Do you do online surveys?

[Marlin]

Thats why I started this thread, I have two services I participate on, not scams, as I have collected money from them. They are by invite only, so I can invite you and no worries about scams and so on...not secret shoppers, although they offer that as well.

Jharris, will send invites tonight when I get off work.

[ZubrAZ]

Marlin, to my vision, you got too defensive to Stephen's reply. He is correct: you never know how those surveys may be turned against you. Although, your example with bank cards/SSN is strong and logical, I see Stephen's advice as to minimize the risk. You could as well shop with cash, buy tickets with cash through the agency, etc. Yes, it will cost more, but that's the price you pay to decrease the chance of being hit with something you told somebody in the past.
Since everybody's willing to take as much risk as the one can handle, it is totally your right to do it, but I would suggest you to (as pretty much Stephen's post does) to try being as secure as possible. To my knowledge, some of those websites may do lots of harm to your computer, as well as seed a virus/worm that will still your pass/logins to bank/credit card sites. And consequences to that are well known.

there is no free cheese, but in mousetrap

[ZubrAZ]

... at the same time, send me the invites too, please

[vt_maverick]

... at the same time, send me the invites too, please

Lol...

[vt_maverick]

Seems like carrying around large wads of cash for groceries, tickets, etc. introduces a new risk...

[ZubrAZ]

im a risktaker

[JHarris1385]

Cameras are everywhere. If you are afraid of surveys then you should be afraid to leave your house. Actually you should live in a cave, change your facial appearance and either gain or lose a tremendous amount of weight. This is the world we live in, there are ways to overcome anything and everything, you might as well make the most of it.

You should obviously be intelligent enough to know which sites are fake and viruses or not, that is practically common sense.

[FlyingV77]

if you pay for everything cash, you can usaly get a 3-4% discount. some gas stastions give as much as 10% off for cash transactions.
as for the SSN it is against the law to ask for or require it for anything other than SS reasons. almost all banks and Credit cards ask for them. but, if you speak to the manger and inform them of the laws, (they all know them) sometimes they will wave the "requirement". sometimes they wont, it is a big money maker for them to sell your info.
The tin foil hat people are almost always right. "they" are out to get you.
P.S. i used to be big brother

[Marlin]

As for the airline ticket with cash,still gotta provide ID info which gets recorded and scanned and so on. So, to win the war on identity theft, aluminum foil or a faraday cage wallet (we learned the hard way in Hong Kong, they can scan your cards through your clothes with magnetic card readers without ever touching you) never travel, no bank accounts, don't buy anything and that means guns are out the door, which is not really an option, don't use the internet, no drivers license, no insurance, no house....damn, sounds like I need to move to Antarctica or Tennessee (people in TN can't read, so I will be safe there )

[samneil2000]

....damn, sounds like I need to move to Antarctica or Tennessee (people in TN can't read, so I will be safe there )

Good thing I can't read or I'd be offended.

[circmand]

It is not a crime to give fake information on those store discount cards. Of course dont try to cash a check there with one.

[vt_maverick]

as for the SSN it is against the law to ask for or require it for anything other than SS reasons. almost all banks and Credit cards ask for them. but, if you speak to the manger and inform them of the laws, (they all know them) sometimes they will wave the "requirement".

So how does the bank make the link between your credit report and you? Without your SSN it seems like that leaves a lot of room for false reporting.

[JHarris1385]

3-4% discount using cash...You get points on your cards. If you get the right card the points are more than 3-4%. Shell fuel gives you discounts for using Visa around here. The cash incentives are not that large and are not that widespread.

Doing online surveys is the least of our privacy worries.

[vt_maverick]

I think I stopped worrying when my government job forced me to give up my SSN, fingerprints, full background history, financial info, etc. to gain employment. Once your privacy has been raped at that level and you get an insider view into how disturbingly casual the government is with safeguarding your information it's difficult to get spun up about protecting your identity. The human in the loop for those things that do require your information is always the weakest link, so all the caution and anti-intrusion systems in the world still leave you exposed.

[Stephen Biko]

There is a big difference in systemic risk and one-offs. It sounds like you are referring to the information on the SF-86 - used for clearances - there is a lot of legal protection for that information. My experience has been that the security people who handle SF-86's are very diligent, although I do have my share of stories about people who got fired for being sloppy -- but they were fired.

No such legal protections exist for commercially collected data and consequently there is practically no control of that information and no consequences for misuse - in fact what normal people would consider misuse is just another business opportunity to the people who collect it.