What are you going to do the next time a poster reaches out to you with a quick survey?

Are you going to ignore it?

Take it?

One thing you might not think to do is to carefully scrutinize it and look for some

certain telltale signs because it might not be what it appears.

In this world there are lies, damned lies, and poles.

That's coming up right now on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid.

I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

Lies, damned lies, and poles.

Your cell phone rings and it's an unrecognized number.

Let's say you're one of those people who lives on the edge and allows unrecognized numbers

to ring through, and so you answer it.

Surprisingly, this one is not a scam call, but it's the next closest thing, a pollster

calling with a telephone survey.

There might be one question, there might be ten.

There might be a lightning round of demographic questions at the end of the call.

And then you hang up, and wonder what just happened.

Because whatever you think may have been the purpose behind that survey, there's a very

good chance that you're wrong.

The difference between a poll and a survey is not really a hard and fast one.

Both terms refer to the same thing, a questioning of some target group, but a poll is usually

...