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Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:06 pm

A friend of mine saw this on AOL and forwarded it to me earlier today. (I later tried to get him to send me the link and source, but he said the article was no longer on the page). Nevertheless, interesting quick read.

Majority of Americans Can't Spot an E-Mail Scam

<<<If you received an e-mail today from a deposed Nigerian prince offering you millions of dollars in exchange for just a few thousand up front, would you immediately recognize this as one of the oldest e-mail scams in the book? So old, in fact, that it led 'Dateline' and Chris Hanson to franchise 'To Catch a Predator' into 'To Catch a Con Man?' If not, you're not alone. A recent study of 2,482 American adults found that 58 percent of us are totally unaware of scams such as this one. What's more, a surprising 17 percent of adults admitted to falling victim to an online scam in the last year. Of those victims, 81 percent admitted it was their own fault by opening unsolicited e-mail or sending personal information to companies that they believed were legitimate.>>>

17% fell victim in the last year? Cant be that high, can it? Ken

Master Baiter Joined: 04 Mar 2007 Posts: 125 Location: UK

Mmm, 17% does seem very high?

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:16 pm

This insanely long link has another article about the survey.

(edit...wasn't the same article the OP referenced)

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:27 pm

Their sample size seems low. 2,482 people then they are extrapolating that to about 302,000,000 Americans. That is only .00082% of the population. You just aren't going to get accurate numbers with such a low sample size. Also it doesn't say if these people were located in the same geographical area or not. Ideally you want the people spread all over the US. I just can't agree that these numbers are a proper representation of the US.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Aug 2007 Posts: 30

I agree with Ook that the sample size is far too low to be statistically significant. Hell, if the scam success rate is as high as 17%, I might just move to West Africa and start a new career as a mugu!

Master Baiter Joined: 04 Aug 2007 Posts: 103

36.449% of all statistics are made up.

Wannabe Baiter Joined: 09 Jul 2007 Posts: 87

Actually, 2500 people at a confidence level of 95% and a confidence interval of 1.96 is an accurate sample size of a population of 302,000,000.

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 9:16 pm

Quote:

36.449% of all statistics are made up

I think there is a 64.556% chance of that statement being at least 88.354% accurate.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Aug 2007 Posts: 30

Well, if Freya is correct, then 17% might well be an accurate number and I'm DEFINITELY moving to West Africa!

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 11:56 pm

@ Ook and Gleep - It has been proven that smaller sample sizes give a more accurate portrayal of desired research outcome (ie representative statistics) than large sample sizes do.

As you would be aware, most surveys regarding political polling are done with a sample size of between 1000-2000 and ratings for television used to follow a similar guideline

If you would like to know more about why read (WARNING: MATHEMATICS CONTENT!):

Here

Here

and most importantly Here

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 12:09 am

"There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Mark Twain

Moderator Joined: 10 Jan 2007 Posts: 14513

2500 would be fine (heck so would 1500 for the reason mentionned above by freya) if infact this sample was based on probability theory (such as a random sample). From what I read, the methodological aspects of this research were not presented in great detail. Thus I would be lead to believe this was not random and hence there is no way to make accurate inferences about the population (i.e., use inferential statistics).

Since this is in general chat, I will post the following link[url]
http://inet4.swtjc.cc.tx.us/lmcrorey/Govt%202301/Lecture%20ch11.htm[/url]

Warning -- only click if you are real bored and curious, but the author does an impressive job of discussing the pro's and con's of survey research.

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 6:31 am

If its maths you want have a look at this site
http://www.4cashnow.co.uk/low_rate_payday_loans.htm

Have a look at the APR percentages then work out the figures!

I have seen students applying for these loans and thankfully we have been able to warn most of them but there will always be a few that don't click!

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:04 am

Did they say that 17 % were falling for 419? Online scam can mean a lot of things, especially if you include cases where people only got the impression they have been scammed when in fact they just read something wrong.

So the 17 y/o horny schoolgirl in chat wasn't really a schoolgirl? Scam! The cellphone you bought only had 32 MB instead of the 64 MB that you read..umm...somehere? Scam! So the ISP you just signed up with refuses to enable your internet connection just because you don't have a PC or a landline? Scam! So you signed up for this service and overlooked the fact that it is actually a monthly membership? Scam!

You get the picture.

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 6:50 pm

All good points......the 17% (1 in 6) is very likely an improper representation. However, even allowing for a very large margin of error, we all know that this is definitely a big problem, otherwise there wouldn't be so many lads doing it.

Does anyone have any other %'s as to how many people may be true vics of 419's? (Who have actually sent money)

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