Curiouser and curiouser. Forgive me if my query here sounds paranoid, bu a relative just informed me of a phone survey being conducted in suburbia that doesn't follow the normal modus for a survey.

As an art director in the ad industry, I know about telemarketing surveys and focus group data and how it's acquired. This survey sounded like a fishing expedition designed to find out if anyone in suburbia was prepping for Y2K. See if you agree.

The questions ranged from income, where and how spent, Where they banked, What investments, what kind of groceries they bought and where (not particular kinds or brands) and HOW OFTEN THEY SHOPPED, and for how long they stocked for, are they buying bottled water, what kind of periodicals and newspapers do they read, are they Republican or Democrat, who they voted for, do they listen to talk radio, do they surf the internet, do they participate in forums or chat rooms, etc., etc.

The peculiar thing is that when asked who commissioned the survey and why, they declined to answer. A phone number was given instead to a "supervisor" for inquiries of that nature. Strange.

Now any of these questions could be construed as fishing by some criminal intention or investigator. With the new Know Your Customer laws taking effect early next year in banking, is it crazy to assume the Gov. is sampling how many folks are possibly aware and prepping for Y2K?

They didn't mention Y2K by name, they didn't ask if they were concerned about an economic meltdown, but there was no specific questions related to any one type of product, service or habit.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of a recent survey? What do you think?

-- INVAR (gundark@aol.com), December 21, 1998

Answers

Sounds like it could be one of the groups that watchdogs the Census Bureau. They take random samples like that and the compare their results with the census.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 21, 1998.

Or just do what I do and refuse to answer any survey of any kind.

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), December 21, 1998.

So, did your relative call the number given? What was the result?

Bobbi http://www.buzzbyte.com/

-- Bobbi (bobbia@slic.com), December 21, 1998.

So I printed this thread out and showed it to my Father. I did this because he is prone to answer phone surveys and has for years. I read out loud to him (before letting him see the printed version) the questions that were asked. He said he has answered similar surveys over the years and it usually was a firm doing research to see if a company should open a store here or just what consumer buying habits in general. The earliest he could remember answering a survey with similar questions was 1986. The Internet stuff was new, but I think that is to be expected nowadays.

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), December 22, 1998.