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26 comments to "The Free Money Experiment: Most People Decline Free Money!"
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biltmore
June 7th, 2008 at
11:43 am
They should try that experiment over in Seattle or Portland. I bet out of 2000 people, 1600 will ask.
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Thomas
June 7th, 2008 at
11:44 am
Can’t be bothered for free money? Not in America — we’re all in foreclosure.
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red
June 7th, 2008 at
11:59 am
Did they ask anyone why they didn’t take up the offer? I bet a lot of them were working under the “too good to be true” concept. Stuff like that just doesn’t happen without a catch. I think it’s apathy that keeps the people walking by.
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The Other Parker
June 7th, 2008 at
12:13 pm
I wonder if all the people wearing the sign looked like the guy in the picture above. I bet females would have attracted more attention, or people in colorful, friendly clothing. I’m sure many were suspicious of a straight-faced, bald male wearing black. They didn’t want to get scammed.
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CheeseDuck
June 7th, 2008 at
1:14 pm
Huh. I could use a free fiver.
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ted
June 7th, 2008 at
2:06 pm
It’s not apathy, but realism. Plus, who would bother reading a sign like that. You make eye contact, suddenly you’re dragged in to some tit’s sob story. Or he distracts you while his colleague picks your pocket.
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DreamMrSandman
June 7th, 2008 at
2:09 pm
I would just feel really awkward and bad asking. Also, I;’m really shy >_< I couldn’t do it.
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tona b.
June 7th, 2008 at
3:08 pm
Hey, I actually did an experiment like this back in college, for a class.
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
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Tempscire
June 7th, 2008 at
5:52 pm
Even reading about this with the explanation, I still feel wary of a possible scam in the offer or some sort of strings attached. Because c’mon, who gives out free money?
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cuimhne
June 7th, 2008 at
6:07 pm
I wonder what would happen if it was a woman handing out the free money? I think the reason less women availed of the offer was probably the same reason you can’t take an offered free seat in a bar….
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ted
June 7th, 2008 at
6:19 pm
Why can’t women take a free seat in a bar? The paranoid life you must lead, cuimhne.
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Sofar
June 7th, 2008 at
6:38 pm
Well, yeah. We’ve got pride thank you very much. Though when people do these sort of weird things I usually play along for the sake of my desire to do what people around me don’t expect.
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Lea
June 7th, 2008 at
8:16 pm
I’d take it. That’s $10 US to me! (not counting the exchange fees of course)
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!
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DOJ
June 7th, 2008 at
8:30 pm
i think The Chaser’s War on Everything did a similar experiment, but their guy held a stack of cash in his hand while trying to pass it out (like leaflets).
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sparge
June 7th, 2008 at
8:41 pm
Older people were less likely to take the cash, huh? Perhaps, having been around the block a few times, they are more conscious of the money isn’t everything axiom.
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dennvp
June 7th, 2008 at
9:05 pm
try the experiment at jakarta
it surely will give different result -
Lo
June 7th, 2008 at
10:58 pm
I could use free $10. Hey, if someone’s giving it away, it’s kind of rude not to take them up on their offer. >.>
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tomtheman5
June 8th, 2008 at
1:35 am
In downtown Boston, guaranteed, zero people will take him up on the offer. They have a hard enough time handing out free promotional samples of gum or snacks…
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fiver
June 8th, 2008 at
2:51 am
try this in Singapore, and you will be out of $5 in less than 5mins.
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Christophe
June 8th, 2008 at
1:28 pm
over 70’s in UK, you’re not looking for a free fiver, but a free liver…
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Liam
June 9th, 2008 at
3:13 am
Its a rip of a Chasers stunt from lat year, cheap publicity.
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serotonin
June 9th, 2008 at
11:04 am
It’s a flawed experiment. They’re assuming that everyone who walked passed the sign actually read it. Had I read the sign, I would’ve asked, but I likely never would’ve read it as I passed by.
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.
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kid_icarus
June 9th, 2008 at
12:29 pm
with all the nut-jobs and their signs about the coming apocalypse out there - not to mention the clothing store/restaurant advertisements that are in this same vein i doubt i would have read his sign. more likely seen he was wearing a hand lettered sign and steered clear. i really don’t want to be roped in to somebody telling me about how jesus is an alien and controlled by the kgb, etc. etc.
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Melissa
June 9th, 2008 at
2:24 pm
I wouldn’t have taken the money, either. I probably wouldn’t have had time to waste to find out the details. I would have assumed that there was a lot more to it, fine print, if you will. Like that the five dollar was free if you bought something, or subscribed to something, or did something. People don’t generally hand out free money for nothing. I would have automatically assumed that it was a ploy to get my attention so that I would stop and entertain whatever sales pitch they were making, or be tricked into something they thought I wouldn’t notice (like that the form I had to fill out to get the money really wanted me to sign up to be solicited to by tons of salespeople). So the skeptic in me would have definitely cost me five on that one.
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.
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Chubb
July 9th, 2008 at
10:09 am
if you wnat to actually do this experiment properly then you should try the less affluent areas of society, not the booming cities where a fiver means very little to most
instead of manchester try smaller towns and cities like huddersfield
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Paulius
October 4th, 2008 at
2:14 pm
This experiment is BADLY flawed and proves nothing.
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
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