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Don't Click Here For A Free iPod

Posted by timothy on from the scam-by-any-other-name dept.

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."

7 of 594 comments (clear)

  1. Because it actually works... by eMartin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I know several people who got free iPods by signing up for the offers involved and then cancelling. If they paid anything at all, it was certainly a lot less than the cost of the iPod.

    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.

    1. Re:Because it actually works... by zoloto · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It does work. You fill out offers from three companies and wait. In my case, two visa's and AOL. Once the iPod came AOL was cancelled (under the no billing time) and the visa's were cancelled. I used a P.O. Box from a company that would accept packages from ups and fedex (MBE). After I had gotten two iPods, the MBE account, AOL, temp hotmail address and Visa cards were cancelled.

      No junk mail at my house. No spam. Free iPods.

      I'm not complaining.

  2. Best way to get a free iPod... by MinutiaeMan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...is to get hired to work in one of Apple's retail stores! All permanent (i.e. not seasonal) employees get their very own iPod for "business" uses -- ostensibly, this is to help familiarize the Mac Specialists with the product, and also to give you a "reference" to look up data (stored as notes in the iPod). But you're completely free to store your own music on there and use it for your own purposes, too.

    (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...)

  3. Your milage may vary, but... by Kufat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Disclaimer: No links to sites will be given, so people don't think I'm spamming referrals. I don't plan to do any referral-based offers in the future anyway. Additionally, I'm not affiliated with any of these sites.

    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.

  4. Re:it's a scam by smashr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I am currently listening to the iPod mini i got from the freeipods site. I signed up in late july for one of the AOL offers. The link spent a couple weeks in my AIM profile and I had the five referrals by early august. My order was confirmed on Aug 11 and I had it in my hand by mid October (due to the ipod mini shortages). I canceled the AOL for broadband in a 5min phone call. To date I have not recieved any phone or snail mail spam directly related, and it was a throwaway email address.

    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.

  5. Calculator for the value of your demographics info by rufusdufus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here is a site I found that has a calculator that suggest how much the bits of information about you are "worth".
    They suggest you "refer" agencies which collect information about you to this site so you are properly compensated.

  6. Something is fishy about all the happy customers . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There seem to be lot of suspiciously satisfied customers just jumping out of the woodwork about how happy they are they got their iPod. Funny, how I didn't see any postings from unhappy folks.

    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.