In June I was told that I could either stay with the $5 panel or move to the new $3 panel for Pinecone Research. If I stayed with the old panel I wouldn't get as many surveys if I joined the $3 panel, I decided to stay with the $5 panel as long as I could. I received about 5 more surveys during the months of June, July and August which is slightly less than I usually get. Well yesterday I received an email stating to click on a link to a membership survey which stated the following:
To help PineCone Research keep pace with changes occurring in the general population, we periodically perform routine maintenance of our active panelist files. As part of the upcoming panel maintenance process, your household has been flagged for removal and regrettably, your membership with the panel is scheduled to be discontinued.
While your participation in the PineCone panel as it exists today has come to an end, as a valued member of the PineCone family we'd like to extend to you the opportunity to join our new cash plus sweepstakes incentive panel, if you would like to do so.
In the cash plus incentive plan, members are compensated with a $3 cash incentive for each completed survey and entered into a bi-weekly sweepstake for a chance to win $500. In addition, members are entered into the bi-weekly sweepstakes every time they complete household questions, which were formerly uncompensated.
Would you like to join PineCone's new cash plus sweepstakes panel?
We'll be happy to include you in the new cash plus sweepstakes panel as soon as the transition can be made. You will receive an e-mail confirmation when the transition is complete. Good luck in the sweepstakes...
I am sure I am not the only one who was "flagged for removal" because of "routine maintenance", all I can say is that I stayed a member of the $5 panel as long as I could and I have decided to just join the new $3 panel. If you haven't gotten this email yet and you are apart of the old $5 panel, heads up because it will inevitably be sent to you.
4 comments:
You're one of the lucky ones, I guess. I received this letter a couple days ago. I've only been signed up with Pinecone for less than a month.
Periodically we have found it necessary to refresh the composition of our research panel in order to stay current with changes in the general population and to provide clients with the broadest possible spectrum of
consumer opinions. In doing so, on occasion we have had to discontinue the membership of some of our panelists.
Your household was on the list for deactivation and subsequently removed from the panel.
Although we are unable to reactivate your membership, we appreciate your past participation and interest in the panel.
I only found this out after I tried to log in and check on a payment to my account. When I couldn't log in, I emailed Karen Scott and this was what I recieved in return. I was also in the middle of doing a study for them.
I don't know what the heck happened but I find the Pinecone to be very rude. They act all high and mighty with their mysterious signup banners, etc and then don't have the decency to email a person when they've kicked them off the panel.
Poop on PineCone Research. There are better companies than them out there that treat their panelists with more respect.
Wow, that is rude of them, I mean a month on the panel and they decide to remove you? I agree that they make themselves seem the best out there, but a lot of people don't like Pinecone Research as much anymore because of the new panel which is paying their members less. I have noticed a couple sites have dropped them down the list of "Top Survey Sites", so I think they should rethink how they treat their members. It's kinda strange that they would drop you from the panel since you have kids. Well I am sorry to hear about you getting removed from the panel, the only other way of joining them again, if you wanted to that is, would be providing them with a different mailing address and email address.
•§• Thanks & Good Luck •§•
Ha! Your reply freaked me out because at first I wondered how you knew I had kids! LOL Duh!
Yeah, I don't know is going on with Pinecone. I didn't lie on a survey or anything to disqualify myself, so I don't know what happened. Maybe too many people in one area or something, I dunno. It still sucks.
Lol, yea I usually check out the blogs of people who comment on mine. :)
Do you live in a big city? Still you would think they would email you about it before they remove you. There are some other really good panels besides Pinecone, so don't feel too bad! :)
Speaking of good ones, you should try out Esearch, they don't send that many surveys out but when they do they are worth it. I would say 50% of them turn out to be product tests.
•☼•Good Luck•☼•
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