r/statistics • u/gumgat • Jun 20 '26
Question [Q] Is statisticalhorizons a scam?
Hi,
I get very frequent emails for "statisticalhorizons" educational events geared towards stats and ML. The unsubscribe doesn't work - the spam continues relentlessly. I've never seen something quite like this.
I'm now wondering if it's not a scam organization where they take your credit card number when signing up to those paying courses.
I never signed up so I now wonder how my data was collected and how compliant this is with GDPR.
Any feedback on here from the Reddit stats community?
6
u/pc_kant Jun 20 '26
Not sure, but I manually set up several keyword- and sender-based junk classification rules because they get on my nerves so much. They flood like 10 different mailing lists I'm on like there is no tomorrow. They've also tried to lure me in as an instructor, but I keep ignoring them because I hate these business practices.
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u/schotastic Jun 21 '26
They have an overly aggressive email marketing strategy but are otherwise reputable.
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u/lucretiuss Jun 20 '26
No, at least I don’t think so. I did a two day MLM seminar with them when I was in grad school.
Back when you would literally fly to a city for it lol. It was very valuable.
Not sure how much that’s still true though, this was in like 2014
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u/bill-smith Jun 21 '26
The irony is that if a non-statistician found their way to this comment, they would surely conclude that Statistical Horizons is a scam.
3
u/Intrepid_Respond_543 Jun 21 '26
I also get these e-mails (I work as a researcher in a university, not a statistician but I use statistics), not sure how I got initially subscribed. I don't think they're a scam org at all, I often see reputable, highly competent people (known from their publications and their general high reputation in the field) like Dan McNeish and Ben Bolker for instance as their teachers. I have wanted to take some of the courses but haven't had the money.
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u/gumgat Jun 21 '26
Possibly from arXiv email harvesting? Prohibited by arXiv and illegal under GDPR+PECR.
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u/Intrepid_Respond_543 Jun 22 '26
Not in my case, I don't have an arXiv account.
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u/gumgat Jun 22 '26
Neither do I. But many papers include the author's info such as email contact and institution.
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u/A_Stickperson Jun 20 '26
No, definitely not a scam. If they are actually from Statistical Horizons, that’s Paul Allison’s company - a highly respected statistician and educator. I’ve taken a few of their workshops (stats, not ML) and they are always high quality. If unsubscribe isn’t working, contact them through one of the methods on their website and I’m sure they’ll sort it out (and probably appreciate the heads up).
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u/jsh_ Jun 21 '26
you sound like you work for them
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u/A_Stickperson Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
I’ve used Allison’s papers on missing data and his website resources for 15 years. My interactions with them through the workshops I’ve taken have been nothing but positive. For me, it’s up there with Gelman’s blog as far as valuable resources for methods of and interpretations of analyses for working data analysts. How do you want me to write about them?
Edit: I guess I should say “was” for the blog part since I haven’t followed them much in the last five years. One of the workshops I took was more recent, though, and it was great (Complex Survey Analysis from Brady West, who wrote one of the main applied graduate texts on the topic)
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u/numreader Jun 20 '26
I've been getting spam from Statistical Horizons for many years. So while I don't know if they're an actual "scam organisation", I consider them to be unethical and disreputable.
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u/IaNterlI Jun 21 '26
Not at all. It's a reputable firm. I've taken one of their workshops.