The scene has become all too familiar. You get a call or letter from a data processing company that claims they're doing a survey. They ask you for your name, address, telephone number, occupation and family income. In exchange for this information, they say you may receive free samples and discounts from consumer products companies.

What you're not told is that your personal information is gathered onto data tapes and sold to marketers who want to promote their products.

Not only is this activity disturbing naive survey participants but upsetting survey researchers as well. Professional pollsters claim these would-be "legitimate" polls are hurting their profession and misrepresenting its image. It is also causing survey respondents to be more reluctant to participate in polling, thus increasing pollsters chances of getting skewed samples and bad results.

"It's a way for them (pseudo pollsters) to get their foot in the door, to avoid people from hanging up," says Stanley Presser, chairman of the standards committee of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. "It's a major problem because people become less cooperative with the real polls," claims Andrew Kohut, president of the Gallup Organization. "You have to be able to overcome peoples' resistance."

Vital social purpose

According to professional pollsters, getting people to cooperate is important because proper surveys serve a vital social purpose by evaluating public concerns on issues and measuring consumer trends. Good surveys are those which are completely confidential, include a scientifically drawn sample of a particular population, unbiased questions and statistically analyzed results.
 
Kohut says the way the researcher begins the questionnaire can help reassure the respondent that it's a legitimate poll. From there it must be rein-forced with questions that are research oriented and not sales suggestions.

Survey abusers

Numerous types of groups have been accused of misusing polls. These include financial services groups that target their efforts at the affluent; telephone solicitors peddling goods who use surveys to wind their way into a sales pitch and political organizations and charities which mail out "opinion polls" which, in disguise, are requests for donations.

One such disguised opinion poll came out of Citizens for a Sound Economic Foundation, a research and education branch of a group that lobbies on economic issues.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the foundation asked in a recent survey: "President Reagan feels too many of your dollars are wasted on subsidizing special interest 'programs' - programs which could be provided by private sector businesses more effectively. Do you agree?"

The question was obviously a set-up. Who thinks that too few of their dollars are "wasted on subsidizing special interests"? The group then seeks a donation.

In addition to these polling abuses is the relatively new area-code 900 phone-in polls. After a televised event, e.g., the presidential debates, viewers are asked to phone in with their opinion about a particular issue in question. Results from the poll are compiled after viewers have called in.

The problem with this polling method is that it doesn't necessarily reflect general opinion and is not a scientifically drawn sample. Only those who happen to be watching can participate and probably only those who feel strongly enough to pay the 50¢ fee to voice an opinion actually do. This method also opens up the possibility for people to vote more than once.

"The phone-in polls can't say any-thing about the larger population because it's not a meaningful population," says Presser. "It's open to fraud."

Still another polling method subject to abuse is the growing use of automatic telephone-dialing machines and computers to conduct recorded interviews. Their abuse is of particular concern to survey researchers who shudder in the face of increased government regulation of this form of polling. Most have lobbied against legislation to regulate unsolicited commercial telephone calls.

Counterproductive

Both Presser and Kohut believe that companies or organizations which engage in polling for sales or contribution purposes may be going against the efforts of other departments in the company, e.g., marketing research, which use surveys as part of the research function.

"Companies which engage in this type of misleading activity should realize this is an effort which is not at all productive," warns Kohut. "They should think about what they're doing to their organization when they intrude on other peoples' lives. In the long run, they're just making it more difficult for themselves and for those of us in research."