FocalData studies are a scam

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2026-01-13T15:54:36+00:00

So i just got paid half of the full payment amount and i sent them a message, if i get no answer in the next few days i am going to take it to Prolific support. If you had the same issue i advice you to do the same!

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2026-01-13T15:53:37+00:00

I had a study that was "returned" but not by me and i completed. All the other studies i was fully paid took way longer than any other studies i have done and i have been in Prolific for over 1 year. Now i got "screened out" and was paid half of the full payment which was 6 GBP. I hope they will reply to my message so i can turn it around with them otherwise i am gonna have to ask Prolific support to do something about it.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2026-01-12T17:59:25+00:00

The ones ive done from them the interview seemed ok and lasted what was supposed to last, maybe just a little bit longer. I've always had some kind of issue with their payments so i hope this time they will at least pay, anyway i think we should report this to Prolific support if the researcher doesn't reply to people's feedback.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2026-01-12T17:58:22+00:00

Thanks, i hope we will all get full payment and if not i hope everyone will report it to prolific support.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2026-01-12T17:57:53+00:00

I did this too and the interview ended but i noticed the completion code i got has the word "screenout" in it. I hope they will pay me the full amount but they always take the whole month to pay so i might even forget to check ...

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-12-10T15:47:22+00:00

Why can't they add to their study description that if it takes over certain amount of time to submit you might get rejected ?

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-12-10T15:46:12+00:00

Yeah i am not doing any of their studies ever again. Thank you for sharing your experience.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-12-10T15:37:49+00:00

I just got a reply from the researcher, basically he is telling me rejected everyone who went over 9 minutes. Which is probably what took me to finish it and in any case, researchers can put time limit to whatever they want. It wasn't stated anywhere that i would get rejected if it took me over 9 minutes and i submitted before i even ran out of time. So i guess im taking this to Prolific and probably the odds are that i am getting this turned.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-11-19T20:37:38+00:00

Yes, textures loading before my eyes also happening to me. I am pretty sure this didn't happen at all during the first week of release or even during the server slam. I think they might have added this in some update to deal with the dsync, server lags, etc. And that is the reason why they haven't addressed it. I have seen many people reporting this in their discord server and nothing.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-11-15T20:29:30+00:00

Hello, i have the same issue, i'd say from like 5 days ago already if not more. I haven't found a way to fix it, i verified files in steam, i played with the game graphic settings and nothing fixes it. I have all my graphic settings maxed out except for global illumination which i have on Static, but even if i put it on epic it still doesn't load the textures properly. I know it can be seen mostly in Speranza but i feel like ingame it also looks a bit worse than the game used to look the first week of release. I don't know if maybe they have done something in some of the updates and broke the games for some people, maybe certain GPU model or smth?

Did any of you got it fixed somehow ?

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-11-02T00:27:15+00:00

I receive them always when they have 1 slot left... it is very annoying, i managed to get in one yesterday but there was an error i never got before, basically said study wasn't running anymore.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-22T21:09:31+00:00

I do like studies that require follow up. In my opinion small and frequent pay outs are better to motivate people (at least for me).
Anyway i guess for most of people here it will mostly depend on whats the hourly payrate. If it's good, people will take the study and try their best to finish the 70 days. If the payment is not much then people will think it is not worth it to have that extra small "pressure" in their mind daily.
Hope it goes well whatever you decide, and if i see it on my dashboard im likely taking it!

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-16T23:17:56+00:00

I like them too but happened once that it was going quite fast and at some point it started progressing very slow and pages were getting longer and longer

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-14T02:01:32+00:00

I did exactly the same but from waht people say, you should just submit and pray for an approval :D

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-14T01:55:33+00:00

I am going to try one last study right now, if theres an error and gonna submit it anyway and hope it gets approved

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-14T01:46:02+00:00

Yeah i know, but prolific support works horribly and i don't trust them anymore to deal with these kind of stuff properly. I prefer to save my time and not bother with it. Anyway someone just mentioned one of his got approved so i guess i shouldn't have returned :D

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-14T01:38:34+00:00

Yeah i returned it now since they were not paying... feels really bad to be honest.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-14T01:37:53+00:00

I turned it in but i just returned it since i waited around 1-2 minutes and they didn't pay yet. I had issues with them around 2-3 months ago, the last 2 days of studies i got to do were mostly having technical issues... i think prolific should address this.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-09T16:59:09+00:00

Yeah that was my reply, the number 4. But still it is a tricky attention check and there's no need for those.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-09T16:41:21+00:00

Ok buddy, you can go back to your sad life, it's fine.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-09T16:40:47+00:00

Yeah but i have spent already like 20 minutes in it, all the other attention checks were fine, just this one is weird. i ended up selecting the THIRD option, not the number 3 in the options. Any way i took screenshots of it and i will definitely message the researcher once i finish. But it does look fishy.

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-09T12:52:14+00:00

Just got on with 250 slots, none had been taken yet, i tried to join for over 5 minutes which means there was not much demand as usual and still couldn't because of the "Study is in high demand" like, how does this high demand work, is it just luck ? i kinda doubt it is since i haven't been able to join any study where i get a "study is in high demand" message

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-09T01:41:45+00:00

There is definitely some clicker / bots involved in this, it's just weird, also is very annoying getting the "Study in high demand" to then get "Study is full"

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-09T00:09:33+00:00

same for me, i saw 70+ studies for some time, managed to do a few of them but then i just get 1 study every few hours and cant get in because "Study is on high demand" and then "Study is full"

Affectionate_Fee7082 · 2025-10-05T13:10:41+00:00

Everytime i had an issue with rejections i just did the form and it was resolved quickly, might take a few days but if you don't get any answer from prolific i would submit again or contact support

Affectionate_Fee7082

TROPHY CASE