I heard about this great offer, a study being done out of Maine, you pay 13.70, and then you would recieve a grocery gift card for $1, 000. However I recieved a gift card for an online website for coupons that you can print out for free. They charge you .75 cents for shipping the free coupons, and there is no way to cancel your subscription. The numbers lead you to a female operator, who states that you have reached the wrong office, however she cannot provide you with the correct number.

I'm an IDIOT, IDIOT, IDOT!!! And you'll be saying the same thing if you fall for this crap! Don't let the nice person on the phone when you call to ask about this "great sounding idea" fool you. They are LYING to you right through their teeth. This...whatever you call it, was advertised on the radio as getting $1000 in free groceries as a part of a research study to see what products consumers purchase. When i called and asked about it, the boy confirmed this and blatantly told me (in a nutshell) that all I would have to pay was $19.87 to get the $1000 gift card (yes, he said gift card!), and 2 Wal-Mart $25 gift cards (which i never received by the way). I asked him repeatedly if that's all I would have to pay because I had already seen the comments on this site (yet, I was suckered in anyways...uuugh!).

Lie/Deception #1. When I asked for his name, he told me Matt and that he was the only Matt that worked there.

-I called back again purposefully to speak with "Matt", just to see if he'd lied about him being the only Matt to work there. The person who answered (Steve, rep #144) said, there were over 300 people working there and that there was no way to know who I was talking to bc there were more than 1 Matt. Well I told Steve my concerns and asked him some more probing questions, in which i found out, that yes there would be a card, but it was a coupon card that you would have to go online to activate and choose which coupons you want. They would be sent to you and then you could take them to the store.

Lie/Deception #2. They don't tell you that what you get is a card that takes you to grocerysavers.com, there's a pin # on the back that supposedly waives the $99 membership fee that you have to pay to be apart of the grocery savers club.
-When you get past that part, it gives you a very small selection of food and other products to choose coupons from. Please understand, these are NOT coupons for free items, they are COUPONS, where you get a few cents here and there. You are still buying stuff, and not really saving anything. plus, the coupons expire (even though the card doesn't expire until a year), the coupons do and the longest time i saw was a little over a month. When i tried to go back and add something to my cart, the $99 membership fee was added. I tried to check out thinking this was a glitch, then it takes you to a shipping and billing page, in which you have to put in a credit card number, oh and they charge you for shipping, it didn't go away, it was still there.

Lie/Deception #3. Matt told me I could choose anything I wanted as long as it wasn't tobacco or alcohol related. This is a LIE! They give you options to choose from (very meager list by the way), you don't get to go and pick foods you normally buy, most of it's CRAP I would NEVER buy!

Backing up a little bit, they tell you that when you sign up, you are signed into 2 memberships ( Today’s Escape Plus and At Home Rewards). All you have to do is call them and say you're not interested and they will cancel your membership. Matt told me the membership fees were each 1.95 to join up, which was INCLUDED in the $19.87, when i checked my bank account, I was charged 1.95 twice AND 2.95 twice, plus 9.95. I call these people to ask what's up and told them what i was told (mind you, I had Matt repeat everything at least 3 times) by Matt. The lady i spoke with says they always charge 2.95 for one program and 1.95 for the other. I asked her why were there charges twice, she couldn't tell me and kept talking in circles. Here's the kicker and the #1 REASON I knew this was a SCAM-I told her that ATS Research was telling people the wrong information and she said, "we don't work with that company". WHAT!!! What do you mean you don't work with that company, they certainly work with you! I asked her, "so if you don't work with ATS, then HOW did you get my credit card information to charge me for these membership fees?????" She proceeded to tell me that a sales rep from her company called me and offered this membership to me! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! Who was this rep, what was his name, when did he call me? She couldn't tell me anything except the day I CALLED ATS to sign up! I said, so you're saying you don't work with ATS? So did you steal my credit card information?? She said, what do you want me to do, you already cancelled the membership...I could go on forever about how enraged I was and am right now just talking about this. The refunded my money for the 1.95 and 2.95 charges none-the-less. This is a shortened version of the ridiculousness that went on for close to an hour but I don't have time to tell you all of it...

Anyways, I called ATS and tried to cancel the whole thing (this was 3 days after I'd signed up and it was over the weekend), the guys I spoke with was incredibly RUDE and told me, "we've already sent out your stuff, so if you're looking for a refund, it's not gonna happen". I signed up April 22, 2010, I spoke to this man, April 26th...i just got my card Wednesday, May stinkin 5th! Already sent my stuff, huh?! I was told it would take 3-5 days to get it, it's been 2 weeks!

Oh man, there's soooooo much stuff I'm leaving out but I'm tired of writing. I am hoping that someone please learns from my idiocy and saves themselves $20 bucks to a scamming, thieving and conniving company, and all the stress that comes with getting so angry about being ripped off and virtually not being able to do anything about it. The problem is that they word everything to sound like it's legit but it's really not because they know if they tell people what it really is, NO ONE would do it.

Please don't fall for this, this is my only source of retribution, if I can stop as many people as possible from falling for this, it will make me feel a little better.

I'm sure many of you have heard (and hopefully not fallen victim to) an ad on the radio telling you how YOU can receive $1000 in FREEgroceries. The advertisement is disguised as a research company trying to recruit participants to take part in a "study" about what consumers buy at the store. They claim it is so this "research" company can keep track of what you buy and how much(they even use the word research in their name, which sounds illegal to me). Sounds great, right?! WRONG. This is NOT a research company at all, it is a telemarketing company. Here is what I've read will happen (and this is according to the bbb too). This so called research company, ATS Research, is waiting impatiently for your phone call! When you call them, they will ask for your credit card number up front for "shipping" of the "giftcard". This, in turn, will cause you to be set up with several different companies. These companies will charge you recurring monthly charges, unless you cancel within about 15 days. I'm sure that when you try to cancel these "memberships", it will be a lot like other memberships I've heard of that use lies to get your card number. NO legit company would go about getting your membership like this (can we say Dazzle white?). Now, I'm just going on a couple of articles I've read, but NEVER trust a company who has you signed up to be charged every month. They will tell you you're cancelled and charge you anyhow, so be sure to either record a phone conversation with all the different companies stating you have cancelled or write an email to each company stating you wish to cancel and print it out. Also be sure to print out any email responses and give them all to your bank or cc company. That way, if they charge you anyhow, you can do a chargeback, which will be the only way to recover your money because the bank needs proof.
Now, what you will receive in the mail is not a gift debit card. I have heard that you are led to believe this, but it is not true. What you will actually receive is a card that lets you buy a membership for grocerysaver.com (YES! you have the exciting oppurtunity to BUY a membership so you can then also BUY coupons! What an exciting, wonderful, honest "research" company this is!). This is a website that allows you to pay to receive coupons. Hopefully, it is getting clearer what you are going to get is nothing but a scam. Now, there is a 100 dollar fee for joining this site. I have heard that you have the wonderful oppurtunity to waive that fee, but only if you buy coupons from this site. If you sign on, and figure out it is a scam and decide not to buy, you will be slammed with a 100 dollar deduction, using the credit or debit card you provided ATS research with when you decided to "participate in the study". Then, if you forget all of the other "oppurtunities" that ATS signed you up for, you will get numberous other "membership" deductions every month! These coupons that you HAVE to buy (i believe it is 10% of the total coupon "value") are nothing special. Just like any other coupon, they are a perectage off of a product (like 25% off of tide. Let's say that a bottle of tide is 20 dollars. 25% of 20 dollars is 5 dollars, so you would have to pay 50 cents for this coupon. After you select all of the couponns you want to receive, you will be charged 10 perecent, and it may be more, of the total coupon WORTH, i.e. how mcuh you are supposedly saving. Now, I'm not sure how well these coupons work. I will research that a little more and post a comment if I find out you can't use them. It would be my guess that there are many that you pay for, but then CANNOT use, just because the way they go about getting your paid membership. It's misleading to begin with, so I'm sure you'll have to jump through hoops to use them after you buy them. Use vigilance!).You also have to buy them. PLEASE, just go to couponsuzy.com and print off coupons there at home for free!
This is an unbelievable scam. It should be against the law for a telemarketing company to disguise themselves as a "research" company and even use the word research in their name. It is just an LLC telemarketing company that will give you the unique oppurtunity to get your bank account wiped out!
ATS research is nothing but a lying, theiving fraud! They are taking advantage of this economy (just like so many others like dazzlewhite and acai free trial scams). You are signing up with the devil. They will take everything you have by lying that you are a "research participant". NEVER give out your card number to anyone for something that is supposedly free, and NEVER EVER give out your card number over the phone to anyone, especially a research company. TRUST ME, I would know (I have a psychology degree, I know how studies are conducted) that when you participate in a research study THEY pay YOU, not the other way around. If this were a true research study, you would be required to go to a building, sign paperwork declaring you are a participant, then you would receive FOR FREE a real gift card (not an online membership) to go and buy groceries, and on top of that, you would likely also get paid to do so.
This is NOT a research company, rather it is just one more fraudelent telemarketing company reaping the fruits of a down economy!