"Easy Survey (Data Research)" -- not a survey

Discussion in 'CrowdFlower' started by pwt, Feb 18, 2013.

  1. pwt

    pwt User

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    It's a signup scam. The "survey" asks for your name, home address, and cell phone number. Then they spam you with a half dozen pages of ads, and finally it demands that you sign up for one of three offers before the "survey" is over. If you don't sign up with any of the offers, you can't finish it.

    I reported it to mTurk. Very surprised to see this garbage from a big name like CrowdFlower.
     
  2. ewd76

    ewd76 User

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    In this sense, CF is sort of like MTurk. They host things they haven't even looked at.
     
  3. pwt

    pwt User

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    That crossed my mind. That's unfortunate for them, since mTurk will hold them responsible for that violation and not the CF client. Maybe I'll dig up a contact for CF tonight and tell them about it too, then.
     
  4. brian_cf

    brian_cf Verified Requester

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    @ewd76 and @pwt

    Our apologies that you encountered those tasks. We do agree that those are problematic. ewd76 is exactly right, parts of CrowdFlower do function just like mTurk in the sense that people can use CF software to create tasks and post them to sites like mTurk. Currently, we are unable to monitor every task that is released. But we are working on ways to better monitor problematic tasks in the near future.

    In the mean time, if you do encounter tasks of this nature, the best thing you can do is to report it via our support forum found here: https://getsatisfaction.com/crowdflower

    We take scam tasks very seriously, so although we are slow to get to some topics we usually try to deactivate any accounts that are problematic as soon at they are reported.

    Thank you so much for your help to monitor these tasks.

    -- Brian
     
  5. pwt

    pwt User

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    I hope so, because those HITs violate mTurk policies and if they don't stop showing up, you guys are going to get banned I fear.

    That's not practical or fair. It's not our responsibility to keep TOS violations off mTurk, it's yours. I want to help, but I'm not going to spend time each and every day doing CF's job for it. You know? I'll try to report them directly to you guys for the next few times I see them, but if they don't stop showing up, I'm going to start reporting them to mTurk because those scams need to stop one way or another. Even if it means CF being banned.

    I hope you understand.
     
  6. pwt

    pwt User

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    In fact you've got 6 of them on right now.
     
  7. brian_cf

    brian_cf Verified Requester

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    I absolutely understand. And I'll make sure that we do everything we can in the near term to better police these tasks.

    I know that you do not want to be the person reporting these directly to us, as you should not be expected to do this. But it would be incredibly helpful if in just this one case you could provide me the 6 Job Titles that you are seeing that violate the TOS. I was scanning and I'm not sure I'm as immediately aware. This will help me review each of those tasks and to better understand everything we need to be on the lookout for. Not a problem, if this is too much to ask this one time.

    Thanks for the honest feedback.

    Brian
     
  8. pwt

    pwt User

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    I linked them on the support site on a ticket I've had open for a full week now. Not sure if the URL to it will be something you can load or look at, but here it is:

    https://getsatisfaction.com/crowdflower/topics/one_of_your_hits_posing_as_a_survey_is_a_signup_scam

    There were three titles and about six or so HITs total. One of the first things it does is ask for personal information like your name, address, and phone number. That's a violation I'm pretty sure. In order to complete the "survey" which is nothing but a series of adverts after taking your personal info, you have to complete one of three "offers", all of which require you to sign up for something. Pretty sure that's a big violation too.
     
  9. brian_cf

    brian_cf Verified Requester

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    Thank you for this. I just looked through our listings on mTurk based on what you provided me and did notice some strange things. Those tasks are not active on our end, in fact they were disabled the same day they were launched, once we got wind of them. This means that you won't actually be able to complete any HITs for them, but the fact they are still displayed is still a problem. Thanks for pointing this out. We might have to engage directly with mTurk to understand why that is happening.

    Appreciate your help.
     
  10. pwt

    pwt User

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    Thanks for being on top of this.
     

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