>> Hmm. Never mind that, at least in the US, this is illegal as hell, if 
>> someone decides to sue you on the basis that you made the claim, but 
>> its **not actually true**.
> 
> Oh usually the exact thing they claim is 100% true, they just word it 
> very cleverly to avoid it being illegal, but also to make it sound as 
> good as possible (usually with creative uses of font sizes and colours).
> 
> Common things are to do studies yourself on very small samples, then 
> claim your product is preferred by the majority of people.  Or to find 
> some small magazine to do a test with your product (of course giving 
> them lots of free samples), then claiming your product is the best 
> according to the magazine (of course the "best" bit is in massive font 
> size with the details being in 1pt).

Or to say one thing, which is technically true, but worded so as to 
*imply* something quite different, which isn't true.

My favourit one is price comparison websites. "95% of our customers 
saved money by switching to us!" What, you mean 5% of people DIDN'T save 
any money and yet still switched?! You have some pretty stupid 
customers. :-P

Of course, if you just listen to it without thinking too much, it 
*sounds* like a great company. Until you realise why that statistic is 
there; people come, check the price, and if it's lower they sign up. So 
their customers are *by definition* the people who happen to save money. 
Not too surprising that they all saved money then, eh?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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