Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

I've been had. On Monday I met up with my cousin Ed in Covent Garden. Whilst I was waiting for him opposite the tube station (initially under Oasis's awning to shelter from the rain until they rather cruelly retracted it) a chap with a clipboard approached me to ask if I'd help with some market research.

As I had about ten minutes to fill and as he was offering me a fiver I was happy enough to help him out. There were various other guys around doing the same and they had a film crew too, apparently for a programme to be broadcast on Sky.

So he got me to answer some questions about my internet usage and stuff and then he gave me my voucher and got me to put my name and phone number on a form so the head office could contact me to check I was happy with how the survey had been conducted. And actually it transpired that it wasn't just my name and phone number, they also wanted my address, so I gave them a rough approximation of it.

But reading thelondonpaper [sic] yesterday, I find that it was actually a survey designed to test how easy it is to get personal information from people in exchange for a £5 voucher. At least I'm not one of the '120 idiots' who actually told the survey person what their password was: there was a list of options such as mother's maiden name, dog's name, date of birth etc so I just ticked 'other' and when he tried to ask me what kind of password I did use I just told him it was a random word. Phew!

But what did startle me is that I gave him even some of my address AND my date of birth -- he asked for my date of birth at the start so by the time we got to the end of the survey and I had this extra slip to fill in almost as an afterthought, I had forgotten I'd already given out some sensitive information.

It was all very cunning. I think it was the fact that I had time to kill as normally I wouldn't even stop for someone wanting me to fill in a survey, and the chap was so nice and friendly, and the fact that they were trying to persuade me to speak to the camera about what they'd questionned me on and insisting it was for Sky (I'm glad I refused, presumably they'd have jumped out doing jazz hands and shouted 'SURPRISE! You're an idiot!') made it seem like it was a reputable sort of survey.

But I've learnt my lesson and I feel stupid. And it gives me a good reason to not give charities my contact details either when they try to con them out of me. I'm just so bad at lying to people and also no good at bluntly refusing.