I believe you fully - E-Rewards' clients are some of the most racist, prejudiced, elitist companies on this planet. Unless you are a rich white businessman, it's hard to get a survey.

What are some of e-rewards top companies?

Then please explain to me how I, a very not rich student, am on their "Preferred Research Panel?" I know of at least one more not-rich Asian student on FT who is also on the panel, and plenty of "rich," white businessmen (and women) who receive very few surveys.

Perhaps there's a bit more to their demographic matching than one realizes, huh?

The point of my email was that my black friends get little or nothing. My point was that people who are young, well educated, well employed men and women should be getting the same amount of surveys that others in that exact group get. If the only difference is race ( all things considered ) you must assume that is the reason. I find it funny that you a person of color would defend ( posed as a question no less ) this behavior. I can tell you endless stories of living in the Bayarea and having incidents of watching people being treated differently based on color, gender,or income. Thank God those days are comimg to an end.

Maybe they do. Your sample of "a few" is statistically meaningless. Since SF has so many well-educated people of color, it's easily possible that they are getting just as many surveys as other demographics, but your friends are (for whatever reason) not selected, either statistically or because there's something else in their profile that is causing them to be excluded.

I find it highly amusing that people are drawing conclusions based upon a small handful of observations. Market research is a highly statistical game; e-Rewards has probably many tens of thousands of members, and you can only draw meaningful conclusions if you examine a statistically-signifiant portion of their market base.

Even if the only difference between your black friends' profiles and those of your white friends is race (and given how extensive the extended profile questions are, I doubt that's the only difference; even if you consider the other differences to be meaningless, the market researchers may not), that still doesn't tell you anything, because you'd need to know how many other people with that same profile (race excluded) are also registered, how many are selected for the survey, etc. For example, it's quite possible that your non-selected black friends are part of a larger registered demographic compared to your selected non-black friends, hence your black friends are statistically less likely to get selected. There are many other criteria that also must be known before you can draw any inference as to whether they are excluding people based on race, whether it's just a statistical manifestation (picking a few people from a large group), or anything else. Given the very limited information we have, there is no statistically meaningful conclusion that can be drawn.

So let's not jump to conclusions based on not enough information, please.

Very well said. There have been quite a number of posts (on other e-rewards threads on this forum) where people experienced very long "dry spells" of not getting any surveys at all -- then all of a sudden, without their changing their profile or anything, they get bombarded with surveys!

I have had this happen myself. It's feast or famine, sometimes. Usually the surveys trickle in, sometimes the trickle dries up, sometimes there's a flood. I've been using e-rewards for a few years now, and that's just how it goes.

I do think one would need a larger (and longer in time) sample than just a few friends over a short time period to come to any solid conclusions about race. I will admit that it is a POSSIBILITY that some of e-rewards' client companies don't target certain demographic groups (such as African-Americans) because they aren't that interested in their business, unfortunately. I also agree that racism is still a real problem in our country. So please don't misunderstand my position. @:-)

e-reward is really not worth the trouble. $50 e-rward get you 1000 airline miles. At $0.02 mile, $50 e-reward is really only worth $20.00. To get $5 e-reward, the survey last about 15 minutes. That is about $2.00 for 15 minutes or $8.00 per hour. Unless if you have a lot time and need a lot miles, e-reward really not worth the time or trouble.

I agree that e-rewards dollars are not really worth their face value in redemption value. For example, for $50 in e-rewards you can get 3,000 Hilton HHonors points, which are generally worth around $20 when used for HHonors reward stays. BUT....

The surveys usually don't take that long; there are also "quick surveys" that earn you 30 cents and take practically no time; and you get a few extra cents (was 30, now 15?) just for clicking on "Earn more" on regular surveys.

It's something you do while multi-tasking; e.g., waiting on hold on the phone, eating dinner, reading FlyerTalk (;)), etc. You don't devote "quality time" to e-rewards! :eek:

Anyhow, this is another one of those topics that have already been thoroughly beaten to death on other lengthy e-rewards threads in this forum. @:-)

E-Rewards is an absolute scam when you get 10-15 minutes into a survey and then you are told "do not qualify" or "enough respondents".

:td:

If you've actually spent 10-15 minutes, I would tend to agree with you, but that happens very rarely to me... if I screen out, it usually happens within a minute, although I've had the 10-minute screen out before.

But... it's not unique to e-Rewards, and it's not "their fault" per se. e-Rewards doesn't write the surveys, or even host them! They send you to other market research sites who host (and often write) the surveys. e-Rewards is just the "panel manager." While you might blame them for not checking the surveys properly, etc... almost all other panels have the same problem. Lightspeed Research, SurveySpot, etc... I've had the 10-minute screen out on all of those. e-Rewards is basically just par for the course, for better or for worse.

If it makes the difference between losing banked FF miles in one program or keeping an account active, it's worth it. ;)

That happened to me a couple of times. Both times I emailed e-rewards to complain about it, including the date, name of the survey company and title of the survey, and both times they credited me with the full amount.

I think I fall into quite an average group and receive one survey every few months. I have no illness, don't change car insurance, have no under 18's living at home, so just don't fit any targeted profile.

Is it only me that finds it somewhat ironic that we are debating whether it is a waste of time to participate in a program who pays us for giving our opinion........but are sitting here giving our opinion for free?

No, it's not only you. If you take a gander at the other e-Rewards threads, you'll see that both sentiments (that e-Rewards is a "waste," and that complaining about it here is even more so) are voiced numerous times throughout every one of those threads.