We were once a Nielsen Homescan family. We thought it was fun at first, once we got past the initial frustration with the company. We’d done it for almost a year, and… life gets in the way sometimes, right? Warning – some foul language ahead.

Nielsen Homescan is basically a way of tracking consumers and their consumption of various goods. Even a Timmie’s coffee needed to be entered. There’s a little hand-held scanner like those at a grocery store, and it scans the UPC. Sometimes the prices need to be done manually, but once the scanner knows what stores are frequented, the prices are done automatically.

People on the Homescan bandwagon earn points for doing this, and eventually, supposedly, you can turn those points into things like a knife set, or a french press, or higher-end things like luggage, etc. And it was, as I said, kind of fun.

We scanned for ten months. We earned just under 10k in points. I can’t recall from the site, but I think the lowest price-point was 15k.

When our computer died, I eventually managed to get online, and after doing more important stuff, tried to update the support people at Nielsen using the ONLY contact email the company has, to a faceless little bot named Lynne M. At that point, we’d been unable to report in with our scanner for about two weeks.

No response from Nielsen.

Tried again, three more times. Now we were getting phone messages from people with heavy accents, demanding we get in touch with them.

Here’s the thing, and I think I’ve mentioned it here before at some point. I don’t do well on the phone, mostly because if the other person has an accent, I have a hard time making my brain work around it so I can understand it. And then of course, is the parroting thing… I start talking with the accent as well. I don’t realize I’m doing it – it just happens. So to save confusion on my part and insult on theirs, I don’t talk to ANYONE from any company’s customer service if they have an accent.

(Same with watching things like Coronation Street, I start in with the Mancunian accent. Or [guilty little secret here, and shut-up!] when I watch Gypsy Weddings, if Thelma Madine is on, I can do her at the drop of a pin. I’ve done it all my life, and like I said, I just don’t notice.)

I emailed the faceless bot repeatedly, still with no response from the company. Then their calls became threats of legal action if we didn’t get in touch with them – IMMEDIATELY. Meanwhile, I’d tried installing the software on the loaner computer so we could send our scan results in, and was told our membership had been canceled.

Fine, fuck it, we’re sending the damn thing back. Then it was a week of looking for the box the damn thing came in, because we’d been told originally it HAD TO BE IN THAT BOX. On Monday, we got a letter – well, hoo-ha – and later that evening, another call, and this time I broke my rule, actually spoke to one of their reps on the phone. Fighting past her complete ignorance of the English language (seriously, she didn’t know what I meant when I said I would post the package the next day) things were straightened out.

We posted the package on Wednesday, and I got a receipt with a tracking number. I emailed it to the faceless bot – without even an auto-response, might I add – and that was the end of it. Or so I thought.

I received an email last night, and (emphasis theirs):

Dear Former Panel Member,

I recently sent you an e-mail message requesting that you send back the Nielsen Homescan equipment now that your household’s membership has ended. We still haven’t received our equipment, and need you to return it immediately. (If you have already returned our equipment or contacted us within the past 5 days, please disregard this e-mail.)

IMPORTANT: If we do not receive the equipment within the next 10 business days, we have no choice but to initiate our collection process, in order to retrieve our equipment.

For your convenience, we have provided instructions on how to return the equipment below (Note: Homescan pays for all the shipping costs.)

How To Contact Us If you have any questions or concerns, please call the Panel Support Centre toll-free at [redacted]. Our representatives are available Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET, and weekends from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET. Please have the ID number ([redacted]) that was assigned to you ready for the representative when calling.

Thank you in advance for your prompt attention to this matter.

Instructions For Returning The Scanner:
1. Return the scanner, homebase, adapter and all applicable cables in the original box. If you no longer have the scanner box, any well padded box will do.
2. Please use the courier waybill in your start-up kit to return the scanner at Homescan’s expense. Simply call the Panel Support Centre at [redacted] and we will make arrangements for a courier pick-up at your convenience. Please have the waybill handy when you call, as we require the tracking number.
3. If you need alternate shipment arrangements, please call the Panel Support Centre.

Thank you for your cooperation,

[redacted]
Equipment Manager
Nielsen Homescan Consumer Panel

What? The only email I’d received from anyone at Nielsen (once!) was in early-October, and it was the bot telling me that my email had been received and to please give them 24 hours to reply. Once. Nothing else. I was mad. To top it off, I could not reply to that email, as it wasn’t from an ‘account set to receive response.’

Then I was livid.

I sent them a reply – to the faceless bot – loaded with emphasis, font size changes and red text to match their own. I included the tracking number for the package. I was very rude, and informed them that any further contact would be forwarded to the RCMP Internet Fraud division.

They replied today, telling me that there was no such tracking number. Oh, and if I would be so kind, send them the physical receipt.

What the fuck? Yeah, no.

I checked with Canada Post and managed to track it with no problem. I sent them a copy/paste of the info from the screen, took a screen-cap, and promptly went into the settings for Gmail and filtered the faceless bot address directly into a folder for such garbage.

Of course, I don’t expect to receive the check they claimed they’ll send, nor do I expect to hear from them again. At least I managed to hold my temper in check with them far better than I would have a year ago.

Take it as a warning, folks. Sometimes this shit just ain’t worth it.