St. Patrick’s Snakes: Today’s Survey Fraud Detection

Saint Patrick’s Day is quickly approaching on Monday, March 17th of 2025. While best known for wearing green, parades, and drinking beer, the origins of the celebration lie with, of course, Saint Patrick. The patron saint of Ireland, migrants, and engineers, Saint Patrick is famed for a number of myths and legends. In some stories, he converted the Irish to Christianity by explaining the Holy Trinity using the shamrock. Other stories tell that while he was imprisoned by pirates, he saw visions of God and angels. The most famous tale, though, is that he drove snakes out of Ireland (though there’s evidence that snakes never even made it to the Green Isle).

Like Saint Patrick’s Ireland, there are plenty of snakes in market research. From bad actors who want to steal personal information, to armies of bots taking surveys for the incentives, there is a great deal of fraud in research. It’s an epidemic; nearly half of market research firms have experienced some sort of fraud with their online surveys, and it’s cost the market research industry as a whole hundreds of millions of dollars. Luckily, at ACOP.com, we have ways of driving these fraudulent snakes out of our island.

Types of Fraud

 There are many different types of fraud that plague market research. The most dangerous, and most common, are the bots. Automated scripts, bot programs, and AI can be used to mimic real human respondents and fill out surveys en masse. While they may finish the surveys, their answers are usually all identical and do not accurately represent real human populations. Similar are the “professional survey takers”, or people who seek to take surveys as quickly as possible to earn the incentive money. These survey takers often lie about their information, speed through questions, and ignore open-ended questions in an effort to take as many surveys as possible. 

 There is also the standard fraud that plagues the rest of the internet. Bad actors, hackers, and scammers seek personal information and data, whether for their own misdeeds or to sell it on the dark web. Online survey panels are unfortunately not exempt from these bad actors. Worse yet, some even create their own fake online panels, tricking people into feeding them data and information that they then turn around and sell. 

Defense Against Survey Fraud

 Luckily for market researchers, a number of tools exist to keep fraudulent respondents at bay. A simple one is IP trackers. By monitoring the IP addresses of survey-takers, panels can keep track of how many people are taking surveys from a single location. Thus, if a hundred panelists all share the same IP address, it’s probably a bot farm. Time analysis is another useful tool in removing fraud. Every survey has an average amount of time that a respondent is likely to take to complete it. If a respondent fills out a survey that should take 15 minutes in 2, that can be a red flag that they didn’t answer the questions properly. Alternatively, finishing that same survey in 30 minutes could indicate a bot that is purposely going slow to try and fly under the radar.

 There are also defenses within surveys that can prevent fraud. Most surveys have random questions to trip up bots and speedsters taking the survey. These questions can be math questions, reading comprehension questions, or even directions to answer a certain way. It’s simple, but effective. There’s also the option of using open-ended questions. Open-ended questions require survey-takers to write an answer rather than just selecting from multiple choices. Answers that are too short, have nothing to do with the question, or just don’t make any sense are an indication of fraud, and the respondent can be removed. Some answers can also be written by AI, but these are easily checked and removed as well. 

Defense Against Bad Actors

 Privacy surrounding personal information is incredibly important, especially on online panels. Reputable panels like ACOP go through great lengths to protect panelist information. Firewalls are put in place and regularly tested. Data going in and out is encrypted. Anti-virus software exists and is consistently updated. Security measures exist so that, in the event of a leak or breach, the damage can be minimized as much as possible. While nothing is foolproof, most online panels are as close as can be to keeping personal information 100% safe, secure, and protected.

 However, not every survey site is legitimate. However, as discussed in another article, there are some ways to avoid falling for these scam sites. Notably, legitimate sites will never ask for sensitive information, like passwords, bank information, or social security numbers. Proper survey sites will also never ask you to pay to join their panel. Lastly, just like an fraudulent scam, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. 

ACOP Drives Out the Snakes

At ACOP.com, we take fraud very seriously. That’s why we use a mix of methodologies to ensure data quality and panelist privacy. Our panels are strictly monitored to ensure that all panelists are who they say they are, and that the data they provide is true. Our team of quality assurance specialists go through every survey, picking out respondents they believe to be fraudsters or bots. We also encrypt all of our panelists data using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol, and keep it all held securely behind our firewall. We never sell our panelists’ information, and any panelist has the option to request their personal information that’s been collected. We also have our own proprietary anti-fraud system known as SLEUTH. Using a mix of digital and analog fraud detection, we ensure the data we provide to our clients is as accurate and high-quality as possible. 

As mentioned above, fraud is a serious problem in market research. However, just as fraudsters are finding new ways of cracking through our security, we are finding new ways to deter them. While we may never be as effective as Saint Patrick at running off these snakes, we’ll certainly keep doing our best.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!