514-288-0420

she asked me my age and what i got in my house , like an ordinateur , internet, and at that moment Ireceive a phone like this one. Excuse my englis so Im speak better french. Thank for your information.'m refuse to continued; so is not de first time, I'm

Called repeatedly for weeks, 3-5 times a day, as early as 8:15am and as late as 10:20 p.m. Eventually spoke with a "Supervisor" - he lied abut the number of times they call, he lied about the hours that they call and he lied about the name of the company  that he works for: claims to work for Harris Decima Research but his emplyer is Opinion Search Inc. This company clearly doesn't understand the term "ethical." They are annoying slime.

*A GUIDE TO HANDLING OPINION SEARCH, HARRIS-DECIMA and DECIMA*

Let me tell you about Opinion Search Inc. or OSI. I am an Opinon Search/Decima/Harris-Decima employee at the Montreal office. I understand your frustration and complaints. I feel very bad when people are called numerous times, especially when they specified they did not want to be called ever again. I understand it is very disrespectful and downright annoying. This is usually due to the fact that some of our employees may not be doing their job properly logging calls or our computerized system is not working as it is supposed to.
I am writing to maybe clear some misunderstandings concerning this company and this number.
First of all, I will explain the difference between market research and telemarketing because they are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. I am a university student so here is a personal market research definition, mostly inspired from my 2007 Canadian Edition of Philip Kotler's Principles of Marketing, a manual used in my Introduction to Marketing class at Concordia University.
*Market research*: Companies often need formal studies of specific situations. For example, Toshiba wants to know how many and what kinds of people will buy its new portable PC or your bank wants to know how satisfied you are with their services and if they should really lower fees on certain accounts, or Tim Hortons wants to know if they should continue with the Roll-Up The Rim To Win Contest. Company managers cannot determine that by themselves. They need the population's help and to do that, they use marketing research. So basically, marketing research (surveying or focus groups) is the systematic design, collection, analysis and reporting of data relevant to a specific marketing situation facing an organization. Companies use market research for a wide variety of situations. It helps companies understand customer satisfaction and purchase behavior, it helps them determine prices, market potential, the product, its distribution and its promotion activities. If any of you owns a business, you should understand this or else your business goes to hell.
So, what we mainly do at Opinion Search is SURVEY RESEARCH, which is one of the many marketing research approaches. Survey research is the most widely used method for gathering descriptive information about the population sample surveyed. A company or a social or governmental organization that wants to know about people's knowledge, attitudes, preferences, or buying behavior can often find out by asking them directly through a telephone survey.
Without your opinion, feedback and input, companies or the government will do as they please or will not know how to please you and you will continue to be disappointed and will continue to bathe in your ignorant bliss. As one famous interviewer once said: SURVEYS ARE LIKE VOTING, YOU ARE EITHER PART OF SOCIETY OR YOU ARE NOT.
*Telemarketing*: Telemarketing is the act of selling, soliciting or promoting a product or service over the telephone. Some telemarketing companies are the real deal, some are scams. You just have to use your own judgements. Opinion Search is not trying to scam you or SELL YOU ANYTHING.

*A GUIDE TO HANDLING OPINION SEARCH, HARRIS-DECIMA and DECIMA (CONTINUED)*

1) IF YOU WANT TO BE TAKEN OFF OUR LISTS, call 514-288-0420 or 514-288-0199 or 1-800-288-0199. At all these numbers, ask the receptionist for a supervisor or press 7 and you will reach a supervisor or the supervisor voice mail. If you reach the supervisor voice mail, feel free to leave your phone number and say the words DO NOT CALL ME AGAIN. We will then proceed to remove you from our database. If you reach a live person, they will most definitely ask you for your phone number. They will not ask for your name or any other information. We need to know your phone number so that we can know which number to remove. Many of you refuse to give it to us. If you do not give it to us, you cannot be removed from our database. You will receive more annoying calls and it is frustrating for us to receive complaints and not be able to do anything about them. Help us help you.

2) The difference between DECIMA, HARRIS-DECIMA and OPINION SEARCH:

OPINION SEARCH is the call center. It is the company that does the surveys, the research.

DECIMA is the actual research company. They get contracts from companies asking for market research. Then, DECIMA asks OPINION SEARCH to conduct the research.

HARRIS-DECIMA is actually a partnership formed by Decima, one of Canada's  major market research companies and Harris, one of US of A's major market research companies. Kind of like a North-American partnership.

I would like to underline that Decima is one of Canada's major research companies. If you live in Montreal and read the Metro or le 24 Heures, you will sometimes see polls or research done by us. Open your eyes to what you see, read or hear. You will most definitely have a better understanding of society.

3) THE PEOPLE OF OPINION SEARCH.

So, Opinion Search is a call center where I believe more than 70% of Montreal's student population has worked at least once. It is the perfect student job because it offers very flexible hours and an hourly pay ranging from 9.25-11.50 per hour. Many Concordia, McGill, Dawson, Vanier and Marianopolis students pay their university, rent, food and entertainment with hours worked at Opinion Search. Some people work there part time for extra revenue. I like speaking with people who are not ignorant about society and how it works. For more information, there are adds in the Mirror or Hour pretty much every week. I am sure you or your kids know at least one person who works there since it is one of Montreal's major research call center after Ipsos and Leger-Marketing.

4)  It is a very interesting job, especially when people I call understand that I AM NOT LOOKING FOR THEIR PERSONAL INFORMATION, JUST THEIR VIEWS. WE ARE NOT SELLING YOU ANYTHING. WE JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. REMEMBER THAT YOUR PARTICIPATION IS VOLUNTARY. NOBODY WILL TWIST YOUR ARM TO ANSWER THE SURVEY. YOU CAN REFUSE, BUT DO IT NICELY AND CLEARLY SO THAT WE CAN ACTUALLY TAKE YOU OFF OUR LISTS AND NOT CALL YOU EVER AGAIN. WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS TOO. SO LET US HELP YOU.

4) WHY YOU HEAR SOMEBODY HANG UP ON YOU: At OSI, an interviewer's job is to complete surveys or log calls when there is an answering machine, when there is no answer or when somebody refuses. We are all human and some interviewers, mostly new ones, have yet to master the art of logging a call properly. It takes them a few days to get it, so please excuse them.

5) If you have any more questions, feel free to call the company at 1-800-288-0199/514-288-0199/514-288-0420 or contact the CEO, Mr. Ed Hum at edhum@opinionsearch.com.

You can always visit the following websites and learn more about these companies. I say knowledge is power.
www.opinionsearch.ca
www.decima.ca
www.harris.com

*MORE ON  HOW TO HANDLE OPINION SEARCH*

I forgot to tell you.

If you receive a call from OPINION SEARCH or any other market research company and it bothers you and you do not want to be called again, DO NOT SAY THAT YOU ARE BUSY!!! According to market research standards, when you say that you are busy, that is considered a CALLBACK and you WILL BE 100% CALLED BACK until you grow some balls and say DO NOT CALL ME/THIS NUMBER AGAIN. Those are the magic words.


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I hope all this information helps everybody. And if you want to be really sure to not be called for surveys in the near future, phone your Internet company, your Cable company, the company you bought your TV and Kitchen appliances from, your Magazine subscription and tell them you do not want to take part in any research. Also, avoid entering your phone number on online contests or contests of any kind offered at grocery stores or department stores. Usually, ballots that are filled out for contests will eventually be part of a sample database. And trust me, you will be called at some point by either a market research company....or if you are unlucky, by a telemarketing company.

Once again, inform yourself, if you do not want big bad corporate companies to invade your mind and household.

As John Madison said,

*Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.*

*THE OPINION SEARCH DO NOT CALL LIST REMOVAL*

IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO HAVE YOUR SUPPER, SEX, PARTY OR FAVORITE TV SHOW DISTURBED, GO HERE. ENTER YOUR PHONE NUMBER AND IF YOU WANT TO, YOUR RANT.

http://www.opinionsearch.com/en/tools/donotcall/index.php

I hope this helps everybody. When I call you, I think about you. I really do. Sometimes, I feel horrible when I call moms about to change their crying babies. I immediately tell them I am sorry and that I sympathize and that I would rather call them at a more convenient time. Sometimes, I disturb family time. And yes I feel guilty. But that is my part-time job and I have hefty school fees to pay. Other times, I call really passionate people who really have interesting things to say about society, corporations and politics.It's always a pleasure doing a survey with them. Other times, I call lonely, old people and they do my survey. Then, I listen a bit to what they have to say. Usually, they are very glad somebody called them.And those are the best moments.

I called them its a French company , they called me sunday morning  10 :00  am

Its not a french company. Read the above on how to handle them.

I just got a call from 514-288-0420 and it is 9:269m!!!  When I answered, the girl started talking really fast and then said she would like to speak with a male member of the house.  I asked her what the call was about and she said it was a survey.  I told her we were NOT interested in any surveys and for her to remove my number.  I am sooooo sick of being harassed, just about every day and now at night, by NUMEROUS [***] like this!  I have an unlisted number and am also on the National Do Not Call List, and I STILL have to put up with these annoying calls all the time.  I'm buying a whistle and blast their ears and see how they like that!!!  I've had it, damn it!

they just called me March 9th 2008 at 10:39am. When I said hello no body answered...I heard radio in the background!!!

I googled and I found this!! I will try the website link posted here to remove my number from their list.....

Got another call from one of those "research" phone pests who always seem to have their telephones unattended. Robin Warlock in an earlier post goes to great, great length to try and legitimize this method as a market survey. For someone who claims to be a university student, Robin, how on earth did you miss the lectures on precis writing? Methinks you are spending too much time on the telephone and not enough in the class room. You've been hanging around those phone pitchmen too long. Their mantra  is, "B.S. baffles brains". Blunderbusting is a very annoying tactic  whether it is verbal or written. However; thanks for confirming that the source of the unlimited number of annoying  phone calls originates from Harris-Decima and/or Decima. I seriously doubt the credibility of any poll whereby opinions are gathered from very annoyed and downright hostile respondents. Somehow the randomness of the results are severely compromised by a total lack of focus in the interview methodology. But Robin, I think you mean well and you may yet have a great future in market research. So to help you out, and to save you the bother of telephoning me again here is a list of my favourite consumer products.  I prefer Coke over Pepsi, I drink Tim Hortons coffee rather than Starbucks. Yes, partly because I hope to roll up the rim and drive away with a brand new Toyota 2009 Matrix XR, but mostly because Starbucks is too strong and too expensive. I prefer Labatts beer rather than Molsons because being a Maple Leaf fan, I always associate the name Molson with rival Montreal Canadiens. When it comes to chewing gum, toothpaste, deodorants, laundry soap, TV shows, or magazines, I am easy to please and whatever my wife buys on sale is fine with me. I hope this helps. Please stop phoning me. Good luck in your new career.

I git four calls from them.  None of them I answered but they kept trying.  After the first call I went on the internet to track their number then they called three times after that.

Called twice within the dinner hour.

Received a call this morning (3/22)...Easter Weekend...they don't identify themselves at first...I have to pry it out of "Andy" that he's with Harris Decima.  I told him that at least when Harris Decima and Ipsos-Reid contact me via email they either enter me into a contest or give me 75 Aeroplan miles...but if he wasn't going to give me anything to answer "questions concerning companies like Bell Canada" then I wasn't interested.

I don't get what you mean by precise writing. I believe I expressed myself quite clear. Thank you.

The person on the phone didn't write the survey and they do not determine what honorarium you get for answering their questions. Thank you.

Three days in a row already...always around 6 pmish.....

i have call privacy through bell canada for $5 dollars a month, and if a call like this one comes in a simple step will enable them from reaching you ever again,  you can have up to 12 entries and let me tell you, it is bliss.  be aware...the only numbers you can not enter are those from bell, bell mobility or any affiliated companies, you can not escape all the rats.

They usually call either very early on the weekend or very late on a week nite. The people manning the phones are poorly trained, poorly paid, and obviously not very intelligent (why else would they take such a crummy job at such a scummy company).  The managers are just people that used to work the phones but hung around long enough to "move up" (good one).  They're usually unprofessional and borderline rude on the phones and seem to no qualms about lying to you.  I asked who was funding the research and she claimed, unconvincingly, she didn't know.

They called me thirteen times in eight days, sometimes less than an hour apart!! I couldn't believe it. I never answered but it sure is annoying. And why are people in Canada even calling me in TEXAS??