focus groups and mock juries

[darkoshi]

Got a message on my answering machine with a guy's voice saying they need people for a one-day "focus group" which pays $250, with breakfast and lunch provided. It didn't even sound like a recording, though it probably was. He left a phone number for calling him back.

I've never gotten a message quite like that before, and couldn't tell if it was a scam. Focus Group? What could that be, and why would they pay that much money for it? I've got a job, so I'm not interested, but maybe my mom or niece would be.

So I looked online, and found a Craigslist ad for the same thing. It links to nelsonrecruiting dot com, which seems like a legitimate company for that kind of thing.

While looking up about focus groups, I came across the term "mock jury". I hadn't heard of that before either, so I looked it up. Apparently, if you're rich, not only can you hire a good lawyer to defend you, but your lawyers can hire people to act as mock juries, to find out which arguments are most likely to help them win their case. Sigh.

Comments

Mock juries

[nozomi604]

There's a fish-out-of-water comedy premise in there somewhere.

Re: Mock juries

[darkoshi]

The only thing that comes to my mind upon reading that is mock salmon and mock tuna, which doesn't make sense from a comedy perspective :)

[marahmarie]

It's weird you got this call but did not even sign up beforehand. That said, mock juries are the best. Did I write about the one I did last year under lock? It was awesome, and I actually got to present an argument opposing the defendant that no one else had (as a juror) which kind of stunned the prosecution (and the argument was also correct).

Would do it again. Because it was about a medical error (in which because of it, someone died) it also became a bit emotionally involving.

I'm kind of envious of this, because mock juries/focus groups are hard to come by and even harder to get scheduled to participate in, but only take a few hours and pay quite well (I got $125 for my last one, in cash, as I left the building that day, if I recall the amount correctly).

They're fun! If you're into deliberating things mock juries are definitely a thing to try out.

[darkoshi]

I don't remember you writing about it before. It does sound like a relatively fun way to earn money.

[marahmarie]

It was. Like a lot of things I do (like beta testing) I was under an NDA (because the case had not been tried yet, but was expected to go to trial) and told not to even Google it (and actually, though I was tempted, I didn't Google it - I couldn't even remember the details now to do so, but at the time I could've, as the prosecution had slipped and given the patient's real name, which was all any of us needed) so I think I just let it slip my mind.

It was fun, though. But getting set up to go in was sort of awkward - the neighbor who took Bowie's black brother in just before Halloween is actually the booking person there, which I didn't know beforehand. We came to recognize each other's voices on the phone as she was booking me, then she checked my address on her computer screen again and asked was I the neighbor who'd given her the kitten? Kind of amusing.

[heron61]

It's very odd, but out here in Portland, I got exactly the same call today - same fee, for a mock jury. I have also never gotten this before. I wonder if it's a new company.

[darkoshi]

That is quite a coincidence. I'm not sure if that makes it seem more legitimate, or more likely to be a scam.

Yours is from the same company, nelsonrecruiting? Their website says they've been in business for 32 years, but the internet archive doesn't have any history for their site, based on their robots.txt. Their whois info seems to indicate the domain has been around since at least 2010, if I'm interpreting it right.

[darkoshi]

Actually, the phone call I got didn't mention what company they were or their website, I only found that from the Craigslist ad.