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."
Because it actually works... (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess if this company is making money, then not everyone bothers to get out of the offers they sign up for, but even they aren't getting ripped off.
BTW, there have been a few sites that set up referal pools, where people basically just got together and refered each other with the people in the pool.
Best way to get a free iPod... (Score:4, Interesting)
(I suppose this might be too much "work" for some people, though, plus it doesn't have the fun of selling out your friends to spammers...)
Your milage may vary, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
So far, I've received:
$170 check from a free green xbox offer (now closed)
Xbox, from another free xbox offer. (Anyfreegift)
ipod, from freeipods.com
$700 check, from freelaptops4you.
Only freeipods.com required referrals. The other grand worth of money/stuff didn't. I'm currently working on a deal for a laptop from another site.
Are some of the sites scams? Yeah. But some of them are legit, or close enough for you to get your stuff.
Re:Because it actually works... (Score:5, Interesting)
No junk mail at my house. No spam. Free iPods.
I'm not complaining.
Re:it's a scam (Score:5, Interesting)
Will it work for absolutely everyone?
-No
Will everyone who signs up get a free ipod?
-Probably not
Did I get a free ipod for less than an hours worth of work?
-Yup
Its not a scam. They make money AND give out "free" ipods.
Re:I did read the fine print a while ago. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Oh this old and boring (Score:1, Interesting)
If you've ever tried to cancel an AOL subscription, you've probably noticed that their employees are likely fired if they cancel a single subscription. AOL has been the target of numerous class-actions, and I don't think I'm the only one who's had this experience
Re:It works... (Score:2, Interesting)
The mechanism works the same as supermarket discount cards. All those club member savings come from somewhere. They come from me. I implicitly pay for part of other people's groceries just because I don't want to sell my identity. Just like pyramid schemes, eventually everyone else will have the card, and they'll have to artificially inflate prices to give the illusion of savings. Once it's said and done, all the legitimate savings stop happening because everyone has the card and there's no one left to exploit. I suppose you could argue that reading ads from the mail makes money for them, so I guess that might count as a legitimate source of savings on your card.
But either way, those who got in early saved the most since the savings die out eventually. Somewhere along the way we all will have managed to trick ourselves into selling our identity for savings we aren't even making anymore.
Re:Read this carefully (Score:2, Interesting)
Nothing is free
"There is no such thing as a free lunch, unless you are the lunch."Calculator for the value of your demographics info (Score:5, Interesting)
They suggest you "refer" agencies which collect information about you to this site so you are properly compensated.
The math behind this whole scheme (Score:2, Interesting)
I ended up posting my results here [bu.edu]. Quick summary: It's economically viable. I wish I had thought of this first.
Re:The math behind this whole scheme (Score:2, Interesting)
The *ONLY* people who benefit by convincing people it isnt a scam are the people getting the 'commisions' from the various things people have to signup for to qualify, and the people who have already signed into it and realize that they have wasted their time and some money if they dont get other people to sign up.
How to make it work (Score:1, Interesting)
If a group of 10 people or so got together and each chose an item they wanted (say I want a flatscreen, a friend wants an iPod, another wants a desktop pc, another wants a PS2), each of us could initiate an account and, with full participation of each of the other members of our "group", all of us would be able to receive one of the items that we wanted.
This only works if people have not yet signed up for the programs as Gratis tends to figure out if people make duplicate registrations.
So...anyone wanna jump on board?
Re:What's _really_ wrong with pyramid schemes? (Score:2, Interesting)
If everyone who wants to sign up is placed on the list, then there will be a point in time that there is no one else willing to sign up, therefore no one can be refered, and therefore no one at the bottom of the list gets anything (but spam). Why do you think your last 8-9 posts that have been praising their offers haven't inticed anyone? It's because if they were actually intrested in it, they would have clicked on one of the last 10 emails they got with the same offer. I've even seen people give an additional bonus, such as a gmail invite, to people who sign up. There's no one really willing to do just for the free(insertitem) anymore.
Besides, some people actually value their personal information over a free(insertitem).
By the way, the free(insertitem) offers are not pyramid schemes. They are matrix scheme [wikipedia.org] varients. However, it doesn't make them any more reliable.
Re:It's not that it's not legit (Score:3, Interesting)
As a result, turnover rates are very high for the sector. There's no real reason to train the TMs then, so basically, you wind up with a bunch of overpaid High School kids who can best do their jobs by being given a huge list of viable numbers and a few scripts, and then you let them loose on the world.
In this situation, there's no incentive to train the workers or to purge the lists (although, we do proactively purge the phone lists to some extent anyway) because you have a cost center masquerading as a profit center. Since the point of the TM calls is not so much to get you to buy anything then and there as it is to spread brand recognition, it's most cost effective to just carpet bomb the numbers you have and be done with it.
That said, all you have to do is say not to call that number again and not to sell your information, and any legitimate group will wipe you from their personal lists anyway. Barring mistakes or people with multiple phone numbers, we don't call anyone or sell anyone's number who asks us not to, whether we're obliged to listen to them or not. I actually had a heavy hand in the programming that allowed us to automate our number removal process, and even though we quote "up to 30 days" for a number removal, it's done in 1 business day now thanks to the system I built for the process. That's more than most groups have, but any legit group will remove you within a month when you ask them to stop calling.
Yes, these deals are legit...if you spend time (Score:2, Interesting)
I signed up for the Gratis freeipods.com site a few months back, and successfully recieved my iPod. Visit my site below if you want pics, no direct links because my server will die. I have also done several other free items, including a free iRiver, $275 cash, a PS2 and a Harmony 688 remote worth $150-$200. I'm currently working on a photo ipod (see my sig to help me) and only need two more people.
So yes, these sites work. What's the catch? Time. It takes a decent amount of time to get started on these deals. Most people I ask to help me tell me it is a scam, but they're dead wrong. It's not a scam for any one person in particular. The companies I have dealt with (PrizeCube.com, Offercentric, and Gratis) are 100% legit. But they do make money off me, and I have no problem with that.
I would like to say, however, that these three companies have not (to the best of my knowledge) sold my email or personal information. I have not gotten any spam in my inbox, nor have I gotten any increase in junk mail at my home address. The email account I used for all of the sites is a brand new Gmail account, and I only get one or two spam each week there. I have another Gmail account used for online purchases, subscription sites, and random other online crap...it gets about 20 spam every day. Thankfully, Gmail has a really good spam filter, and only 1 or 2 get through the filter at all. Also, I would like to say that there are some worthwhile deals on the sites worth trying. I signed up for Audible.com and Blockbuster online, both of which I still use. They are great sites, and great offers if you ask me. On the other hand, I cancelled a lot of deals that were not for me, but I gave them a shot. That's one important rule you should be ready to follow if you try these deals: Try the offer, and don't cancel the next day. They check, and will disqualify you if they suspect you are trying to cheat the system. It's their right...it's in the TOS.
When I started out on these deals, I spent about 30 minutes each night posting on random groups and forums advertising my links. That went pretty much nowhere, but it did get me my free iPod from Gratis after about 3 weeks (so about 10-15 hours total). So the return on my time was pretty low in most of your eyes...it is less than I make per hour at work, but it was more or less in the process of reading forums I would have read anyway (like here at Slashdot) because I had the links in my sigs.
The "profit" started coming in once I started working on some of the other deals. I was getting hits at my web site by then, because it was also in my sig. I whipped up a web page, and pretty soon I was well on my way to some more stuff. I'd say another 5-10 hours and I had my free iRiver and my free PS2. Since then, I try to never advertise in any way other than my sig on a forum site, or on my personal web site. Rarely do I draw attention to my links, and no one has to read my site, but once they are there they will more or less be reading about my free deals.
So now, there is little to no work on my part. I spend 5 minutes each day checking my email for people contacting me about the deals, and I spend 5 more minutes posting on my website updating my deals and whatnot. So now, I can honestly say that the ~$1500 worth or stuff I have gotten is well worth the 30 or so hours I have spent on it. It's nothing to write home about I guess, but I have never felt obligated to work on it. It's just something I do every day or two at this point, and I enjoy it.
So would I recommend signing up for a site or two? Yeah, if you want to spend some time on it. But you'll start to break even on the time/money tradeoff if you do more sites. If you try only one, it may or may not be worth your time. It would be faster for some people to go get a part time job at Best Buy and use the employee discount to just buy an iPod. These deals are not for everyone
Re:Question (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:it's a scam (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, I signed up for freeipods with my gmail address. The only spam I get is dictionary-type attacks, and i hardly think those would be necessary if my addy had supposedly been sold by Gratis. If you sign up for an offer and THAT company sells your info, that's your own lookout. Gratis does not, as best I can tell.
Something is fishy about all the happy customers . (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the day, before I went on to better, more mature things, I ran some porn sites. To get traffic, I sent about 100 spams every day by hand to usenet groups using AOL. The spams said they were giving a pirated login/password to a porn site link that was included.
Of course, the web-form that opened was bogus, people could have typed in anything and gotten to the porn. But, thinking it was a stolen password, people jumped on it. I was making 3000 or so a month at the peak, all from the same 100 or so daily usenet spams. For some reason, (maybe guilt?) people who used the "free" password were much much more likely to click on the legit banners in my site.
Eventuanlly, after the the banner affiliate programs got complaints from the usenet police (a singularly dedicated band of activists that have way too much time on their hands) about me, I stopped getting paid. Sluggish AOL even noticed their complaints, and my accounts kept getting turned off. By then I was making much more money at a real job, but the experience a very valuable look at the dark side of net and human psychology.
It would be really interesting to look at how many of these slashdotters posting about how they got a "free iPod" somehow all set-up their accounts in the last couple of hours or so ... Also, those folks with sigs linking to the iPod offer will also have realized the potential this story offers.
Re:Read with no registration (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't have to give them info. Put garbage in the blanks, then sit down and shut up. I'm tired of you self-righteous loud-mouths with your campaign against NYT. And for what? No more registration screen that NYT has every right to request for providing all that content? Why don't you guys go do something useful and rattle your pitchforks against Microsoft's registration program for XP instead of bitching about something that barely registers as an inconvenience?
(p.s. Don't take my harsh words too personally, that rant's been building up for quite a while now.)
Re:Yes, these deals are legit...if you spend time (Score:3, Interesting)
So what did I get? $800 worth of free electronics for about an hour of work and so did 3 of my friends.
No freebie for you (Score:3, Interesting)
There's even one "thing" that is trading gmail accounts for signing up under his referral id. Sad.
Please, everyone, stop pushing pseudo-free crap. And telling people to sign up and cancel right away to avoid credit card charges is fraud.
Re:Read this carefully -- think again (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're thinking of duplication costs; they're low, but certainly not zero. However, until somebody puts forth effort into producing an original work, there's nothing to duplicate.
That takes us back to production: somebody had to pay for the engineering time and resources. Skilled engineering labor is expensive and most decent software projects require teams of people writing the software, docs, distro scripts and doing the QA. Even if this work is done "after hours" the worker could be working at a job that paid or be doing some other activity.
There really are ways to earn free IPODs (Score:2, Interesting)
Things other than ipods (Score:3, Interesting)
Since there is a mathematical formula for how long it takes for the pyramid to collapse, this cycle would then begin anew for each new item offered correct? So if people keep getting in at the top of each new item offered, they'll still be good right?
Also, can anybody vouch for the legitimacy of those other things, particularly the plasma and laptop offers?
Re:Read this carefully (Score:2, Interesting)
Too bad you don't get it .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Software is not "Free" as in beer - when people do publish software Freely , they are doing charity. FOSS software can be sold (RMS sold emacs for 150 USD per copy !!!). But what FOSS tries to seperate is the Cost of Development from Profit per Sale.
I have been (wioll haven been) paid to do some features on the OSS I work on - because somebody really needed it. That's because I created some wealth with my effort (in a wholly capitalistic point of view). And Everyone else gets the stuff for free and in short - Everybody wins.Re:Read this carefully-Failed reality. (Score:1, Interesting)
The market sets a value on that which is scarce - i.e. what a person cannot have if someone else has it. "Intellectual property" has a value only because governments are letting people and companies buy and sell the right to restrict what people say and do.
This is unconscionable. I don't care how much people earn by doing it, it's still wrong. Restricting people's rights to life and liberty held up the American South's cotton economy until the mid-1800s. Restricting people's right to free speech and movement held up the Soviet Russian economy.
I don't care how much "time and effort" somebody puts in to get the right to muzzle me. I still won't be muzzled. Anyone who thinks gagging the public is "fair compensation" for a creative act doesn't deserve to have free speech.
Another disatisfied customer. (Score:1, Interesting)
A site like these? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Read this carefully (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:OSS (non tangible goods) is only free (Score:2, Interesting)
Whereas closed source never has any bugs and always does exactly what you want?
FoeBud Privacy-Card (Score:3, Interesting)
The clue is that these cards are tranferable. So FoeBud [foebud.org] got a card, made "Privacy-Cards" with the same barcode, and offered them to people interested in consumer privacy. Several thousand euro were collected, but PayBack wouldn't pay out.
So the whole thing went before a court. The court apparently decided that FoeBud could tell their barcode number to others, but were not allowed to print it out.
Re:Because most people WON'T get an iPod (Score:3, Interesting)
The people at the top will be driving ferrari's, though. I was hired once to write some software to handle one of these schemes (even today a lot of them are paper based) and I got to see the figures for the top 3 layers (mostly the friends/relatives of the guy who set the scheme up). Lets just say I wouldn't mind getting that much every year, let alone every month!
In this country they banned pyramid schemes, so they renamed themselves to 'multi-level-marketing' schemes to avoid the law (there are some subleties in the way they work too). Same thing though.
Re:Read this carefully (Score:1, Interesting)