Last week I got a random call from some woman (exact details as passed on by the message taker) to my home number while I was out. Now, all of my friends know to call to my mobile if they want to catch me and I hardly ever give out my home number. She said she'd call back and had asked for me by my full name so I figured that it was either my bank or credit card company wanting something or some kind of phone spam.
Well, I wasn't so far off the mark as it turned out to be a market research company doing a survey for one of the banks I have an account with. I was told they were carrying out research into the bank's online website and were looking for customers to take part to help them develop this. They told me it would be for two hours but that there would be food and drink and that participants would be paid £40 for their time.
The research took place a couple of nights ago in a small office in Covent Garden. All very painless as we were sat in front of laptops to explore the bank's website and just had to discuss a few things related to security. The only thing was that there was a one way mirror through which we were told the session was being observed and recorded, and I probably looked a little bored. Still, £40 for a couple hours worth of mouse clicks and my observations on internet banking was pretty easy money...
