The best one was the pharma survey.. They assumed that EVERYONE in middle age is on meds.

I got sent a pharmaceutical survey and how those operate is you would get a mailer with a series of questions and you'd use the barcode scanner to scan the answers.

I got into that targeted survey (somehow) and was sent a three ring binder of pages and pages of drugs.

The first four pages were questions related to when you'd started on meds, for what illness and when did you stop taking them and why..

Nowhere in the initial survey questions was the option to say "I have not STARTED taking medicine / have no need.."

I called in and talked to a representative and she couldn't wrap her brain around the concept that as a middle-age American there were ZERO prescription drugs being taken by anyone in my home.

I had to ask her why the survey was predicated on the belief that everyone was on drugs - and she got a bit testy and huffed "well, I wouldn't say that!" and I asked her where the "no use or need for meds option" was on the survey if that wasn't the case.. she replied "well, don't you need medicines?" and I said "Nielsen has our full scan list of the food we've bought and eaten for the last decade and no one can draw a connection between proper food and health?"

Crickets..

"Oh, you must be really healthy!" "Yeah.. we don't eat garbage.." More crickets..

Then she credited me the points for the survey (It was a big one so it tallied large - I got two iPods out of that year's totals..) and quickly hung up.

The assumptions that we also watched TV and the questions about ads on it that we'd seen were pretty interesting. they also sent out a Media Recording device (looked like an old-school pager) that would listen all day for an ultrasonic sound that was broadcast on the various Clear Channel radio stations and we were to wear it as we went about our day. Sorry to say that one was a bust - by that time I'd discovered somafm online and was well into streaming radio.