I need a LARGE sample of people to take this 2 question survey related to my job.

It will take you under 60 seconds, and if you can share it far and wide, that would be great.

The survey closes on FRIDAY AFTERNOON so I need as many folks as possible to complete it before then!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=kkKzBSquJNkjq78N_2f2HQIg_3d_3d

I done my part, Martin! I will forward this to some others.

Semper Paratus!!!! Bo

Do you count forums like here a social networking site? Cause this ain't anything like Facebook.

Done.

By the way, I don't think this forum is exactly a social networking site.

Forums in general.

just 2 questions?

Blammo!

A page of text flashed up after I hit the button to finish, then went away so quickly I wasn't able to even get an idea what was there. Was I supposed to see that page and read it, or what?

Done.

Finished!!

Man, that test was tough.

Did I get the answers right?!!

NEVER EVER reply directly to a notification sent via email. It is almost assuredly a fraud or method of getting someone to log on to a faked out site for nefarious purposes. I've gotten a few of these and before you can say "Tom Dick or Harry" they get tossed into my SPAM or TRASH box.

If you get an email that actually looks genuine and you are almost convinced then go to the official website and confirm the message or contact the vendor before doing anything else.

+1

Is there a time limit?, these are tough.

I guess I qualify as LARGE so figured I'd take a shot, did I win anything ?


-Eric

done.

I took it with my book open, hope that is ok.

Done...

Well.....
I'll let you all in on the purpose of the survey - and also why Roarmeister, while being absolutely, 100% correct in one regard - is so problematic for companies that want to do business with him. .

One of our clients is a big financial services firm. One of the many ways they try to cut costs is with paperless communications. There's big money - I'm talking about hundreds of millions in the industry, perhaps billions - in moving customers to paperless communications - so the motivation to push people to paperless is high.

At the same time, the risks for "phishing" attacks - email that is intended to trick people into giving up their login information to financial sites - are very real. eBay is a major target for phishing attacks but almost any company that involved real money is a target. In 2008, phishing attacks are on the rise. . In 2007, losses from phishing were about 3 Billion dollars , which sounds like a lot of money, but when you consider that online shipping alone was about $116 Billion Dollars, and that 3/4 of Americans pay their bills online and half of all Americans use online banking you come to a market that's processing transactions worth about a trillion dollars a year.
Let's put that into a pie chart - 3 Billion Fraud vs. 1 Trillion in transactions:

[img]http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:3,997&chs=250x100&chl=Fraud|Legit[/img]

Suddenly, the 3 Billion is chump change - a rounding error, and well within tolerances at an industry level.

Still, in our work, we're seeing and increasing disconnect between "open rates" for email and "click through rates" for emails and the behavior we see on the site. Plenty of new people are signing up for paperless statements, but I'm seeing a relatively flat line on open and click throuhg rates. I looked at my own behavior - and I don't open the messages, and I don't click through, I just look at the subject "Your Statement is Ready" and since I know I have an account with the company, I just go direct to the web site and check the statement. I'm too close to the fraud and such and although I'm an "expert" in digital media, for me that means I don't actually trust myself to be able to casually spot a really good phishing trick that exploits a flaw in Gmail that nobody but the bad guy knows about.

So, the 2 question survey sees to get behavioral information to go further than the sample size of ME.

As it stands, only 49.1% of the respondents say that they "Almost Always" open the messages, if we compare it to the number of people who don't open paper mail, it's an appalling contrast. I need a LOT more responses before I trust the survey and I can get to confidence levels that let me go with a plan.

My challenge for 2009 - develop a strategy that motivates people to go to the paperless route, ensures that the messaging we use to notify people electronically is reaching the customers, and minimizes security risks for all parties to the transaction. Simple, right?

Just some random thoughts:

Perhaps if the legit companies, who advise their customers to never click a link in an email, would STOP PUTTING LINKS IN THEIR EMAILS, this would be less of an issue.

My employer once sent an email to every employee for mandantory online training on internet and email security. The email said "Click here and log in with your username and network password to begin the training." I went to HR told them that if anyone followed those directions, they should automatically fail the training. They didn't get it.

In any case, when I get a "your statement is ready" email, it is a lot easier to just use my existing bookmark to get to the site than it is to open the email and carefully examine the link to try to determine if it is ok to use.

Sure... Easy-Peasy.

I responded too (BTW) and I'm one of those that sees the subject of the reminder email and often goes to the URL without actually opening the email.

About the only time I bother to open the email message is when I KNOW it's an attempt to Phish and I want to see how good a job they did disguising it.

The bad spelling is almost always a dead giveaway; so make sure your clients hire good copy editors.

as long as you show how you got to your answer.

Done

Done.

If it's from a company I know I've got an account with, I use the link I've got in my password organizer. It will automatically input username & password. The passwords I use for important stuff like credit cards, etc. are a random alphanumeric hash that is too long to remember. (it keeps the file encrypted & password protected)

I don't use any of the social networking sites.

I did the survey but I don't think I'm typical. My email reader is over 15 years old and doesn't support all this new fangled HTML, inline images, embedded scripting and wotnot. So it's not dangerous for me to open emails.

While I never reply directly to an email that I am not familiar with, I do check to see if the email is valid by simply going back to the real website. There are a number of websites/emails I do trust but I think it is necessary to maintain a healthy scepticism from "Ebay" and the like phishing emails, etc.