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Just received an email from 'Oculus User Research Study'

Anonymous
Not applicable

I just received an email from Frances Yan, from Oculus User Research Study, saying there's a 2hr in-person research study going on in Vancouver, and if selected, I'll be paid $400 CAD. They use the email I used for this site, my old Oculus account, not the email from my Facebook account which my Quest 2 is connected with. They also used 'Oculus', and not 'Meta'. Is this a scam?

12 REPLIES 12

MetaQuestSupport
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hello there Spuzzum! Goodness, thanks for bringing this to our attention. Our members security is very important to us. So we can validate this for you, can you please send us the email domain? (ie: user@yahoo.com)

If you're the author of a thread, remember to mark a reply as the Accepted Solution to help others find answers!

Hi, yes I also received the same email from a Francis Yan and would like to also know if it is legit. Here’s the email: Hello Janice,
The Oculus User Research Team wants to learn more about how people use VR and how we can make it a better experience. We are looking for people 18 years or older to participate in a 120-minute in-person research study between July 19-29. The study will be held in or near Vancouver, BC. To thank you for your feedback, you will receive $400 CAD.
if you are selected and participate in the study. If you are interested in participating, please complete the brief survey here. If you are selected for the study, our research partners at Spatial Research & Design will contact you directly and you will receive a follow-up call or email with more details. Please don't hesitate to reply with any questions!
Thank you,
The Oculus User Research Team
__

Anonymous
Not applicable

from: Frances Yan <noreply@qemailserver.com>

reply to: Frances Yan <francesyan@fb.com>

 

I tried googling the francesyan@fb.com, but it automatically tried logging me into Facebook as Frances Yan. I then tried searching Facebook for a Frances Yan who worked for Facebook, but it was long list of names, and neither of them had anything to do with Facebook attached to their profiles. I didn't look at them all though.

 

When posting my question here, it showed a few previous posts about an Oculus Research Team survey, but the dollar amount was something like $125 or so, not $400, so this sounded like a scam. It would be nice if it was real though. 😛

Hey Spuzzum, you're awesome for doing all that investigating!  To OctopusSlither, thanks for providing the contents of the email. We really appreciate that!

 

Yes, https://www.oculus.com/research/ does exist. However, there have been no updates since 2018 and no mention of any paid researches.

 

If you're the author of a thread, remember to mark a reply as the Accepted Solution to help others find answers!

Anonymous
Not applicable

Thanks for the reply. One of the posts that popped up when posting mine was from October 10th, 2020, and the Oculus Support person said it was legit, so there must have been at least one instance since 2018... unless that support person was wrong(?).

 

https://forums.oculusvr.com/t5/Off-Topic/Is-this-user-research-study-a-scam/m-p/833426#M21260

 

Also, I forgot to add the actual link they wanted me to click... I right-clicked and saved it to a text file.

 

https://oculusur.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9NX6KS1LwDOPvHo?Q_DL=XrOFdh09nHgtqnt_9NX6KS1LwDOPvHo_CGC_...

CaitlionRoar
Honored Guest

I got the exact same email.

 

What’s interesting is if you Google “Frances Yan Oculus” the first result is a LinkedIn page for a Frances Yan who’s listed as Senior UX Researcher at Meta Reality Labs in San Francisco.

 

So as it appears this is indeed a scam since Oculus Support says it is, the scammer clearly did a bit of homework before sending the phishing emails out.

Anonymous
Not applicable

I should have thought of that... 'Frances Yan Oculus'.

 

I accept that it's a scam, as $400 for a 2hr survey is pretty high. I just pointed out that at least in 2020, there was a post here that the Oculus Support worker considered real. It's too bad though... I could use the $400. 😛

Gonavy34
Honored Guest

Seems like this "scam" is still ongoing...they've lowered the $ offering to $250...perhaps to make it seem more legitimate. Same Frances Yan, etc. They certainly have good info on file as they know your home city...among other things.

1St rule of the internet: It's a scam. Always view things this way until you have proof it's not.

 

For this one, I got the same message and my first though was I'm in CA, USA and I couldn't even pay for travel expense with the promised payment to be a part of this survey. I guess they are just sending to anywhere off of some huge mailing list to wherever. Second issue is look at the verbiage in the message "if you are selected and participate in the study". No one will be selected is my guess. What will happen is you will go through the signup questionnaire and give away more information than you would really want to. Just data mining.