avatarLucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她)

Summary

The author recounts their experience of being scammed by a survey promising a Starbucks gift card and reflects on the lessons learned about research ethics and vigilance.

Abstract

In a personal narrative, the author describes attending a psychology class at university where they encountered a flyer offering a $5 Starbucks gift card for completing a survey. Despite initial skepticism, the author was convinced by the specific mention of an on-campus Starbucks and later discovered the offer was fraudulent. The incident led to insights on safeguarding personal information, the importance of research study transparency, and ethical considerations in psychological studies. The author emphasizes the need for clear information on reimbursement, lab name, and Research Ethics Board approval when participating in studies. They also ponder the intentions behind the scam, considering it might have been a simple error rather than malicious intent.

Opinions

  • The author initially doubted the legitimacy of the survey but was reassured by the mention of a specific on-campus Starbucks location.
  • After realizing the scam, the author appreciated the empathetic response from the Starbucks barista, highlighting the importance of customer service in handling such situations.
  • The author believes that any research involving deception or manipulation requires a thorough debriefing to ensure ethical standards are met.
  • Reflecting on the experience, the author suggests that the scam might have been an accidental release of an unfinished payment system rather than a deliberate act of malice.
  • The author advocates for due diligence when participating in research studies, including verifying the lab's credibility and understanding the ethics procedures in place at universities.

The time I fell for a scam — or was it a social experiment?

Enclosed — 3 ways to avoid falling in my dumb footsteps

How it happened

Photo by Joshua Hanson on Unsplash

I was sitting in one of the largest lecture halls at our university, one that seats over a thousand people, waiting for an Introduction to Psychology class to start. From time to time, people come in with flyers for tutoring or MCAT prep companies and scatter them from the second-level balconies.

In fact, from time to time, people come in doing the weirdest things ever:

  • an entire marching band marched through our lecture and the prof just stopped, allowed it to happen, and picked up mid-sentence without ever acknowledging the occurrence
  • the time a tourist group just entered via one of the second balconies and started taking photos of the lecture and chattering excitedly.

So, on this day that I was about to be scammed, I sat there, five minutes prior to the beginning of class, when someone came in and dropped flyers. On this neon green flyer, it included a QR code, a simple bit.ly link and the tantalizing header

Fill out this survey for a $5 Starbucks gift card!

I picked one up, tucked one into my bag to fill out later.

The scam

Photo by Celpax on Unsplash

I remember filling out a relatively short survey, with a few demographic questions and psychology-related multiple-choice questions. It actually felt like a real questionnaire that you might complete for credit or pay as part of a first-year psychology class.

At the end of the survey, instead of sending me an e-gift card, they listed the location of an on-campus Starbucks and gave me a long string of numbers. The instructions indicated that a barista would enter it to redeem my $5 gift card. It seemed a little off, but for some reason, the fact that they named the on-campus Starbucks made it seem more legit.

Maybe the lab had a specific partnership or had paid for a certain number of credits with the on-campus Starbucks the same way that a meal plan worked?

I was wrong.

I think it would be a few weeks after I filled out the survey that I had a sudden craving for more coffee, and so I made way to said Starbucks. When I got there, the barista looked really embarrassed and told me that unfortunately, the survey link was a scam — that she’d gotten quite a few people in the past few weeks who had come in asking about it.

She was honestly so nice and empathetic about it, and that really helped. So thank you, unnamed Starbucks barista, for your excellent customer service. Honestly, it must have also been so unpleasant and weird for the Starbucks staff to unwittingly be looped into this mess and constantly have to apologize for something they didn’t set up. Yet they handled it in a really gentle way, which I was really grateful about.

What I learned

Photo by Ryan Graybill on Unsplash

In the grand scheme of things, this has fortunately been the only time I have been scammed.

In the end, I didn’t actually lose any money. I only lost some personal information (which is pretty important, don’t get me wrong) and a hope for a $5 Starbucks gift card.

I ended up completing a psychology degree and learned a lot more about the ethics procedures that are put in place at every university to protect volunteers from being manipulated or treated poorly. If I had known then what I know now, this is what I would have looked for and done for every study:

  • Look for a lab name associated with the study, and contact information for researchers in case you need to contact them with questions or complaints.
  • Research Ethics Board information (proof of approval, contact information in case of questions or complaints) — this should be in the consent form, and all of this information should be available prior to any information being collected.
  • Clear information on reimbursement — this should include the amount the reimbursement would be, how long the study is and the format of payment (usually cash if you are completing an in-person study; sometimes an e-gift card or a draw for a prize if online). Note that this information is also usually buried deeper in the text because a lot of universities and research institutions prevent people from advertising the money part as a way to attract participants — because it creates pressure for people to join, if they need money. When I fill out online studies I usually ctrl+f (search function) for this information; if it’s an in-person I usually just ask about it.

I still have questions…

Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash

My questions really come from the why did this happen? I’m still so curious about why this truly happened, and I have a few possibilities:

  1. It was truly just a scam to collect my personal information.
  2. It was a social experiment and the scam was part of the experimental design. I later learned that this cannot be true because any and all experiments including deception or manipulation has to be extensively debriefed — someone will literally sit you down and discuss exactly what they were manipulating, and the rationale behind it so you understand why it was a necessary component of the study.
  3. Did someone just screw up the payment system? I also just genuinely wonder if something just went wrong and they pushed this study out before their online payment system was ready. This would be a huge mistake, but also an explanation that doesn’t just assume malice on the study makers’ part.

What do you think?

Lucy (The Egg Girl) loves eggs, write poetry and tells stories about how to apply life hacks to your life in a more flexible, applicable, doable way.

Article recommendations: 2 of mine and 1 of yours! 👇

Scam
Research Studies
Personal Story
Social Experiment
Academia
Recommended from ReadMedium