While browsing the web, I found an offer to become a mystery shopper, where I would earn
money from shopping and reporting on the experience. I entered my zip code and discovered marketing info from my area is in great demand. I could shop at various large chains like Target and Home Depot, and get to keep what I bought with their money, as long as I filled out a comprehensive marketing research report.
(I’ve done these before, but I was a copywriter watching through one-way glass, as focus groups talked about their favorite deodorant.)
Anyway, the mystery shopper site listed my nearest stores to evaluate as several miles away. Then I read the terms and conditions. Whoops. My information, that is, my telephone number, street address and verified email address could all be given or sold to third parties.
So, as a mystery shopper, you are nothing but fresh meat for spammers.
I have been buried in spam before. In fact, in the recent book about the history of spam, Spam Kings, I recognized every single “marketing” campaign mentioned, even the Banned CD, whatever that was.
I decided maybe my zip code hadn’t been singled out for special treatment. I chose a different zip code, 99685 , which as you may know, is for Unalakleet, Alaska, a village on Alaska’s western coast. It has 750 people, mainly Eskimo fishing people. Not a shopping mecca. Sure enough, Unalakleet is also in high demand for undercover shoppers, even though the nearest Lowe’s or Home Depot that I could report on is in Anchorage, 393 miles away.
That seemed a little close. Was there a more remote zip code? An American settlement farther from a shopping mall? Yes, 96599, McMurdo Station, Antarctica, which probably doesn’t get snail mail very quickly, given the rough winters. (If you send a package there, be careful with packing materials. A lot of the eco-hazardous waste is flown out, and at the South Pole itself, styrofoam packing peanuts are banned from the landfill, as they produce gaseous waste.)
Sure enough, here too mystery shoppers are needed, but here the system failed as it could not calculate the distance to the nearest large retail store to evaluate.
Phooey. I would have loved to report on the first Home Depot at McMurdo.