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firemonkey
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25 Aug 2018, 7:11 am

Are AutisMag known for spamming? I just got an email from a coach about a test I supposedly did yesterday. Yes I did their test but it was quite a few months ago.

The coach says

Quote:
2 issues related you your Observation skills
- Some significant deficits when it comes to your communication and social interactions
- Motor skills mostly look OK
- A few traits related to behavioral and sensory functions which you could improve upon.


The communication and social interaction bit makes sense. The motor skills bit is nonsense. My motor skills are not good. In any case there is nothing in their tests that suggests any assessment of such skills.
Behavioural and sensory functions perhaps could be improved. She's suggesting a 30 minute chat.



jimmy m
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25 Aug 2018, 7:22 am

Anytime you think you are being spammed, be very cautious. Never, never click any links within the email. If they ask you to communicate, then contact the organization AutisMag by their original contact phone number or the original contact email address. Do not use the link or phone number provided in this email. Explain to the representatives of AutisMag that you think you were sent spam and that you are verifying that the email you received yesterday was real.

One of the dead give-aways for SPAM is that they normally contain spelling or grammatical error. So always be cautious with emails with these traits.


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firemonkey
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25 Aug 2018, 7:54 am

Thanks for the advice. It just seemed a little strange. I checked the name of the coach . If genuine it's the admin from the Deal with autism site. I'm thinking this is a stock email that gets sent out. The bit about motor skills was iffy as no way do the test questions tease out that.



RandomFact
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25 Aug 2018, 8:06 am

I can’t speak to that site’s spamming practices, in part because I don’t give out my real email address when filling out random surveys. I instead use something like 10minutemail.com to get a throwaway email address that I can give to the site just to obtain the survey result.

Separately, I would advise extreme caution when interpreting the results of surveys on the site. Many are terribly designed. The questions are imprecise, the answer options do not follow conventions of good survey design, and some of the content has a dubious relationship to the construct being assessed. For example, there is currently an article featured on the site that says that researchers have developed an autism symptoms self-assessment for adults. I took a quick look at it. I am not sure who these “researchers” are, but they clearly have no training in research. The “survey” outright steals items from the AQ without attribution (i.e., plagiarism, which is a violation of scientific ethics). Other items have a primary question accompanied by a little hint to help one understand the question. The hint changes the meaning of the question instead of clarifying it. Yet other items have answer options that do not appropriately capture the potential range of responses. (Apparently, one can have no friends, 1 friend, 2 friends, and 5-10 friends, but not 3-4 friends.) Still other items have response options that sound like they were written by an adolescent doing a survey at a slumber party. And then there is a question that asks a person to draw any geometric shape that comes the mind because, apparently, preferring circles or squares has something to do with autism in the minds of the people who put together this BS survey.



firemonkey
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25 Aug 2018, 8:18 am

Thanks. I had heard 'Deal with autism' was questionable ,maybe here , but that was some time after doing the test. The shape question never made sense to me.



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26 Aug 2018, 1:51 am

That's super bizarre, I literally got the exact same email in my spam folder today. I knew it wasn't legit, because I knew I didn't take any online autism tests yesterday. I just deleted it.


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firemonkey
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26 Aug 2018, 2:10 am

StarTrekker wrote:
That's super bizarre, I literally got the exact same email in my spam folder today. I knew it wasn't legit, because I knew I didn't take any online autism tests yesterday. I just deleted it.


Did you ever take one of their tests? If not I wonder where they got your email address from. If not it does seem they're up to some dodgy stuff.



firemonkey
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27 Aug 2018, 7:21 am

As I didn't respond they've just emailed me again.