Deceived in Marina Square
Business must be really bad these days.
We were walking in Marina Square near the arcade centre when a man eyeballed us and walked towards us. Let’s call him Sheep Herder.
Tried to walk past Sheep Herder, who then shot out his arms with authority like a traffic policeman. No way was he going to let us walk past the aisle.
Then the begging began: “You have to help us. Otherwise we don’t get paid. We are doing a ‘lifestyle survey’ and we need more people. Please help us. It will only take a while.”
Step #1: Appeal to your altruistic side.
Sheep Herder then directed us to two Burly Girls, dressed casually like school kids on a vacation job doing surveys, but were obviously older women. They continued the begging while sheep Herder moved on to the next hapless shopper.
The Burly Girls continued acting cute and friendly, asking us to fill in the “lifestyle survey” form. They emphasized that we must fill in “Marina Square” as the shopping centre, since “we are conducting a survey about the shopping centre, otherwise we won’t get paid”.
And we’ll get a free gift at the end if we “answer correctly”! Woohoo!
Step #2: Exploit greed.
The survey asked us about things like our income level, how much we save per month, and of course the obligatory contact information. A win for telemarketers and email spammers.
Burly Girls continued chatting us up, giggling and fake smiling the best they could. “What line are you in? You’re enjoying your job? Its good money!” Rapport? Check. (Or so they thought.)
Step #3: Exploit your kind nature.
Then, Burly Girls awkwardly tried to transition to their modus operandi. They flipped over a large card on the table and there it was, a huge red “Prudential” logo staring back at us.
Suddenly, the conversation turned into insurance. “What policies do you have? Are you sure your advisor is good? Most people aren’t sufficiently insured. Investment-linked policies are a great way to save.” We resisted since we had our own “advisors”. They begged for a “chance” to serve us.
“No thanks.” So we left with no prize, gave up our contact information and ultimately wasted 10 minutes of our lives which we could never get back.
Yeah yeah, we’re whiners. This happens all the time right? Well, count the number of things they did:
- Blocking our right of way
- Using a false premise to make us sit down
- Alluding that they’re surveyors
- Hiding their real occupations
- Collecting personal information
- Lying about giving a prize
- Wasting more of people’s time than necessary if they asked directly
The steps highlighted in bold above are classic manipulation tactics used by the most desperate and unethical salesmen.
Prudential & Marina Square, you’ve lost a few more customers today. As Prudential lets more of their advisors act in such ways, more people will talk and write about it.
Either we’re wrong, or being deceptive actually makes customers trust you more. Take your pick, Prudential.
