October 26, 2009

YouGov defrauded in BNP poll sting

YouGov - being conned by the BNP
We've all known for ages that the BNP's legions of keyboard warriors are encouraged to vote in online polls where the result, if tilted, is advantageous to the party, but the BNP now appears to have taken this con trick one step further and is supporting a call on its own website to defraud money from YouGov and pay it into the party's coffers.

British Patriot, an administrator on the BNP's own social network, has called on members to join YouGov so that they can be on the list of people to be called when there is a poll to be carried out. As members, these people are given 50p per survey which is paid to them when the amount owed reaches £50. British Patriot suggests;
'Despite recently getting two MEPs elected our support in Yougov polls has recently dropped to 3% (just 1% in Scotland). One of the main reasons people don’t vote for us is because they believe we are a wasted vote, and it’s online polls such as Yougov that give them this impression! If EVERY BNP supporter joined Yougov, we could put our support on a par with the Lib Dems and possibly higher!

On top of this we could actually raise money for the Party via Yougov as you actually get paid for participating in surveys. I have already been sent a £50 cheque by Yougov which I donated to the party. Imagine if every BNP supporter signed up to Yougov and every few weeks, raised £50 which was donated to the party. The party could potentially get £100,000’s per year via Yougov!!!'
British Patriot compounds this suggested fraud by extending it;
'Also if you join Yougov via the referral link below Yougov will send me the equivalent amount in survey credit for each survey they complete during their first three months of membership. Therefore potentially DOUBLING the money raised for the party! You can also send your referral link to your friends and family, and therefore increasing the amount you raise for the party. I’m very close to receiving my second cheque which I would really like to donate towards the legal battle against the treacherous extremist-lefties of the CEHR.'
Regular readers might recall a similar fraud carried out by the BNP on Usborne Books back in April of last year, where the party sold the publishers books illegally via its own tat-flogging Excalibur arm, earning commission on sales despite the breaching of a number of rules. Thanks to swift action by our readers and Usborne, this was stopped in a day or two and the BNP were deprived of any further money from that particular con trick.

With regard to YouGov, the implications are rather more sinister. Apart from the fact that BNP members are being encouraged to obtain money by false pretenses which will then be donated to the party, the party is also deliberately loading the YouGov member base with numerous BNP members, thus skewing any survey or poll result in, where relevant, the BNP's favour. This latter point ties in nicely with a section of YouGov's terms and condition for what they term 'panel members'.
'3.6.6. In the course of using the YouGov WebPages and / or participating in YouGov Activities or YouGov Panels, you agree not to:

h. attempt to submit more than one vote per survey or do any other act that may affect the validity of any result obtained through any YouGov Activity or YouGov Panel.'
Clearly, British Patriot has breached this condition. So who is British Patriot? I've no idea, though I suspect it's that well-known liar and Nick Griffin ghost-writer Paul Golding. But YouGov can find out very easily because whoever it is has helpfully provided us with his referral ID number, which is

5e61b7ea-317c-4005-94d0-fcdd2f2d8b0d
I'm assuming this is all that's needed to identify this fraudster to YouGov but just in case it isn't, here's the full referrer link;
http://my.yougov.com/go.aspx?id=5e61b7ea-317c-4005-94d0-fcdd2f2d8b0d
There's no way of knowing from this end precisely how many people the BNP has fed into this fraud but a quick look at the post on the BNP's social networking set-up (a replacement for its disastrously-managed forum) reveals that around 25 members have joined up to YouGov from that post alone plus an unknown number who have been sent the referral link via those who've joined, their friends and families.

Nor, we discover, is this a new fraud the BNP has set up to raise money. One post from a Stephen Palmer says
'I had already joined YouGov after reading the thread about it on the old BNP forum.'
so it looks like this con has been going on for some time - which makes me wonder about ALL the poll results that place the BNP rather higher than one would expect.

Whether all this is illegal is debatable and I'm no lawyer but it's certainly unethical, definitely skews YouGov's polls which are generally highly-regarded for their accuracy and clearly puts even more money into the Welshpool pig-farmer's already well-stuffed pockets. And we would like to see it stopped.

We'd like you to ring, write to, fax or email YouGov to tell them of this fraud and to let them know who it is being perpetrated by, by referring to the ID number quoted above. If YouGov has any sense, it will close down this fraudster's account and its referrals and demand its money back from the BNP. If not, we can safely assume that it is happy to be funding the racist BNP.

You can contact YouGov in the following ways;

YouGov
50 Featherstone Street,
London, EC1Y 8RT

Tel: +44 (0)20 7012 6000
Fax: +44 (0)20 7012 6001
Email: info@yougov.com

Stay polite (difficult when referring to the BNP, I know) and let us know any results via the comments section. Go for it...

Thanks to NG (no, not that one) for the heads-up.

48 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/10/22/learn-lessons-manchester-stop-english-defence-league-leeds-31-october

NewsHound said...

BREAKING NEWS: SO MUCH FOR THE BNP'S SHAM-PATRIOTISM.

THE QUEEN DECLARES WAR ON THE BNP:

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/565763/Queen-fury-at-BNP-Outrage-at-Nick-Griffin-Churchill-hijacking.html

Barbara said...

The YouGov polls take a lot of time to complete, so I am told, and are not a favourite of the working population, or for those with children at home.

I have been wondering for some time how the results of the YouGov polls can be taken seriously when they so favour those with the time on their hands to complete the lengthy polls at about 20 minutes each.

But perfect for those BNP keyboard warriors on benefits who have the time and nothing better to do and who want to earn the odd L50.

Busted. Well done.

Dave T said...

Brilliant. I've emailed YouGov and I'll post when I get a reply.

Anonymous said...

You need a link to the BNP page where all this stuff is so we and YouGov can check it out for ourselves. I'm not saying you're lying or anything, just that it would be proof of what you're saying.

Antifascist said...

'You need a link to the BNP page where all this stuff is so we and YouGov can check it out for ourselves. I'm not saying you're lying or anything, just that it would be proof of what you're saying.'

Good thinking. Link added.

Anonymous said...

Good work but how can YOU GOV stop anyone joining? Even if BP is ousted presumably the others aren't?

Also could posters stop skewing these threads by banging on about the EDL etc this is about the YOU GOV scam!

Brummie said...

THE QUEEN DECLARES WAR ON THE BNP:

Contentious issue among us antifashies!!!! Whether she (sorry, protocol: She!!) has indeed declared war on the BNP is Sunday tabloid salaciousness yet again, but we must never forget Mark Collett's vow to 'sack them and get some Germans in to rule properly' or words to that effect!

KO said...

Just slung off an email referring YouGov to this article. Will post when I get a response.

Balanced Assessment said...

Nick Griffin is vile, mentally retarded and irredeemably evil. But like most Nazis he is an idealist, who is kind to animals. On his television show he was not wearing enough make up. I mean, he is no oil painting. And his wig was not on straight.

All in all, the performance one could have expected.

TTFN said...

"Good work but how can YOU GOV stop anyone joining? Even if BP is ousted presumably the others aren't?"

For a start, YouGov could dump Golding or whoever that referral number belongs to and also get rid of any that joined using that same number. Okay, that could be overcome by the fraudsters and thieves of the BNP but at least YouGov would be seen to be doing all they could to avoid fraud both in the polling and in the financial sense.

West Midlands Unity said...

The BNP is looking so desperate now, it's almost painful to watch...-not

Anonymous said...

The BNP are a fucking bad joke. Is this how they would run the country if they got into power?

UK Fightback said...

The BNP made great political capital out of You Gov's implausible conclusion that BNP support rose after Dick Griffin's risible performance, so now the BNP have been exposed for rigging You Gov, and YG's methods have been exposed as totally insecure

This REALLY needs to become a major news item - please contact the media with this news!

Anonymous said...

This looks like Lee Barnes!

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8325406.stm

Anonymous said...

All very well but what this basically says is that the BNP cannot get the indicated survey support up to the true level of support 3% against 7-8%. A bit pathetic really.

UK Fightback said...

OK, I e-mailed this story to 40 major news editors and journos. The BNP managed to turn the Question Time debacle into a victory of sorts, and now they've been caught rigging a "democratic" process this should be as big as news story as Question Time itself, so the more people chip in and help spread Lancaster Unity's report the better !!!!!!!

Jimmy said...

The BNP are hatefulled scum. This is their latest wheeze

Anonymous said...

Sorry for changing topic, but I would like to know, will there be peaceful UAF protests against the racist EDL thugs in Leeds? Not seen anything planned on the net.

Is it only the 635 group and Antifa that will be there to stop the nazis or will there be a UAF presence in Leeds this Saturday?

Does anybody know?

NewsHound said...

LATEST NEWS: - BIRMINGHAM MP FEARS UDA LOYALISTS HAVE SIGNED A DEAL WITH ENGLAND FASCISTS

http://www.sundaymercury.net/news/midlands-news/2009/10/26/birmingham-mp-s-fears-after-edl-join-forces-with-uda-66331-25006587/

PLEASE PUT THIS STORY ON THE BLOG KETLAN/DENISE

Anonymous said...

If YouGov don't agree to act, it may be worth contacting some of their customers and the appropriate trade bodies.

No company would want to be associated with the BNP and let's face it who wants to pay for research when the panel is so skewed in favour of BNP cretins.

Anonymous said...

There is some good anti BNP stuff here http://www.yourthurrock.com/2009/10/26/expose-the-lies-says-tory-candidate/

Pete Green said...

Well done LU. This is exactly the kind of thing the readers expect from the site.

Anonymous said...

"OK, I e-mailed this story to 40 major news editors and journos."

Excellent work. We need more people who are prepared and able to make this kind of effort when it's needed.

Anonymous said...

"Regular readers might recall a similar fraud carried out by the BNP on Usborne Books back in April of last year, where the party sold the publishers books illegally via its own tat-flogging Excalibur arm, earning commission on sales despite the breaching of a number of rules. Thanks to swift action by our readers and Usborne, this was stopped in a day or two and the BNP were deprived of any further money from that particular con trick."

I didn't know anything about that but it sounds like you did well to stop Usborne's name being tainted by the BNP. Let's hope YouGov shows some sense and acts as quickly to stop them abusing the system.

Antifascist said...

I've just received this from one of our fans;

're blogger called "antifascist" your first on the list you dog shit brain bozo bumpkin asslicker of the scabby whinging filth jews

your other university scumbag maggot jew cocksucking cockeroach & maggot filth,..
are to be picked off,..one each month

Lancaster university must be the biggest shit-hole in Britain for taxpayers to have their money wasted & squandered on Commie & Trotsky fuckin dog shit for fuckin brains imbecile's to lazy around each day



ha ha ha bang bang ya dead hohoho'

As I'm only attacking the BNP in this article, I think we can safely assume that this has been sent from a BNP member or at least sympathiser. Lovely people but not able to take criticism.

Here are the headers just in case there's anyone out there who knows how to decipher them. Probably impossible as although these people are beyond thick, they have worked out how to use anonymous remailers. Aren't they clever.

Return-path: anon@remailer.gabrix.ath.cx
Received: from latitanza.investici.org ([82.94.249.234])
by bastion05.mail.zen.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.63)
(envelope-from anon@remailer.gabrix.ath.cx)
id 1N2Uwu-000770-0b
for lancaster.unity@lancasteruaf.myzen.co.uk; Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:09:55 +0000
Received: from [82.94.249.234] (latitanza.investici.org [82.94.249.234]) (Authenticated sender: noauth@autistici.org) by localhost (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 536C098082
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Please report problems or inappropriate use to the
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To: lancaster.unity@lancasteruaf.myzen.co.uk
Subject: UAF members on a death list of hired assassin from Sicily
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Jace said...

"UAF members on a death list of hired assassin from Sicily"

Presumably paid for by filling in all those YouGov surveys. :)

jenny said...

It's about time MI5 and the CIA track down illegal internet content including extreme racism and death threats.

Bet the spooks could track down which computer this death threat came from.

Anonymous said...

So you're threatened with violent death just for having a (non-violent) go at the BNP and these lunatics think they should run a country. Shit.

Liddle Sux! said...

It's been confirmed beyond all belief, Rod Liddle is a cock, and writing in the Spectator he thinks the EDL and their associations with Casuals United are kind of cute, and he is delighted that "football fans are getting interested in politics".

http://www.spectator.co.uk/rodliddle/5473493/the-roots-of-the-edl.thtml

From bigging up the BNP, now upper middle class old-school tie Tory Liddle is bigging up Nazi-saluting street fascists.

Far right sympathiser Rod Liddle calls the UAF "red fascists" using the very same terminology as Simon Darby and Lee Barnes, which says a lot about Liddle's own longings lie, and we should not forget those pro-BNP documentaries that Mr Liddle made some years ago.

Liddle also denies any connections exist between the EDL and the BNP even though there are prominent BNP members active within the BNP, and calls the EDL "harmless".

Perhaps someone should examine if Liddle himself is the BNP's highest ranking celebrity informer (allegedly!), and is a paid-up menber of the party, who has paid enough money to be kept off leaked membership lists.

It does make you wander how, when even the likes of the Sun, Star, Daily Mail and the Daily Express now attack the BNP on a daily basis, it's business as usual for the fascist-loving idiot Rod Liddle.

For suck's sake!

I hate the BNP said...

"Bet the spooks could track down which computer this death threat came from."

And they could probably do it in minutes but they'll never bother unless there's some kind of commercial edge to the threat. I bet if Antifascist was a banker they'd track the fucker down in two minutes.

Anonymous said...

So you're threatened with violent death just for having a (non-violent) go at the BNP and these lunatics think they should run a country. Shit.

Meant to say THE country. Oops.

PG said...

're blogger called "antifascist" your first on the list you dog shit brain bozo bumpkin asslicker of the scabby whinging filth jews

your other university scumbag maggot jew cocksucking cockeroach & maggot filth,..
are to be picked off,..one each month

Lancaster university must be the biggest shit-hole in Britain for taxpayers to have their money wasted & squandered on Commie & Trotsky fuckin dog shit for fuckin brains imbecile's to lazy around each day

ha ha ha bang bang ya dead hohoho'

Well this loon doesn't sound like he's got any problems at all, does he?

You're going to be first on the list? What about Gerry Gable, Weyman Bennett, Nick Lowles, Tny Blair, Gordon Brown, Shaheed Malik, everyon who is a member of UAF, all the Jews, Billy Bragg, Jo Brand, everyone who works for the media, ZOG, the ECHR, all Muslims and everyone else who doesn't agree with everything the nazis say?

Going to have to be a fucking big wall!

BB said...

It's true about Rod Liddle. This crackpot extreme rightwing journalist's (with a small "J") most clearly a BNP supporter, although he now loves the Hitler saluting EDL Casuals also.

The EDL recently threatened to murder journalists, and yesterday a Birmingham MP confirmed that the EDL are being funded by the UDA in Belfast, and yet this arsehole is defending them.

Talk about friends in high places.

Sadly, doesn't the fash-friendly Spectator determine forthcoming Conservative Party policies?

If so, can we expect a powellite conservative foreign office, with Philip Davies from Shipley?

This would really make British black and Asian people cringe!!!

Anonymous said...

I've just emailed YouGov. We'll see if there's a response.

Billyblue said...

Liddle is most defo racist and quite possibly a paid-up fascist.

In the Dark Days of Mosley there were many high-ranking journalists who supported him, lest us anti-fascists not forget.

Anonymous said...

Good stuff, LU.

Anonymous said...

Yes, that Liddle "article" is horrid!

sue said...

Lidl has more class and decorum than Liddle.

West Midlands Unity said...

The EDL are being funded by NI's loyalists?

No wonder their dress code is the spitting image of Johhny Addairs C-Company...

All the EDL needs now is the motto:

"Simply The Best"

AndyMinion said...

Just a thought, but if UAF Members are to be done in (or "Rubbed Out", as I believe the correct argot to be) by Sicilian Hitmen, shouldn't they at least be sent a fish in the post first, or something?

I know it seems like splitting hairs, but there IS such a thing as protocol, old boy...

NewsHound said...

GLASGOW BNP MAN INSISTS THE BNP WILL REMAIN ALL-WHITE.
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/BNP-man39s-racist-vow.5764141.jp

Antifascist said...

'I know it seems like splitting hairs, but there IS such a thing as protocol, old boy...'

Isn't there a postal strike? I'll expect a sardine by first post tomorrow (or whenever the posties return to work).

AndyMinion said...

If there are sardines hanging around in shut down sorting offices for any amount of time, I'd expect the strike to be called of pretty bloody quickly.

Anonymous said...

Right! I've complained to You Gov and set up an account. All proceeds raised will be going to the Refugee Council -just think if it wasn't for the BNP I'd never have thought of using You Gov as a fundraiser for what I'm sure they'll agree is a very worthy cause.

JC said...

Just spotted a reference to this over at Political Betting. No hat-tip to Lancaster Unity though, the tight bastards.
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/10/27/will-the-bnp-succeed-in-infiltrating-yougov/

ModernityBlog said...

Good work keeping tabs on the fascists!

Anonymous said...

I've had no reply to my email but there has been a reply posted on UK Polling Report, as follows.

The BNP and YouGov entryism

A couple of people are getting flustered about the BNP trying to infiltrate the YouGov panel. Over on Political Betting Mike Smithson has rightly dismissed it, but I’ve now got the chapter and verse from Peter Kellner (see the bottom of this post).

Things like this come along occassionally – basically they could only work if YouGov didn’t manage or monitor its panel and took no measures to prevent it, when in reality, carrying out accurate online polls is all about carefully recruiting and managing a representative panel. Any attempt to infiltrate the panel to the extent that it could actually have an effect upon results would be easy to detect and very simple to counter.

You can do the maths yourself. YouGov has in the region of 250,000 on their panel, so to actually shift the result of an opinion poll by 1 point would require about 2,500 people. More to the point, it would require 2,500 joining in a way that several full time professional panel management people did not notice. A sudden surge of 2500 new members, who all joined through the open website (most people are recruited pro-actively) and who all answered questions in a particular way would be pretty bloody obvious. (In this case, secrecy probably wouldn’t be helped by them all using the same referral code and openly informing people of the “plot” on their website )

All that aside, YouGov have reanalysed the poll, looking to see if recent recruits are any different to long standing members of the panel, and more specifically, were more likely to say they were backing the BNP. They weren’t and newer recruits made no difference to the result.

Anyway, here’s Peter’s take in full


1. There have been reports in parts of the blogosphere that certain YouGov members have been attempting to recruit BNP members to the YouGov panel, in order to influence the results of polls and generate revenue for the BNP. Here is YouGov’s response to these reports.

2. YouGov actively recruits the majority of our panel using a variety of techniques, although self-signup and referrals from other members are also possible. We constantly monitor the profile of new panel members, and track differences in survey results, to ensure that our panel is representative, and to protect the quality and integrity of our data. Moreover, YouGov’s sampling methods ensure that new members who sign themselves up cannot have a statistically significant impact on any YouGov polling results.

3. As a further test, YouGov has examined the results of the survey conducted after BBC Question Time poll. The survey, of 1314 electors, included 156 who had joined our panel since May 2009. This covers the period when, it is claimed, BNP bloggers advised party members to join our panel. Of these 156, just one respondent said they would vote BNP in a general election. Any attempts to inflitrate YouGov’s panel with the aim of increasing the BNP’s reported support have plainly failed. We are not surprised: the number and characteristics of people joining the panel since May have been no different from normal.

4. Nevertheless, to put the issue beyond doubt, and in line with our practice at the last general election, we had already started a “close”period, during which no new self-signups or member referrals to YouGov will be invited to take part in political polls. This “close” period started on September 1 and will last until after the election.

5. Any panel member who acts, or entices others to act, in a way that seeks to distort our data violates our rules. We apply various techniques to detect such actions and remove offenders from our panel. In practice the impact of this is statistically insignificant; but we consider it vital to take all possible steps to protect the quality and integrity of our data, and so maintain our record as Britain’s most accurate survey research agency.