DATA SHAPING? Bowdoin Email ‘Blasts’ To 77,000 Members Delayed In Favor Of Purported ‘Soft Launch’

Andy Bowdoin

Late Tuesday, a fundraising email attributed to accused Ponzi schemer Andy Bowdoin of AdSurfDaily acknowledged that an advertised email “Blast” to 77,000 ASD members that was supposed to have occurred on Monday — the third anniversary of the Aug. 1, 2008, ASD-related asset seizures — had not occurred.

What actually occurred, according to the email, was a purported “Soft Launch” to fewer than 500 ASD members. Despite an earlier  claim that the “Blast” to 77,000 members would occur Monday, the email backed away from the claim, advising recipients that the “Blast” was “COMING REAL SOON.”

Bowdoin’s fundraising venture itself missed two advertised launch dates, but finally launched on July 26, fours days after Bowdoin’s most recent appearance before a federal judge in the District of Columbia.

Tuesday’s email made various claims about the success of the purported “Soft Launch” so far while at once planting the seed that Bowdoin remains hugely popular among the ASD membership base.

Because the email did not identify the characteristics of the ASD members initially contacted, the purported results — including a result that 110 people among the group of fewer than 500 initially contacted had made donations totaling “Over $4,400”  — could be heavily skewed in Bowdoin’s favor. As things stand, the email effectively makes the claim that more than 22 percent of the people initially contacted chose to donate to Bowdoin while suggesting the number could hold across a cross-section of 77,000 ASD members.

The “average” donation was pegged at $40. Averages in such a small sample, however, can be misleading. The email did not reveal the amount of the smallest donation or the largest one.

At the same time, the email does not say whether the “Soft Launch” group consisted of Bowdoin friends, family members, close business associates or people who may be friendly with Bowdoin such as former cheerleaders on the pro-ASD Surf’s Up forum. Nor does it say whether the initial contributors perhaps were predisposed to make a donation out of fear or concern that they had legal exposure because of the size of their downlines, the dollar volume they generated through ASD, the amount of “profits” they have lost as a result of their participation in ASD or the amount of interference they ran for Bowdoin before and after the August 2008 seizures of about $65.8 million from Bowdoin’s personal bank accounts.

Some ASD members have more legal and financial exposure than others and may be predisposed to help Bowdoin raise funds to mount his criminal defense as a means of delaying their own day of reckoning. The government, however, has two civil judgments against ASD-related assets in its favor, and announced nearly three years ago that it was implementing a remissions program through which ASD victims would receive compensation for their losses through seized funds.

Certain purported results suggest that, in the early stages of Bowdoin’s fundraising venture, the initial goal was to let Bowdoin bask in a preordained light and to shape the data to intensify the light. Although much has been made of a purported open rate of 42 percent — meaning that more than four out of 10 members of the initial group contacted opened the fundraising email — such a purportedly glowing statistic could be meaningless. Friends and foes alike are interested in Bowdoin news, and the nature of the initial group’s relationship with Bowdoin has not been revealed.

If Bowdoin and his fundraising helpers already had a “hot” list of sympathizers, early purported success would not be surprising — in the same way that a self-evident result culled from baseball fans asked to name their favorite team while already inside the park of their favorite team would not be surprising.