The other day, as I was sorting through my mail I was just about to toss an envelope addressed to “Area Household.” I thought, “This has to be junk, they didn’t even try to find a name.” However, It felt a little thicker than your average junk mail so I decided to give it a quick open just to make sure I wasn’t tossing anything important and . . . out fell a dollar.
It was a nice, suspiciously crisp dollar.
My husband and I were both immediately curious.
“Is this real?”
“It can’t be. Why would someone just send a dollar in junk mail?”
“What’s that trick to knowing if a dollar is real or not?”
*Commence Google search*
Turns out, it was a legit dollar and it was sent from a legit company, Nielsen, the audience rating company. They had sent a brief television survey. The dollar is a gift for reading and, if I complete and send the survey back, I’ll get another five dollars. Woot, woot!
From more Googling, I learned that they send out these survey at random to help networks decide what television shows they should keep on the air or not. They are sent out completely at random, and anyone could receive one. Now that I know what it is, I guess you’re lucky if you get one. You get a free dollar for doing absolutely nothing. And if you return it, you can score a few more.
However, I couldn’t help but wonder, was this really the best way to get survey information in this day and age?
How many thousands on unopened envelopes must there be out there? It just seems kind of wasteful.
So this is my public service announcement, if you see an envelope from Nielsen addressed to “Area Household” open it and grab that dollar. You deserve it.
I’m curious, how many of you have received envelopes like this? Let me know!
Happy shopping,
The Empowered Shopper
