coming with Prolific.  Very basically, they are proposing to charge 10p per withdrawal and studies will come in pounds, dollars and euros.  You will have to transfer those balances in other currencies to your paypal account to change into pounds (at paypal's ridiculously expensive rate). 

I can't say I am surprised at what is coming but it will no doubt change how people withdraw their money.  10p on a low amount is going to impact.  Less so on larger withdrawals. 

That's pretty unacceptable, if you ask me. No other survey site that I am aware of charges for withdrawals. That's like an employer saying you've got to give them £10/month in order to get paid. (Having said that, I bet there are people doing gig or agency work who have to put up with exactly that sort of arrangement.)

MollyR

olliebean said:

That's pretty unacceptable, if you ask me. No other survey site that I am aware of charges for withdrawals. That's like an employer saying you've got to give them £10/month in order to get paid. (Having said that, I bet there are people doing gig or agency work who have to put up with exactly that sort of arrangement.)

Valued Opinions charged 50p for redeeming for a gift card - so I always chose a £15 Amazon one rather  than a £10 other type one.  They have recently changed their system and I don't think they charge now.  Some sites charge for redeeming to Paypal, presumably because they want to avoid Paypal charges themselves, but do not charge for Amazon cards.

Tommo2448

theonlywayisup said:

Not sure if this has been reported yet?

There are changes coming with Prolific.  Very basically, they are proposing to charge 10p per withdrawal and studies will come in pounds, dollars and euros.  You will have to transfer those balances in other currencies to your paypal account to change into pounds (at paypal's ridiculously expensive rate). 

I can't say I am surprised at what is coming but it will no doubt change how people withdraw their money.  10p on a low amount is going to impact.  Less so on larger withdrawals. 

Interesting, thanks, where has this been announced ?

I usually wait for at least £10 before withdrawing, I can live with 1% less.  Crowdology charge 2%.   The different currencies would not suit everyone though, to be sure.   It may mean researchers will be able to do fewer international surveys, if participants choose only to do surveys that pay in their own currency.

warby68

It surprises me that Prolific has been able to sustain the fees for the many who withdraw frequently as soon as they hit £5. 

Another site I use allows 1 free withdrawal per rolling month and something like 10p for others. That's a fairish option in my view - sometimes moneysavers grow to expect a little too much from businesses free of charge. They have to make the model work for them as well.

Prolific raised a large amount of new capital a while back to leverage the operation - I hope their website can withstand the larger scale tinkering. It does seem a bit prone to having a hissy fit whenever they change something. I've noticed more commercial type studies lately. I hope they don't drift too far from their academic base as those are the most interesting.