Forage Design Research Reports & Reviews

Forage Design Research Reports & Reviews (2)

Scammer's email [email protected]
Type of a scam Phishing

This “company” advertised on Seattle Craigslist, seeking participants in a 2-hr fitness research/study for a coampensation of $200 in cash at the end of the study session. I replied to the advertisement and went through the screening process, conducted over the phone. After that a person named Trena began communicating with me via email with respect to the logistics of the study. Having participated in numerous product testing/consumer opinion research studies in the past, her communication style, her requests, inconsistencies and her un-business like writing right away raised some red flags in my mind. However I was still going to fulfill the commitment I made to that study and attend it on June 20th, 2018. The all of a sudden, in the eleventh hour, Trena emailed me that she was withdrawing the original form of payment $200 cash at the end of the study and that instead the payment will be made later via PayPal, or Amazon, or check. This was a significant departure from the original promise made to me by this company through advertisement and expecitely over the phone and via emails. I responded to Trena, stating that I was perplexed with that change, that it did not sound trustworthy and that unless the company adhered to the originally promised form and timing of payment (cash at the end of the study session) I was going to withdraw my participation. I received a very irritated reply, in which she stated that the change was the result of a “simple oversight”, that cash payment at the end of the study was not an option any longer and that she was only happy to replace me with someone else.

After receiving that email I spent a considerable amount of time looking up Forage Design Research and could not find anything that would prove this company’s legitimate business or associations. A researcher by trade, I could not locate any licensingdocuments, or any registrations of this business, in any state. The company does not have a legitimate address, but it operates from San Francisco, CA. Forage Design Research is a gost-business and Trena Partee, who is listing herself on her LinkedIn profile as its owner and founder does not operate in good faith.

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For some time researchers, from the various companies I work with, were paying in cash when meeting people in person. In this case the company realized how much cash they would need to have on hand given the high number of interviews they were conducting. In the end, they were uncomfortable carrying that much cash on hand. Because, lets face it, as nervous as participants are about entering research, the interviewers are, often, just as uncomfortable about the people they might be meeting with or situations they could be faced with.

Unfortunately, we needed to pivot and offered several options to the participants, a few of them instant solutions. In the end participants were still paid at the end of their participation just receiving it in a virtual format. I was very apologetic and had I been in Seattle for the actual research I would have personally come to pay participants in cash because I believe it is always the best solution for people when possible.

I think it is important for people to do their due diligence. Our founder is based in San Francisco so the company is registered for business there. The entire team works remotely so there is no need for an office location. Should someone want to see our business license, LLC registration or business insurance we are happy to provide these things as proof that we are, in fact, legitimate.

We feel we do act in good faith. In this particular case we had no control over our clients decision. This was a one off case and fortunately, these types of things do not normally happen. We are sorry this poster was so affected by receiving Paypal or Venmo rather than cash in hand but we tried hard to come up with offerings that were immediate.

We have been in business 12 years now and are happy to be offering people ways of making extra money in exchange for their experience and insights on services and products.

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Forage Design Research

Forage Design Research Reports & Reviews (2)

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