Pollus

On August 28, 2019, I received a text message from phone number *** with the following message:

Your opinion counts. Please take this short political poll -gift card with completion! ***
I checked the domain name before visiting the link and it indeeds lands at Pollus, a company that claims to conduct political polls. I then clicked on the link and completed a survey with various election scenarios presented regarding a local county commissioner, ***. Completing the survey, it said, would get me a $5 Amazon or $5 Starbucks gift card. The survey uses ***, a known online professional survey collection tool so I thought this was legitimate.

Upon completing the survey - which lasted approximately 20 minutes, the survey closed after I answered all questions (this wasn’t just a qualifying screener). I then visited opinion19 to obtain the phone number to call about my gift card. After multiple calls, the number always defaults to a voicemail. I left multiple messages inquiring about my gift card- I have never been called or emailed back, and this is clearly a scam business.

Given that it indeed has an operating website, a working phone number, uses a professional market research survey tool, and clearly knows that my phone number is lined to a specific political geography, this is clearly a deceitful business and I would like it investigated and stopped so others won’t face the same deception.