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Original poster

Paid covid study from ONS is it genuine?

107 replies

Babymamamama · 18/07/2020 21:42

I've just had an important looking letter in the post marked "On Her Majesty's Service" inviting my household to take part in a paid study to be swabbed regularly for covid over the course of a year. Apparently the reimbursement is up to £425 per family member. I'm trying to work out if this is a genuine study. To be honest I'd participate in this kind of thing for free if it could help the scientists in any way. Has anyone else had such a letter? I'm trying to work out whether we've been randomly selected, if this is going to everyone across the country, or is it some kind of con? Please let me know your thoughts if you've had the letter too. Apparently it's a joint study with university of oxford and office for national statistics. Not sure if I'm being naive and should bin it or not.

OP posts:
TimeToPullMyHairOut · 25/09/2020 20:37

We are also in the ONS study. Completely genuine. To be honest I’d of done it without the financial incentive just to be of help but the vouchers are, I think, very generous and I’ve managed to use them to get the kids Xmas presents sorted already!
We’ve been doing the study since about July. Swabbed weekly for a month then monthly since then.
I’ve swabbed the kids too age 3 and 6 and they’ve been fine with it.

vera99 · 25/09/2020 20:47

Like you say would have done it for free. The slight concern with the methodology having had a COVID test a couple of months ago is how certain are they that the volunteers swab correctly and thoroughly to ensure a robust test but I'm sure this is factored in.

BameChange123 · 02/10/2020 04:06

We are now in our fifth week of the study. It's not too onerous but we have had 3 different testers. It's a shame we don't get definitive results but were told "no news is good news". I wonder though how long it takes for the tests to be done, is it 24-48 hours is it 3 working days? 5 days aweek?. We have opted for paper postal vouchers not online ones that we will forget to use online so Hopefully they might arrive for xmas?

Regarding our neighbours, the nice ones are away but the Car the other side who block my drive and put stuff in my bin, I will let them sweat tbh if they notice the tester coming to the house. Might stick the empty swab test packaging on top of my rubbish! 😈

ginberry4 · 02/10/2020 06:16

My mum is signed up for this, they come to the door but not into your house & they wait while you swab yourself. She’s had her first couple of vouchers already - it’s definitely genuine Smile

AngFreda · 02/10/2020 07:30

At last I was contacted but they have lost my partners details as the guy put the wrong details in. We are currently trying to get him re entered on the scheme and claiming for his first voucher.

AutumnOrange · 02/10/2020 07:33

My family of 6 have been doing it. Definitely genuine. We have all received about £200 vouchers each so far. You do the rest yourself whilst the person stays on your doorstep, answer a load of questions - takes about 45 minutes for the 6 of us.

AutumnOrange · 02/10/2020 07:35

@BameChange123 you can get vouchers online (normally received within a week) and then print them off

Madcats · 02/10/2020 08:15

Yes, we'd happily do this for free, or maybe a small gift voucher after a year. Our voucher codes arrive every Friday after being tested the week before (DH's arrive 4 or 5 hours before mine and DD's!). The supplier seemed to run out of Amazon codes for a while last Saturday.

It is interestingly see how the testers approach questioning. The quickest by far was a lady who asked us the questions all at once and tabulated the results on a piece of paper. The slowest sit in the car and type their results in one by one over the phone.

Apart from sporty DD, I realise we now do most of our socialising online.

Happy shopping everybody.

Boxachocs · 02/10/2020 22:28

We’ve been doing this and had 2 tests so far but no one has been in contact this week and I can’t get through on the phone. Did anyone else have delays between the weekly tests?

baffledcoconut · 02/10/2020 23:15

Yes- friend had it done last week and heard nothing this week at all and can’t get hold of anyone. 🙄

AngFreda · 03/10/2020 06:30

Delays and they've lost my partners details so only paid me so far! Can't get hold of anyone and they ignore emails.

fmlfmlfmlfm · 03/10/2020 06:51

A woman I work with gets paid £50 each member the first time and £25 the times after that I think. X

Boxachocs · 03/10/2020 07:28

We’ve had our vouchers for the first 2 visits, but not been tested this week. No idea if they are coming back!

rosie1959 · 03/10/2020 07:38

We are taking part I received the correct amount of vouchers my DH only received half of his
Like the previous poster nobody turned up this week previous it had been a local person who was spot on time and well organised

OddestSock · 03/10/2020 07:52

We've been doing this and received the vouchers no problem. We've completed the weekly tests so going onto monthly ones now xx

AngFreda · 03/10/2020 08:51

There should be something we can do ie contact points if no one turns up. My partner is very upset as he wanted to participate. He did the first one and never got paid because they have lost his details.

Karen899 · 03/10/2020 16:21

We have just joined this survey. 4 of us in total. We did our first swap a week ago and heard nothing. We have signed up to 12 months. Have got no idea how we get the vouchers. Email or post? Been trying to contact them for the last days as I have a feeling our email address has been taken down wrong. They were very rushed when they came to do the swab. Plus seemed very disorganised. I haven't got a great feeling about this. Which is not helped by the fact that you can't speak to anyone. I have even tried option 1 on the phone number but all they do is new registrations. I know it says up to 21 days for the vouchers but do they normally arrive pretty fast via email?

Thanks

OddestSock · 03/10/2020 16:39

@Karen899, it took about 10 days for us to get our first set of vouchers and then after that, they've been quicker to arrive. The lady who brings the tests to us said the first lot take a bit longer but once you're in the system it's quicker xx

Boxachocs · 03/10/2020 19:54

Our vouchers took 9 days. One was missing but I emailed the voucher people and they emailed me the code I needed. Apparently I need to tell ONS that one email is wrong, if I ever get through!!!!

Boxachocs · 03/10/2020 19:55

I’d like to know if anyone had weekly tests where one week was missed but someone returned the week after.

Boxachocs · 03/10/2020 19:58

@Chasingsquirrels Did you have a gap between ‘weekly’ tests?

Karen899 · 03/10/2020 20:11

Thanks. I will keep a update on here. We are due a second visit this coming week. It will be 2 weeks between first and second visit if I hear anything this coming week. We were only contacted the night before our first visit. They had over an hour drive to get to us. Despite it saying you can choose evening appointments they didn't want to come later than 5pm. Not easy when we both wk till 5pm and have kids at school until then. See what the second visit is like as we can't keep finishing wk early with only a few hrs notice. Seems to be a bit shambolic but I could be proven wrong yet......

Chasingsquirrels · 03/10/2020 20:44

Yes, I think our 5 "weekly" tests were actually weeks 1, 2, 4, 6 & 7.

Boxachocs · 04/10/2020 09:33

Thanks. Hopefully we’ll get a visit this week then!

MollyButton · 04/10/2020 09:46

Yes its genuine, and not bad money if you need it.