Research Studies Coming Out - Be Careful!

[ERG4ALL]

I've now received three "Research Studies" because we have a LEAF. I just want to alert people that these all aren't Nissan seeking your opinion of the car. In one of them I researched the website of the company authoring the survey to find that they had just received some award from Ford. In another one the survey was so bad I couldn't fill it out if I had wanted to. The first question was whether the car was a manual transmission or an automatic with a paddle shifter, etc. The second question was how many miles per gallon does the car get. I emailed to the contact for that and told them to get serious, there were no boxes I could check. Also, one of them was not just asking for what I thought about the car but "How much did you pay for the car?", "How much did you get for your trade-in?", "How much to you earn?" and other personal questions. Because in each case you are entered into a drawing for prize money, these surveys are not confidential. They know who you are when they receive the survey.

Just a word of caution. I'm all for improving the EVs coming out. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about divulging a lot of personal information and this smells a little bit of corporate espionage by the competition. Just so you realize that the survey may not be used as you thought it would.

 

[mwalsh]

Just a word of caution. I'm all for improving the EVs coming out. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about divulging a lot of personal information and this smells a little bit of corporate espionage by the competition. Just so you realize that the survey may not be used as you thought it would.

These are just the standard deals one gets when you buy a new car of any type. Nothing to worry over.

 

[ERG4ALL]

I know, I've received them before and they usually had a dollar bill inside as your payment. Thus, I had some assurance, after looking for any coding on the form, that my personal info, if any, was going to be anonymous. That's all I'm alerting people to is that these may not be anonymous with your personal information.

 

[DeaneG]

I've had a total of five or six survey requests to date after buying my Leaf. My past experience has been just one or two surveys per new car. Are there more players now?

 

[gmuzhik]

Thanks for the heads up. I wonder if we can opt out ahead of time. I'll try to remember to ask my dealer when I pick up the car in a couple weeks.

 

[mwalsh]

Thanks for the heads up. I wonder if we can opt out ahead of time. I'll try to remember to ask my dealer when I pick up the car in a couple weeks.

Just don't answer. You aren't under any obligation. Heck, even keep the $1 some of them send you!

 

[LakeLeaf]

Just don't answer. You aren't under any obligation. Heck, even keep the $1 some of them send you!

No, no. If you don't reply to the survey, you are required by law to send any funds included with the survey to:

LakeLEAF
South Lake Tahoe CA

 

[mwalsh]

Speaking of surveys, I just got a request to do one from the nice folks at the CCSE. I, of course, obliged....the very least I could do for their help with my $5k rebate!

 

[Randy]

I'll be happy to do a survey that asks intelligent questions. I've responded to a couple...

However, as soon as I see a survey that mentions my Leaf and has questions like the transmission type (Auto/Manual), MPG, fuel octane, etc. I just quit it. You have to ask intelligent questions to get any meaningful results, so that's just a non-starter in my book. And I usually tell them why I won't take the survey. A couple have responded that they understand, but I have yet to see a survey get fixed and re-sent....