Psst, wanna free £5 notes? That's the experiment that Tim Moss of loan price comparison website moneysupermarket.com ran in England one day. Surprisingly, he found that most people actually couldn't be bothered to claim free money!
Representatives from price comparison website, www.moneysupermarket.com wandered the streets this morning wearing sandwich boards offering a free £5 note to anyone who asked. Despite encountering over 1800 people, only 28 passers by bothered to take advantage of the offer.
The experiment also found a stark difference in the attitudes of men and women. On the streets of London and Manchester, all but 7 of the people who claimed the free cash were men and the research backed this up further. In a poll of 2000 people almost two thirds of women (64 per cent) said they would not claim the free fiver, compared to 41 per cent of money-shy men.
Additionally, the experiment found that Londoners were more reserved than their Manchester counterparts. Whilst just 1.2 per cent of people took advantage of the offer in London, this figure increased to 3.1 per cent on the streets of Manchester.
The research also found that the older the person, the less likely they would be to act on the free offer. Whilst some two thirds of under-twenties say they would claim the free cash, this steadily drops the older we get, declining to only a third (35 per cent) of over 70s who claim they would ask for a free fiver.
The Univ. of Texas has it's infamous "Drag Rats" (nickname for grungy kids panhandling and loitering on the busiest street near UT). Well, I dressed up like a drag rat, doing my hair up in dreds and wearing my grungiest clothes, and I TRIED TO GIVE AWAY MY CHANGE. Hardly anyone would even look at me, even as I said I was offering them FREE CHANGE! ;D
Seriously though, it's just too good to be true. People would rather not chance wasting time being pulled into some scam or movement or survey or whatever because there's always a string attached!
it surely will give different result
I'd say it's more an experiment in advertising than free money. A rate of only 1-3% taking them up on a free offer probably means that the average billboard has even less of a success rate.
The good news in this may be that people are being more cautious to guard themselves against scams. It's harder to lure people with the promise of free cash. People are wary of strangers with too good to be true offers.
instead of manchester try smaller towns and cities like huddersfield
Most people aren't going to 'claim their free money' for the same reason very few people click those "MILLIONTH VISITOR! CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR FREE IPOD/XBOX/HDTV" pop-ups on the net.
Put simply, most people are going to assume that this 'free money offer' is just some form of marketing.
Most people who read the sign probably assumed they'd ask for their free money...then get a fifteen minute sales pitch and a 'five pounds off' voucher for some local business.
As for the people who DID ask for their money and actually expected to get real money... Those people are more than likely the same ones that send their life savings to that poor Nigerian businessman who needs help getting a hundred billion dollars out of the country
That plus the guy isn't a hot chick.