free IPOD offer?? free money??

[Jordandhs]

ok i always see those ad said u sign up and refer a few friend u can get a free IPOD or laptop or money wutever, so wut the real catch for them?? is it like they sell out your peronsal information to other company and ad u?? or they are just like crazy giving out free stuff

[SamuraiCatJB]

The theory is simple.... shared advertising expenses.... The most common application of the "free ___ offer" is the sign up for 2-3 items from a 3-4 tier set of advertisers. At least one of the tiers will be evaluate for free, you sign up, use the service for x days and cancel before they charge your card. Some will be "no risk" evaluation, that is they will charge your card first and then refund your money if you terminate within x days (but use it at least n days). Sometimes one of the tiers will be "spread the word" put in 10 email addresses of friends you think will also be interested in this (you are playing advertising agent for "free" for them). And sometimes you will get low charge, but little choice (sign up for a credit card, buy a $10 one week supply of diet pills, etc.). So yes, theoretically it works out. They save advertising dollars by multiple companies channelling the advertising into one location, you lure in the perspective customer with the free gift, so very popular, and then you make the customer earn the gift by signing up with a number of your advertisers and hold the services for a specified number of days and/or make the customer do the advertising to lure in more customers.

So, yes, it "can be" legit, the company saves money by channeling advertising money they would have spent elsewhere (remember advertising does not come in cheap, ad space, design costs, production costs if video, people costs for consultants and photographers visual designers, and of course the time it takes to negotiate the ad costs for the final placement). Now for the really, really big catch. It has nothing to do with the legitimate places, per se. First many companies like this that collect email addresses say they will not release information, but if they get in financial difficulty, they simply re-incorporate under a different name, or give the data to a subsidiary/parent agency which then negates the privacy guarentee, and they sell the addresses to make up for lost profit. This happens with big name companies, one very recently. Then you have the scammers, ones that are out to get the advertising money from the company (or worse, your credit information), and always find a way to prevent you from getting the free gift.

In order to protect you from the latter, your best bet is to research the company, check references, check advertisers to make sure it is a legitimate company, and by the time you are done, even at $10 an hour for your time, you have more than earned the total cost of the item, and probably doubled it. If you don't bother to do all the research, you run the risk of finding a bad one by chance, then it becomes an all or nothing deal.

[hucsman]

As far as I know, at least for the "gratis net" promos (which seem to be the most popular) the catch is to set the rules in a way that most people will complete only half of the requirements, so that the money obtained by publicizing the "half-goers" info will more than compensate the rewards that actually have to be given to the "full-goers".

[SonyStyle]

u will get the stuff eventually but u have a price to pay. u info gets sold, ur credit card might be "leaked" to some other ppl, ur mailbox will be spammed, u may lose friends, ads might get installed onto ur computer, etc.

[maceyr]

In real life, there really isn't anything that is free, especially an iPod, PSP, or whatever they say to get your attention. Most of the time these are "pyramid schemes" where those who started it and those at the top are financed by those at the bottom, the newcomers, and eventually, these scams are caught at which, those at the bottom are left holding the bag. That's why there's a lot of these "Ponzi" schemes because those who got in near the beginning will see some benefits (money, gifts, etc) but many members of those types of marketing schemes will be caught holding the bag.

Somebody will have to pay. And most likely, you will be the one for being so greedy to get something for nothing.

Don't get conned. Save your money and you can buy your iPod. Or else, you'll be out a lot of money or conned for a hope of a freebie.

[LanMan]

Judie Hughes, of The Gadgeteer, did a little experiment regarding this issue and here are the results in her "Something For Nothing: The Free iPod Project" article:

http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/the-free-ipod-project-article.html

[maceyr]

As I've said, there will be some people who get in early enough who will get the goods and be very convinced of its legitimacy and thus, spread the word to entice more people. If nobody got anything, this scheme will die quickly.

I may be wrong about this but I still believe that there's no such thing as a free lunch. I hope that I don't hear bad things about it sometime in the future from people who lost money or got scammed.

These types of schemes are happening everyday because they are so convincing when so many people have "gotten" the goods and of course, say that it's not a scam since they got their freebies. If I'm involved in trying to get my free ipod, would I be stupid enough to say it's a scam and thus stop getting referrals? I think not. This looks like a scheme of some kind (like I said, I may be wrong). Look up under Ponzi scheme (http://www.sec.gov/answers/ponzi.htm), pyramid scheme (http://skepdic.com/pyramid.html) and understand what it's all about and decide whether this sounds like it. Sometime in the future, some people will probably be left holding the bag. When that happens, nobody knows. Until then, you'll hear of people who claim they've got the free stuff and it's not a scam. Once it folds, then you'll hear from people who didn't get them. For me, I definitely stay away from such stuff.

I'll save my pennies to get it.

[Rampax]

Many people believe that it is a scam, but the companies do make enough money to give out as many ipods as they want. Some people call it a pyramid scheme and it cant be trusted, but you have to remember that not everyone in USA, Canada, and UK knows about this deal. In fact, more than 50% of people do not know about this. When the company exhausts the population in one country, they expand to other countries for potential customers. It is like any other business. A phone company may give you a better deal if you get a friend to join under your name, any buy one get one free deals, internet advertisements, are all the same kind of technique that tries to attract potential customers. Many people take advantage of these deals, but call this a scam without getting the facts first. But of course, there are ways to milk the system and get multiple free ipods (ie: get the company to send to the addresses of your relatives homes and pick it up yourself)

[jey2283]

iPod Update: i did infact recieve the iPod Shuffle. Pictures are posted online. You can see how long it too me to get the ipod. The pictures posted start from completing my requirements --> opening the package. Now there is proof its not a scam! http://www.homework4referrals.com/notes/?q=image/tid/88

[Rampax]

WOW.... good job! I am still waiting for my referrals to get credit for their offers. Im expecting to have mine shipped within the next month

[RichieFarmer]

I just had a friend get a new IPod Mini from one of these same advertisements.

[jjesusfreak01]

There really isnt too much of an argument regarding the legitimacy of these services. The large ones are legit. As some have said, they are Pyramid schemes, which means they count on the fact most people will not complete the offers. In fact, they know you wont. Apple probably subsidizes them too by giving them cheap iPods.

[Rampax]

people will complete offers. But I think that they are counting more on the fact that many people will not be able to get their 5 referrals or whatever amount of referrals they need. If that happens, they make straight profit.

[jey2283]

So i did all the gratis and product test panel things.
i got free:
- ipod mini
- ps2
- sony laptop (vaio 15 inch screen)
- mac mini with 20inch screen and keyboard/mouse
- ipod shuffle
(didn't make the ipod video).

Gratis and product test panel make it impossible to get these items now a days. The time for free stuff has come and gone :( Hope you all made it while u could!!!

Instead of getting free stuff (which was pretty cool) try paying for it with my new idea ( i don't profit from ur work): sell your college lecture notes (http://www.sharenotes.com). We launch september: www.sharenotes.com