Don't Click Here For A Free iPod 594
fermion writes "Do you wonder what all those free iPods links are about? Do you wonder why apparently rational Slashdot users would use their .sig line to push an offer that seems little more than a thinly veiled pyramid scheme? Answers to these questions can be found in this NYT article (personal information, with no free iPod, is required). The plan itself seems simple. Rat out your friends to advertisers, and get a free gadget. The firm in question, Gratis, Inc, gets a bounty on each customer. The firm claims to have a revenue of $15 million in 2004. They claim to give away 500 iPods a week. If, as the article claims, each contact earns a bounty of around $50, we might presume that 1 in 12 contacts get a free iPod. This firm seem fairly upfront. Another firm mentioned in the article, Consumer Research Corporation, seems much less so. As always, read the fine print."
old news (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It works... (Score:5, Informative)
Know what "exponential growth" means? ;)
It's not that it's not legit (Score:5, Informative)
The company I work for partners with a lot of these companies, offering one of the things you can sign up for as part of your work toward a free whatever. The companies we work with are legit, but the idiots that sign up for this shit don't read the agreement details and then they wind up getting deluged with legally clear spam, junk mail, and telemarketing.
It's not really free, it's just that you don't pay for what you get with cash. You pay for it with your time. You have to sift through legit spam, junk mailers, hassle with telemarketers who can now legally call you even if you're on the DNC list.
So, hey, if you sign up and didn't read the agreement, too bad. You're an idiot, and you deserve all the crap that you get deluged with. Hope all that extra advertising was worth the free iPod.
click through (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It works... (Score:3, Informative)
Basically you're hoping to screw five suckers who will probably never get a free iPod (or whatever) before the whole idiotic mess collapses. Not very nice.
I did read the fine print a while ago. (Score:5, Informative)
1) The company isn't responsible if you're not ellegible for the free ipod list.
2) The company doesn't guarantee that if you're ellegible, it will send you the free ipod.
3) The company doesn't guarantee that when they send it, it will arrive.
In other words, the company doesn't guarantee A THING.
It's a scam. Just a SPAM frontend.
Re:I knew it. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I did read the fine print a while ago. (Score:2, Informative)
http://seanism.com/freeipod/ipodorder.gif
http://seanism.com/freeipod/senttovendor.gif
and a clip of the screenshot after they sent it...
http://seanism.com/freeipod/shipped.gif
Re:What's _really_ wrong with pyramid schemes? (Score:5, Informative)
And that ain't gonna happen. Sooner or later you will end up in the bottom row. Why?
Because your success depends on the pyramid growing. And the pyramid CAN'T GROW FOREVER. At an geometric growth rate, it requires less than 30 generations to reach the world population. It's like a 30 bit number, but this time bits are base 10 or 12.
This means that sooner or later, the pyramid will experience the so-called "bubble effect". Soon the ones at the bottom will stop generating revenue for you, and this means you'll stop generating revenue for the ones above you, and the pyramid collapses (meaning that the base will always disappear). Then the pyramid becomes VERY narrow and it's like it's started again.
These pyramid schemes are always fraudulent because they promise you an impossible success. It's impossible because the base growth can't be maintained. It happened with Amway, Scientology, and major bible cults. In the end, the base always suffers the worst consequences. And if you were at the base, you'll be again.
The fraud in this case is that you don't get the free ipod INSTANTLY. You need to prove your worth. And that means submitting LOTS of e-mails to spammers. And those aren't even IN the pyramid. They're above it.
And don't tell me that the ad isn't deceptive. Hiding the nasty details in fine print, ON PURPOSE, is one of the greatest frauds in marketing.
In general, the pyramid scheme is evil, because your earnings depend on how many people you abuse or cause to be abused .
Re:I knew it. (Score:5, Informative)
Not to worry. I won't. Ever.
Slashdot -> Preferences -> Comments -> Disable Sigs
Now if I could only get rid of the excessive whitespace from the HTML-Formatted-But-Don't-Preview crowd, I won't have anything to complain about.
Re:while we're at it... (Score:5, Informative)
Start: 1 person.
1 Month: 5 new (6 total)
2 Months: 25 new (31 total)
3 Months: 125 new (156 total)
4 Months: 625 new (781 total)
5 Months: 3125 new (3906 total)
6 Months: 15625 new (19531 total)
7 Months: 78125 new (97656 total)
8 Months: 390625 new (488281 total)
9 Months: 1953125 new (2441406 total)
10 Months: 9765625 new (12207031 total)
11 Months: 48828125 new (61035156 total)
12 Months: 244140625 new (305175781 total)
13 Months: 1220703125 new (1525878906 total)
14 Months: 6103515625 new (7629394531 total)
Since there are only 6,446,131,400 people in the world the scheme cannot continue longer than 14 months. Sadly, those last few months will suck big time (and a few months after because of people who can't do basic math).
Re:And I'll metamoderate that as UNFAIR (Score:3, Informative)
If you don't like what you see in signatures, turn signatures off in your Slashdot settings.
I'll second that; I turned off sigs years ago. Further, there is already a system in place to mark when a person is an ass-stick: foe them. Moderating individual articles for some unseen sig offense will likely have me hitting the Unfair radio button as well.
Re:Read with no registration (Score:3, Informative)
There is a problem highlighted in red below. For help, click here.
# Please enter a GENDER.
# Please enter a BIRTH YEAR.
# Please enter a ZIP CODE.
# Please select an INCOME RANGE.
# Please select an INDUSTRY.
# Please select a JOB TITLE.
# Please select a JOB FUNCTION.
# Please select a NEWSPAPER USAGE.
RE: Time is money (Score:5, Informative)
I got through the majority of the thing before I realized it was going to be a huge waste of my time to proceed further. At the beginning, they don't really make it clear that you need to get at least 5 referrals to *sign up for the offers they're emailed* (and I believe, keep them for at least 30 days, too). They make you think that YOU simply have to do so with one (of many) offers you click through, and then give them 5 valid email addresses of friends.
From my browsing through all the "trial offers", I began to realize that almost all are a royal pain in the butt to get cancelled after you sign up. I might be willing to go through the hassle myself, but I sure don't want to make 5 of my friends do so (if I could even get 5 of them to sign up for these offers in the first place!).
I think one of the "simplest" ones to cancel was the offer to sign up with AOL, and as most of us probably already know - that's not usually the easiest thing in the world to cancel. (At the very least, you're gonna be waiting on hold for 20 or 30 minutes until you talk to some cust. service clown who keeps trying to give you more "free hours" rather than just cancel you.)
Worse yet, so many other people already know about these deals, you end up emailing friends who are already trying to get the free iPod themselves.
Re:Because it actually works... (Score:1, Informative)
It's Bill Hicks. One of the greatest comedic minds of all time. Google him sometime ya bastards...
I got my iPod (Score:3, Informative)
Free iPod Posts [accettura.com]
That query will display just my free iPod posts. I posted as quick as I can, so the dates are very accurate to the actual events. Even a few photos posted at the end.
I did sign up for a freeflatscreen [freeflatscreens.com], though haven't completed the requirements for that one (if you want to see blog posts for free flat screens... help out
All I can say is: I got mine. I have no idea about everyone else who participated, but mine came to my door. So for me, it worked.
Just my $0.02
Re:Because it actually works... (Score:5, Informative)
Word of caution: be careful about signing up for credit cards and cancelling them. The number of credit cards you own and have ever owned make up a part of your credit rating. Two credit cards you sign up for and cancel probably aren't going to do much... But if you go to get a mortgage and you've had 20 different cards, it could raise some eyebrows.
That would be a great place to work... (Score:1, Informative)
The first week of December, I bought a PowerBook in the Apple Store in Lennox Mall in Atlanta, GA, USA, because I need a laptop for a two week trip for work. The CDROM didn't work out of the box. I got the same crap from Apple. They wouldn't replace it with a new laptop, and I couldn't do without it for months, so I paid the $279 open box fee to swap it out with a new one. I'm going to fight them through my credit card company. They're a bunch of damned crooks. I thought Circuit City was horrible (and they are), but these guys are worse. They just don't care.
The worst part of the deal is that I almost had my boss talked into replacing our Sony Vaio trouble-makers, err, laptops with iBooks. After he's seen firsthand the horrible service at Apple Stores, he's decided we're going to buy more Sony's running XP. Damn it. I almost had something easier to maintain on all of our laptops than XP. I'm stuck for another three years with spending 80+ hours a week removing spyware and browser hijackers. I'm VERY angry about that.
Re:Read this carefully (Score:2, Informative)
A Web Offer Too Good to Be True? Read the Fine Print
By BARBARA WHITAKER
Published: December 26, 2004
THE e-mail messages are tantalizing: "Join now and receive a free I.B.M. laptop." "Your complimentary iPod with free shipping is waiting."
These offers and similar ones on the Internet promise gifts for buying products or services. Are they for real? At best, yes, but they can also be riddled with problems. Participants may have to spend a lot to qualify or may not get the reward if they fail to follow what can be complicated rules. Ultimately, they may end up with nothing more than a big increase in spam as their e-mail address and other information is passed along or sold.
Advertisement
Complaint sites are filled with messages from consumers who say they participated in such programs only to come up empty-handed.
One person, Vic of Northport, N.Y., participated in a deal and was disappointed in the experience. On a message board on RipOffReport.com, he wrote: "The lesson is that the only thing on this earth that is truly free is your mother's love. Everything else has a string or catch attached."
Behind the offers are marketing companies whose goal is to generate customers for a wide range of businesses. They offer incentives - money or products - to people who sign up for items like credit cards, CD clubs or newspaper subscriptions. In return, the marketing company receives a fee, or bounty, for every customer it signs up.
Although the marketing companies will not divulge what they are paid per person, those familiar with the business say it averages $40 to $60.
This type of marketing is not new. But where companies once offered gifts like coffee mugs or beach towels in return for, say, signing up for a credit card, the Internet is making it possible for marketers to make more money by bringing multiple offers and consumers together. In return, they offer pricier enticements.
Paul Bresson, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said no reports of fraud involving such operations had been made to the bureau's Internet Fraud Complaint Center (www.ifccfbi.gov). But he recommended that consumers examine such offers carefully.
"The thing to know about this is that anybody can do it," said Gary Stein, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research, an Internet consultancy. "They can be fraudulent, real or somewhere in between."
The marketers operate in numerous ways.
Gratis Internet, a Web marketer based in Washington, has developed a system in which it buys pricey products like iPods - www.freeipods.com - and gives them away. To receive the iPod, participants are asked to sign up for one of about 10 different offers and to persuade five others to do the same. They have developed similar programs giving out $700 desktop computers (freedesktoppc.com), $800 flat-screen televisions (freeflatscreens.com) and high-end designer handbags (freehandbags.com). The main difference between the offers is how many others must be signed up for the main participant to receive the "free" merchandise. Its customers include Time Warner's AOL; BMG Music Service, a CD club owned by Bertelsmann; and USA Today, which is owned by the Gannett Company.
Rob Jewell, co-founder of Gratis, says the company gives away 500 iPods a week. It posted revenue of nearly $5 million in 2003 and expects that to hit $15 million for 2004, he said.
"It's a very cost-effective way for advertisers to attract new customers," said Mr. Jewell, who is 27, "and it's good for consumers as well because they're getting a piece of that."
Mr. Jewell and his friend and business partner, Peter Martin, 28, started their operation with freecondoms.com, on which participants get points for purchases or signing up for programs, and the points can be redeemed for condoms.
Then they realized if they incorporated more people into the process they could offer a bigger prize, which led to the iPod giveaway.
Re:Read this carefully-Failed reality. (Score:3, Informative)
physical property = time * effort + material
This makes the material bit kinda irrelevant to the entire equation, and thefefore can be ignored for the purposes of the grandfather post.
Because most people WON'T get an iPod (Score:5, Informative)
Okay, so one person hooks up five people, they all sign up (making the company $50 * 6 = $300) and a $249 iPod is sent out to the first guy. Profit so far is $51.
Each of those five hooks up five people for a total of 25 new people, so 25 * 50 = 1250. Five iPods = 1245, not much profit this time.. so this shows that at $50 there's no real profit for the company at each generation, until...
25 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 * 5 = 2.5 billion.
At this point you've exhausted everyone on the Internet, as you can't sign up more than once. So where's the money?
As in ANY pyramid scheme, the money is in the last generation of the scheme! Free iPods will reach a point where they have several million on their books, and those several million can't find anyone to sign up! So.. several million * 50 = $A LOT OF PROFIT. And those guys won't get an iPod. Cha-ching.
Re:Oh this old and boring (Score:3, Informative)
I think he did eventually get AOL to cancel - but the moral is, if you must sign up to AOL, use a credit card rather than a debit card. (Generally, it's also less hassle to cancel a credit card rather than close your bank account and change billing/direct debit instructions for all your bills to a new account)
Spam: The Old, the New and the Rehash. (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, of course they're making money off of this. It doesn't take a slashnot story to figure that one out. We're not exactly talking about breaking news here. And even so, do you really have a problem with that? I don't. And yes, they ask for personal information, but do you actually give it to them? I gave them an email address I can shut down at a moments notice. I gave them a creditcard that can't be used again. I don't mind giving out a physical address simply becasue these guys aren't interested in sending out real mail-- That costs money. It's not the MO of a spammer anyway.
Honestly, this story is a little lopsided in nature. Call me biased (see sig for details), but you don't have to play by their rules. I mean, God forbid you use that concept in say, a free email account? Not that they don't attempt to make cash off you either. Or how about slashdot adverts and the story self promotions you see occationally?*
Seriously, you play this game every day on the internet. Nothing changed just because it's a free ipod or because Slashdot all of a sudden became aware of it.
* No, I honestly don't care. Unlike some people I've accepted it as something that goes with the territory.
Not really a "scam" ... but... (Score:4, Informative)
All of the information was happily sold off to "3rd party marketing partners" and the list (over 7 million people when I left) was also used for the company's spamming arm, Moxio (or Bonus Bonez, whatever they're calling it now) - you and your referrals all got the spam. Lots of it. If you cancelled your freeflixtix.com account, your referrals (and usually you) still got tons of spam. Your address (email, phone number, AND mailing address) was sold off already.
Yes, people eventually did get some free tickets after jumping through "partner" hoops..some requiring you to keep the "trial" for 2 weeks or more, or to give up MORE personal info & credit card numbers.
It's worse than the "freecreditreport.com" scam that requires you to sign up for Equifax's "Credit Monitoring Service" and more spam.
Is there any way that Slashdot can simply dump any post that has that ponzi scheme as a sig?