Reference no: EM131112026

Anne is trying to decide whether or not to pay for a credit monitoring service that promises to protect her from identity theft. She'd like to know how much so-called identity theft is really just a stolen credit card number and how much involves opening a new line of credit or making fraudulent insurance claims. Because she is unable to find reliable statistics she performs a simple experiment of her own. She Googles the words ‘my identity was stolen' and sifts through the first few pages of results. She ignores the results that are either ads or articles about what to do (in the event of stolen identity) and she focuses on only those results that are first-hand reports of identity theft. She finds that about half of the first twenty reports describe use of a stolen credit card or credit card number and the other half are reports of more serious fraud. She concludes that credit card fraud accounts for roughly half of all identity theft incidents. Since Anne's credit card company already protects her from fraudulent use, she opts against extra identity protection.

What sort of argument is Anne using as justification for her decision?

a. A sampling argument
b. An argument from authority
c. A statistical syllogism
d. An analogy
e. An evidentiary syllogism