These pop-ups are always coming up offering me a free iPod if I were only to fill out some kind of online survey. As long as I’ve been using the Internet, along with everyone else, I think, I’ve always just closed pop-ups offering me something for free. After all, I’ve figured it was just a scam.
But is it possible to get free products from those pop-ups? Couldn’t whoever was putting the pop-ups up get sued if they did not, in fact, offer a free iPod if they claimed that they would do so? It would be pretty cool to get an iPod for free, so could I do that by clicking one of those pop-ups next time I see one and doing whatever it tells me to do? Hell, it would be worth getting spammed, I could always make another Yahoo email address.
As far as I know, the FreeIpod offer is actually legitimate – assuming you can get 5 friends to sign up for some offers for you. It basically works by having enough people sign up for offers, but not enough to actually complete the deal. For example, if you and 4 of your friends sign up, they get paid and you don’t get squat.
It’s important to note that it depends on which freeipod offer you’re talking about. I meant the one at freeipods.com, by Gratisnetwork. If you see another popup from some random company offering a free product X, it would still be wise to assume that it’s risky. Gratis is an exception, not the rule, and it wouldn’t be smart to believe every ad you see online. Especially if all they want you to do is fill out a quick survey.
I know of one person online who got in on the initial iPod offer very early on, and actually got one for free. Problem is now, a couple things: there are now a number of copycat sites for this whose validity is questionable, and even concerning the original site–they used to display the trust-E logo, meaning they did not sell your customer data. They don’t display that anymore. …Add to that the fact that most every message board everywhere has already been spammed to hell by people asking for others to sign up on their accounts, and those messages tend to get deleted now. So mostly what you are likely to get from your effort is a lot of spam to whatever email address you use to register for it.
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It’s a pyramid scheme. If you have five friends who have five friends that want to sign up for a credit card or somesuch, go ahead. BTW it’s more likely that your physical address is going to get spammed, not your e-mail. They can’t e-mail you an iPod.
My brother got his iPod through one of the free services. I can ask him tonight about it - but I don’t remember him mentioning having to sign up any friends for anything. It did involve having to join several things (one month subscription to blockbuster.com, etc. - all free trials, but will charge your credit card if you don’t cancel).
It was the type of thing that you have to keep your paperwork on, as they’ll try to screw you over at any misstep. They also “forgot” about his paperwork, and he had to call and pester them quite often. But he did end up getting it, FWIW.
A lot of the “free” offers, be it IPod or otherwise, usually get you with the shipping and handling charge. It’ll be some free item with a $15 shipping charge or something similar.
Munch has it right.
It involves signing up for a trial offer on something (be it a magazine subscription, netflix, internet service, etc.) where a credit card is required. If you fail to contact them after your free trial is up, they start billing you directly on your credit card.
You are also required to get 5 friends to do the same thing (they do not receive an I-pod for their troubles, just you).
So, if the 6 of you can follow a calendar and make sure you all cancel your trial services before they start to bill you, you can receive 1 i-pod to share amongst yourselves.
I tried to make the “share amongst yourselves” part work by offering $20 to any of my friends who wanted to do it (when I get the goods, that is). Doesn’t look like I’m going to have enough takers. Too bad. I thought I’d found the perfect solution.
Just to back up what others have said, you really can get free stuff online, including iPods. About a month ago I got a $250 Best Buy giftcard from Free Super, and Gratis Network should be shipping me a Playstation2 within a week or two. Gratis and Free Super both work the same way: sign up for one of their clients’ offers, then get X friends to do the same (5 for an iPod, for instance). Some of the offers are for product samples, which do make you pay the cost of shipping (including return shipping, once you cancel), but others are trials for services and really are free if you cancel before your trial ends. As for spam, I have no idea; Gmail has filtered whatever spam I got, if any.
So, basically, if you can get the referrals, Gratis and Free Super are your safest bets. And if you’re inexplicably eager to be someone’s referral, you could always e-mail me; I’m going for a free Mac Mini now.
It’s mostly been answered already, but yeah, the “survey” part is just to make it look more legitimate/easy.
There are two different types of site offering free stuff. Gratisnetwork runs the freeipod, freeipodphoto, freeminimac etc etc etc sites. They were first and their format is: You sign up for one offer. You get a certain number of friends to sign up for one offer. You get something free. They make their money from referring people and their friends who sign up for their sponsor sites but never reach enough to get anything free. I’m sure blockbuster.com or whoever has to give a mighty big referral bonus to a site that brings them probably many thousands of customer sign-ups daily. And also massive advertising on the site. You have to click through/past a ridiculous number of ads along the way.
The other newer format doesn’t require referrals, you don’t need to get friends on board, but you have to complete many more offers yourself. Many are free trials you can cancel, and many will cost you quite a bit if you make the mistake of not cancelling in time. So to get your “free” ipod, it’s not really the survey completion (name and address and e-mail) but the offers you have to complete. I think most of them require about 6 completed offers, so for my free iPod I would have to subscribe to blockbuster’s netflix style service, apply (and USE in order to complete the deal) for 2 major credit cards, get a video professor trial that I have to pay shipping for and will cost $80 if I forget to send the disc back, and a couple more offers from the choices I’m given.
I think if you don’t mind the hassle and waiting and still paying a bit, the second is a way to go that doesn’t require you to spam and beg all your e-friends, and it’s probably cheaper than just buying an iPod assuming you pick the most free offers and cancel anything you can in time. Like someone said though, “customer service” can be a problem, you need to keep records, and there’s waiting periods on several of the offers before you can cancel, and so on and so forth.
So yes, you can get a free ipod by taking an online survey (and doing a lot of other stuff too)
