The ghost completes of past, present, and future

What are ghost completes?

In market research, we use the term ‘ghost complete’ to describe a survey response that is recorded in the system as a complete without any data captured. Essentially, the survey was never completed by an actual participant.

Spooky, right? Well, yes, actually: ghost completes are one of the biggest problems our industry faces for a variety of reasons and they’re an oft-wielded fraud methodology that fraudsters use for nefarious gains. 

Suppliers have found themselves unwittingly rewarding survey “participants” that were later reversed. Buyers have felt the pain too, as they were unable to reach their intended quotas with real, accurate and authentic data.

If you’re still a little in the dark about ghost completes, why not read our article from 2025 about the topic? 

Given that the holidays are here, we thought we’d go all Charles Dickens on you and discuss the ghost (completes) of past, present and future.

The past

Though survey fraud has long been impacted by ghost completes, the industry has had to adapt to an increased prominence of them over the past five years. 

This is, in part, due to a rapid expansion in the amount of organized fraud rings that have emerged since the turn of the decade. By targeting weak survey entry links fraudsters have been able to siphon rewards paid out to respondents and left the industry scrambling to accelerate efforts to secure redirects and protect themselves from this evolving threat. 

At Cint, we’re able to track the trends in the reasons that buyers have shared with us for not accepting a complete for their surveys. As a result we have the ability to examine those trends and pinpoint specific moments in time when issues like ghost completes (and other methods of fraud) are having the most noticeable and negative impact on our buyers. 

According to our data, reported ghost completes have been something of a rollercoaster ride, with a definite peak at the end of 2022 with another spike following midway through 2023.

This was a problem that the entire globe-wide industry had to reckon with and adapt to. Something had to change. And at Cint, it did.

The present

From the data at our disposal it was self-evident that something needed to be done to tackle the problem of ghost completes and it needed to be done urgently. 

To that end we invested in building our defenses up against attacks of this kind as soon as we saw reported ghost completes start to rise in 2022. 

There were several ways that we tackled this as part of our ongoing efforts to ensure that Cint customers get access to the highest quality data possible:

• One of these was implementing proprietary Secure Survey direct server-to-server connections that seek to eliminate ghost completes. 
• We also introduced solutions that were designed to predict fraud and proactively stop fraudsters before they even have the opportunity to manipulate redirects and wreak havoc with ghost completes. 
• To that end, Cint’s proprietary Trust Score is powered by AI and machine learning, grading respondents each time they enter the survey workflow, performing survey data quality checks — Trust Score keeps our customers one step ahead of the game. 
• If that wasn’t enough, we also introduced a new reconciliation policy with the Cint Exchange platform, providing us with better diagnostic capabilities to identify where ghost completes are occurring in our platform. Armed with that knowledge, we’re able to take corrective action to protect our customers. 

We’d like to think that the results speak for themselves: when we compared our average ghost completes in 2025 with that peak in December 2022, we have reduced ghost complete volumes by a massive 99%.

However, that isn’t to say that ghost completes are purely yesterday’s issue. Industry-wide there’s the ongoing problem of not every customer opting to use the most secure redirect options available to them. Limitations within specific survey hosting platforms are just one reason why this may be the case.

The future

Before we steal off with a mince pie and a glass of sherry in our hands, a word about the future. 

At Cint we’re confident that we can put a stop to ghost completes. After all, they’re the most preventable type of fraud that bad actors currently have at their disposal. 

2026 will see us doubling down on our efforts to reduce the number of reported ghost completes. 

How, you ask?

In the coming year, Cint will continue our ongoing efforts to partner with the industry and survey hosting platforms in order to make securing redirects both accessible to everyone and the regular course of action when it comes to stopping this kind of fraud in its tracks. 

We will also proactively accelerate our operational efforts to work with buyers as a means of improving redirect security within the Cint Exchange.

Finally, 2026 will see us pushing forward with our product roadmaps which will focus on continuous innovation within our best-in-class suite of technologies.

Learn more about Cint’s commitment to quality

Not a customer yet but want to know more about Cint’s commitment to quality? Head over to our data quality approach page to get the lowdown on how we pair advanced technology with dedicated teams to fight data fraud and deliver high-quality consumer insights.