I'm sure a lot of people in the US including you have received a letter this year in the mail especially those that have register to vote (that's how they enter you in the GOV database and scammers/ I mean "legit businesses" use this to their advantage, that's why you have every 20 something year old outside at grocery stores asking "are you registered to vote s-s-sir?").

The letter says "You're invited to the GCJ Research for (YOUR STATE)".

So I did some research and participated in this to see this was legit or an actual scam where you don't even get the $2 gift card. Since there is mix reviews for this.

DON'T DO THIS EVEN OUT OF CURIOSITY

There is a QR code in the bottom of the letter shown here: https://www.reddit.com/r/winstonsalem/comments/1bhclka/anyone_else_get_one_of_these_weird_surveys_in_the/

If you scan the code, it gives you a weird website with a password prompt. You enter the password on the bottom of the letter and then they give you generic election questions. "Are you voting for this old dude?", "Are you g*y?", "How many people in your household?". Generic AI questions and then it asks you for your zip/some random email. Survey over.

The catch in this letter is that you ONLY get the $2 gift card if you complete ANOTHER survey. So that's what I did recently. About a week later I get a text from GCJ and they tell me to do some surveys.

I do the survey and... nothing. I still don't get the $2 gift card. Even with their catch.

I also researched the people who did these surveys on other threads and they always have like 0 karma/ post history saying "Yeah it's legit I got my gift card". Mostly bot profiles that "say it's real" rather than actual people.

Then you have WCNC saying "it's not a scam". When has the news ever lied to us? Surely they have to be right. Haha. https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/verify/north-carolina-opinion-survey-scam-privacy/275-71960e51-5e9a-446c-8a25-900491a21b92

TLDR: Surveys for CASH/Gift Cards are ALWAYS a scam or they are like Swagbucks where you get 0.000001 cents for completing a 5 minute survey.

I will update if this changes.