Peter of England: He’s still F RE?

[littleFred]

Peter now has a membership joining form.

[afateworsethandeath]

Hi all. I have followed this site for some time with great interest but only recently taken the plunge and joined. It is a great source of information, and often, humour.

I have a particular interest in the Were Bank and Peter of England debacle as I am using it as a research topic for a degree dissertation. My dissertation will attempt to discover why fraud victims fall for such obvious scams as Were Bank and I intend to post a survey online in order to gather information from Were Bank customers/victims. And so to my request....

I am looking for advice and guidance from users of the site as to the best online locations to post the survey in order to elicit the maximum response. Surveys, and in particular, on line surveys, are notoriously poorly responded to, and I need enough responses to give the data validity.

I am happy to answer any questions and will welcome any help

[Hercule Parrot]

My dissertation will attempt to discover why fraud victims fall for such obvious scams as Were Bank and I intend to post a survey online in order to gather information from Were Bank customers/victims.

A very worthy research project, but I think you're going to find it hard to engage a representative group of were-idiots. While they still believe PoE's nonsense they will shun and despise you for depicting them as victims. Afterwards most of them will either be embarrassed and silent, or maintaining denial-based rationalisation.

A major decision at an early stage is how you engage with "the movement" and inevitably with Kaa himself. There is much to be said for attending their meetings and fronting it out as a sceptical but open-minded observer, in the Louis Theroux style.

Some of our members have been maintaining covert were-bank accounts or forum registrations etc, to get access to the inside story. One of them received an email which was cc'd to everyone rather than bcc'd, so he has a long list of current were-idiot email addresses. Whether he would share that with you, I couldn't say, but it might be another way in.

Finally, there is a lot of dodgy stalker-ish behaviour around these topics, and people may not be inclined to accept you for what you claim to be. It's up to you, but the best way to overcome that would be to identify yourself in confidence to site staff (ArthurWankspittle heads the UK contingent). Give them an academic email address or a professorial contact for verification, by private message, and they will tell the rest of us that you check out as legitimate.

Good luck, and I really look forward to seeing your findings on this fascinating enquiry. My personal view is that when you map the links to FMOTL and sovcit, you will realise it's quite comparable to a mediaeval fin de siècle or cult belief set.

[afateworsethandeath]

Thanks for the reply and advice. I anticipate a particularly low response rate for my survey which is why I am trying locate them on sites that will maximise their exposure.

I also anticipate that many of the supposed 12000 customers will still be supportive of PoE and refuse to accept that the scheme is nothing more than a scam, and that they have in fact been the victim of fraud.

I am, unfortunately all too aware of the problems created by some of the followers of such schemes and of many FMOTL followers. I have been unfortunate enough to meet some of them and had to listen to the poison they sell.

I shall message the moderators as advised. Thanks again

[exiledscouser]

Hi all. I have followed this site for some time with great interest but only recently taken the plunge and joined. It is a great source of information, and often, humour.

I have a particular interest in the Were Bank and Peter of England debacle as I am using it as a research topic for a degree dissertation. My dissertation will attempt to discover why fraud victims fall for such obvious scams as Were Bank and I intend to post a survey online in order to gather information from Were Bank customers/victims. And so to my request....

I am looking for advice and guidance from users of the site as to the best online locations to post the survey in order to elicit the maximum response. Surveys, and in particular, on line surveys, are notoriously poorly responded to, and I need enough responses to give the data validity.

I am happy to answer any questions and will welcome any help

Make sure you ask respondents to put their sort code, account number, sample signature and mother's maiden name on the bottom of the form. That way as well as the question responses you'll know and have empiric first hand data on just how gullible people can be.

[afateworsethandeath]

Ha ha. Unfortunately I do have first hand experience of not only how gullible people can be but of how stupid they can be too. However, having the evidence to support a hypothesis is another matter....

[Dr. Caligari]

Afateworsethan,
Welcome to Quatloos!
Grog is served in the fo'c'sle at 8 bells.

[afateworsethandeath]

Thank you. Look forward to it

[PeanutGallery]

Afateworsethan,
Welcome to Quatloos!
Grog is served in the fo'c'sle at 8 bells.

Nobody welcomed me with grog, then again Burnaby probably drank it...

[Jeffrey]

There is much to be said for attending their meetings and fronting it out as a sceptical but open-minded observer, in the Louis Theroux style.

Ideal place to hand out surveys would be at the last meeting.

[afateworsethandeath]

I want to post the surveys online to encourage confidentiality and hopefully, a better response rate. I don't think that people would respond if approached in public for fear of being castigated by their peers. And finally, I want to preserve my own confidentiality. I do not want some of the people who would undoubtedly attend these events to have access to my details.

[Chaos]

There is much to be said for attending their meetings and fronting it out as a sceptical but open-minded observer, in the Louis Theroux style.

Ideal place to hand out surveys would be at the last meeting.

but really........who knows when that last meeting will be? (see what I did there?)

[LightinDarkness]

I want to post the surveys online to encourage confidentiality and hopefully, a better response rate. I don't think that people would respond if approached in public for fear of being castigated by their peers. And finally, I want to preserve my own confidentiality. I do not want some of the people who would undoubtedly attend these events to have access to my details.

I do a lot of survey research for a living, and I am curious as to what type of dissertation committee would approve this kind of methodology. This is quite a valid topic of research - indeed, I am happy to see someone is doing it - but you aren't going to get enough responses to make any conclusions. And even if by some miracle you did get a lot of responses, you won't be able to collect enough information to determine whether your sample is generalizable to the population of all WeRe scam victims. In the US any sort of research like this would require that the respondent pool be informed of the reason for the research. And once they saw your intentions, they would poison the well and you'd get useless data.

I think a case study with a few receptive WeRe members would provide you much more useful insight into their mentality. Any survey data would be so limited that I don't know what you could do with it.

[afateworsethandeath]

Thanks for the reply and advice. I am concerned by the potential low number of respondents to a survey. A case study may be the way to go, the only issue being where to obtain Were Bank customer details? I cannot see them being readily supplied by WB. And as you rightly pointed out, ethically they will be informed of the reason for the study. I can imagine that even now, many remain steadfast in their belief that the whole thing is not a scam and a huge conspiracy to prevent it from working. Whichever way I decide to go, it's not going to be the easiest audience

[littleFred]

Some WeRe members documented their own journey from initial excitement to final disillusionment in the private UK WeRe Bank forum.

Perhaps some member of the forum captured more or less all the threads in the forum, as HTM files. This would be, at a random guess, say, 44 MB.

If that were the case, it would be technically possible (with the help of search tools) to follow the stories of individual members, from their own words.

I don't know if doing this would be ethically okay. The private forum was not, of course, publicly available.

[LightinDarkness]

Is there a venue out there were WeRe victims who recognize they were scammed might see an invitation to be a research case study? One where such an invitation won't get deleted immediately? Might be the best bet...if such a thing exists.

[afateworsethandeath]

That would be an ideal starting point. Indeed, what could be better for case studies than having WB members charting their experiences in their own words.

[afateworsethandeath]

It's posting the invitation to participate somewhere where it will not get immediately deleted. Clearly asking WB to post it on their site is not an option. I am hoping that members here can point me in the direction of the most suitable places to post either the survey or an invitation to participate in a case study to maximise the opportunities for success

[Zeke_the_Meek]

Is there a venue out there were WeRe victims who recognize they were scammed might see an invitation to be a research case study? One where such an invitation won't get deleted immediately? Might be the best bet...if such a thing exists.

There are a few Facebook pages like 'Peter of England is a Con Man' and (what seems to be inactive) 'WeRe Bank Scam', and probably others when start digging, that some disillusioned WeRe folk have fallen into. Wasn't Danny Bamping was an ardent WeRe fan who surfaced way back in this story? If so, he's really after Pete's blood over on the Con Man page.

I'd imagine others lurk on such pages also, as well as those who are on the fence about the scam (possibly conned already) who are slowly waking up and looking into what the 'schills' are saying. Rare as that is.

You could also cast your net beyond WeRe Bank and post to the various Facebook pages that are anti-FOTL in general (a lot of those too.) They'd all be happy to host you, I bet.

But even so, there probably wouldn't be many responses and I don't know how you'd qualify the data for sincerity. You might even get some anti-scam people providing false accounts to make people like Peter sound even worse; you never know.

[Skeleton]

It's posting the invitation to participate somewhere where it will not get immediately deleted. Clearly asking WB to post it on their site is not an option. I am hoping that members here can point me in the direction of the most suitable places to post either the survey or an invitation to participate in a case study to maximise the opportunities for success

Facebook wise, Peter of Englands own page would be ideal but it is a non-starter. Any anti Weird Bank posts or negativity about the weasel himself are quickly removed, and the poster generally banned. My only other thought is the "Peter of England is a con-man" page. Maybe worth a chat to the admins and I know Danny Bampkin is a member, he may be able to give you a steer as to where to post it so that is visible to as many "marks" as possible. I wish you luck but I think your up against it, I think the desperate and needy have long departed Weird Bank and what is left, is the deluded and the free loaders who are well aware the bank is fake, but are taking a punt, in the hope they will get something for nothing. They wont blame Peter as long as they think their is a chance of that happening.