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Inside the Free iPod Offer
jonathanhowell writes "David Lazarus, The SF Chronicle's tech guy, has an article in today's paper with an interesting investigation into the work you have to do to get a "free" (as in beer) iPod. I'm trying not to call it a scam, because it appears completely legal, if ethically challenged." From the article: "What it doesn't say is that the offer terms will expose you to reams of spam and marketing solicitations, that the user survey is actually a lengthy marketing ploy, and that the sponsor offers needed to qualify for that free music player will almost certainly cost you money."
Well duh....
Duh, anybody thinking anything is "free" today doesn't value their time, other people's time, or their sanity.
I just drop mine on the ground, and have my employer buy me a new one.
http://www.firstcallpaintball.com/
As anyone who's read Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress knows, the Loonies were schooled in survival, not proper English. "From the TINSTAAFL Dept" may be more proper, but the definition (according to the usual source) is "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". Sure, it's a double negative and ain't ain't a word. But I don't think you'll ever hear a Loonie say "There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, by Jove" on their way to High Tea.
Or perhaps the editors left it that way so that us whiners would have something to bi^Wcomplain about.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
I'm glad I won't have to worry about falling for those stupid "Free iPod" scams. As soon as my Nigerian friend returns my savings "fiffty fould" I can buy as many iPods as I want!
Cool, eh?
people offering free expensive things are usually lying!
Isn't this a logical thing to think?
What, did you think some guy started a website to give out iPods to become cool or something?
Geeze, slashdot.. get a grip
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
Join my Folding@HOME Google Toolbar team
And I dissected the bastards' EULA at length.
Read, if you're interested.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
TiVo has a TiVo rewards program. Sign up for a credit card and you get points with your purchases that you can use to get an iPod. If you pay the thing off every month, your iPod is free.
Besides the iPod, they also have Bose noise cancelling headphones, a Nikon digital camera, a couple types of new TiVo units, and some other lesser things.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
For an uninformed or disconected soul, the "chance" for a free iPod is well worth selling out your vital statistics. I'm always amazed at how easy it is to convice someone to sign on the dotted line, and it's offten only for a T-Shirt.
This organization simply raized the reward, and thereby made the hoops you must jump through more elaborate.
Plain and simple. Same with all the other Free deals.
Whether you consider the Pyramid Scheme a scam, is up to you.
It sounded so legitimate.
Oh well. Even if I don't get a free iPod at least I 'm still getting my free flat screen monitor and my free digital camera.
yo.
from the TINSTAAFL dept.
It's TANSTAAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. At least according to Heinlein.
Don't bother to mod this as redundant. It is. What I'm wondering is who wouldn't think that there'd be a catch to getting a free $300+ gadget?
I don't respond to AC's.
iPod Shuffle: $99
iPod Photo: $349
wasting your time, money, and creating a new e-mail address because you got r00ked by a net dot scam: PRICELESS
"For everything else, there's legitimate commerce."
-- often wrong; never in doubt
1. I used a throwaway email account.
2. I signed up for free AOL for broadband.
3. I put links on my personal website.
3. I cancelled AOL for broadband 2 weeks later.
4. I waited about 6 months.
5. They sent me an iPod.
6. A week later they sent me a t-shirt as well.
For every story like mine, there are a bucket of people that never got enough referrers. I think I got in early enough so that it was still a novelty.
Best Windows Freeware
I've been thinking about participating in one of those Nigerian money schemes can you tell me how they work?
If everyone says, "Damn I should have waited" then the market never materializes, the profit incentive never kicks in, and competition never makes any decent products.
:)
IE, the world decides the Creative Nomad is good enough, the iPod tanks, and no "equally good products" are ever produced.
So I thank you for your sacrifice
GPL Deconstructed
As others have said, nothing is free.
Beyond that, is the deluge of spam and junk mail that you'll get worth saving a couple of hundred bucks? If you believe the studies that outline how much productivity (and thus time) is lost due to spam, it seems to me that you'll making a bad choice.
On the other hand, I'm probably not their target market anyhow. Enjoy the spam, folks - just don't bitch at me when you get it!
Are you sure about that, chief? Because I think it might be free (as in speech).
Why do so many Slashdotters insist on adding the "as in beer" or "as in speech" qualifier when it's patently obvious which type of "free" is being discussed? Oh yeah, because a lot of those people think they're really clever. In the words of Tyler Durden, how's that workin' out for 'ya?
Personally, I'm a big fan of free (as in beer) speech.
I don't know if the iPod's competition would be qualified as equally good. Most have a couple of good features but none come close to the experience that has been called iPod.
Whatever. You get a free iPod. And you can always use an email ID created just for this. (yeah, you'll get spam in your house and phone, tough luck). And you have spend a few bucks and see a couple of ads to get a free iPod which cost a lot more than what you spent. Big deal. I wish I had something like this in my country.
From the SlashDot article:
I'm trying not to call it a scam, because it appears completely legal, if ethically challenged.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a person has to buy something, even from another company, to get a "free iPod", then advertising the iPod as "free" is false advertising, no? That makes me not so sure about that "completely legal" part.
I know seeing my sigfile makes this post look like irony, but it's on topic, and I'm posting cause I think this program is exactly as descibed in the article. Having said that, anyone who thinks their personal information *isn't* being passed around for $ right now by different 'marketing' companies is naive. Yes, if you sign up you get spam, but guess what? If you don't signup you get spam! Yes, it's a fact of life now, and is why we're all hopping from free email to free email; after time they become unuseable. Time will tell if Gmail will suffer the same fate, but spam prompted me to learn how to build a LAMP and have my own mailserver with spamassasin at home.
End of my story is; I have many friends who have gotten their free ipod. I don't look down upon them, they made an informed choice, something I'm making sure all ppl that sign up through me do. If you don't like it, fine, but again, I see no harm, as all of this crap is going on in the background anyway.
Sincerely
bo
bad_outlook
--
Is this vague enough for you?
please mod this STORY down as "this is not news - just plain obvious"
Use a disposable e-mail address just long enough to qualify. So many ISP packages these days include 6 free e-mail addresses. That could be 6 iPods right there.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It depends on when you retire. Current retirees love them. Those that are 30-40 will surely consider them a scam when they try to get their Social Security.
Free Ipod here!
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
Is your point that Loonies are as likely to speak proper English as they are to participate in High Tea?
From where I sit, any tea on the moon would be high tea.
It's amazing that when *Sony* does something completely stupid, and releases a player that requires DRM, everyone assumes that *Apple* must be doing the same thing.
At least, that's all I could think of, since anyone with actual information would know that the iPod has always had native support for MP3 and AAC, which are both industry-standard formats with no DRM.
I know how hard it is to get away from the spammers once they get a hold of you. However, this group is at least legit.
antipaucity
Now when you say "patently" obvious, do you mean as in Intellectual Property or Leather Shoes?
--
So, does anyone want a free ipod? Just go the my site, click the link and... oops - nevermind.
Note that this article is not about the Gratis Networks freeipod offer, which was the first and most well-known, but about one of their more sleazy imitators. Here's another article that compares and contrasts a sleazy imitator to the original Gratis Networks.
Gratis Networks just requires you to do one single promotional offer--and get several of your friends to do the same. Unlike the fraudulent con game that most people are referring to when they say "pyramid scheme" (you know, the "send five bucks to everyone on this list and then add your name" type thing) no money changes hands between you, Gratis, or your referrals; the money is paid from the advertisers to Gratis. Click the link in my signature to find more info. It's legit. Granted, you're going to receive a lot of spam to the address you sign up for with, but that's what easily-available GMail addresses or disposable email address services like SpamGourmet are for.
Oh, and FYI, I received my free 20 gig iPod several months ago, and just got my free 27" Sony flatscreen TV last night. And I only need six more completed referrals to get my free Mac Mini...
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
The doctors wrote software that integrates the ipod.. And had their employers buy them ipods..
Pure Geuinus..
article 1
article news.com.com
I'm waiting for my chance at a free iMod. Something that will let me mod Slashdot posts up or down in a trendy, mobile package.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I participated in some offers from Gratis Internet, and it did work.
I got my free iPod
I got my free mac mini
They lived up to their reputation. You can see my blog posts on getting a free iPod here. I did my best to cover every step... including the waiting.
What I found is you typically will wait about 3-5 weeks after you complete the requirements, until something ships.
But they do ship... and I have yet to pay a penny to complete an offer (there are typically 1 or 2 completely free ones).
I'm currently looking at getting a Sony PSP, so if you want to help make my bounty 3: Here's the link.
n/t
Just to set the record straight, David Lazarus isn't the Chron's "tech guy"... He's their anti-business guy. Made a name for himself exposing big businesses' efforts to screw the common person and scam artists' efforts to screw the incurably stupid.
I would not work for them any more than i would work for a traveling carnival, but keep in mind that shady != incompetent.
Sometimes seventeen/Syllables aren't enough to/Express a complete
Disclaimer: I haven not tried hard nor received
my free ipod...
But...
Several friends of mine have... Some have even gotten free flat panel monitors,
and even a free Dell Dimension 4000 system... Apparently, it helps to have
a popular website to promote it...
But the truth of the matter is that SOME of these free offers do exist... Wired
has published stories with mixed results...
Also, since signing up, I haven't noticed *any* increase in snail mail spam... I
did not give out my real phone number, and no credit card is necessary. My
throwaway gmail account has only 8 messages in it (and only 2 may be related...)
so who knows... I am a believer for the time being....
and i suppose you'll also be saying those penis pills are a scam too...
Time does not = MONEY!
You can turn time into money, but you cannot get time for money. Hence time cannot be money. If you were going to sit watching porn for an hour and instead use the time to get a free ipod you just "made money". You used time to do it, but it didn't become money. You're work became money and you worked within that time.
So lets change it to Time + Effort = money k?
I like muppets.
As bad as this industry may be, the companies involved are doing very well. Gratis Networks, Netblue(yfdirect/yourfreedvds.com), and theuseful.com are all growing business with millions in revenue each month. With all the available money and the fact that a sucker is born every minute, these type of free offers are not going away anytime soon. What I fail to understand is how companies like netflix, ebay, and credit cards continue to pay for lousy inctivized customers.
It's because saying "free as in XYZ" demonstrates what an excellent understanding the poster has of open-source licenses. Shut up and be impressed. :P
The iPod connected to my firewire port that I got from Gratis laughs at you all.
Back when people thought online ads would make tons of money I signed up for a free pc (compaq presario). The catch was having ads on the bottom of my screen. I signed up, got the computer and about 4 months later they were bought out by another company (I think emachines) and they told me how to remove the ads from my computer. I still have it. My son uses it for learning games.
From the tech specs page, the iPod can play MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store, M4A, M4B, M4P), Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4) and WAV.
The majority of these formats are not encumbered. I really don't understand why so many people think the iPod can play only iTunes Music Store songs.
I signed up, put my referal link in a thread on Kevin Rose's website (http://kevinrose.com/), and got mine in about 3 weeks. Worked like a charm.
"The beast in me is caged by frail and fragile bars" - Johnny Cash
I clicked on one of their flash-based banners offering a free Xbox. The process was very similar to what was described in the article, but I only had to do one offer from each of three pages of offers. I signed up with a throwaway email account, signed up for AOL, Blockbuster's Netflix thing, and Video Professor. When I signed up, nothing was said about how long you had to stay signed up, just that you had to stay signed up until they received notice from the partner that you had. So after about a week, all three were confirmed that I had signed up, and I was free to cancel them.
AOL was easy enough, although they really try to hold on to you, almost getting abusive when you try to cancel. Now I get tons of CDs in the mail asking me to come back. The Blockbuster thing was actually nice, as I was able to use it to compliment my NetFlix for the 2 weeks I had it, getting a total of 6 movies in the mail, plus two coupons for in-store movies. Cancelling was painless and no billing whatsoever. Finally, Video Professor was interesting. I got a set of CDs of Access training. Opened them, looked at them, and called up to return them after it was confirmed. They tried to pressure me to keep subscribed, offered to let me keep these free instead of paying the $59.99 and then send me out another set of trial CDs. Eventually they relented and gave me the RMA number. I did have to actually pay to return these, as they were more than first class postage.
So I mailed in my "certificate" to IncentiveRewardCenter and a few weeks go by, no change in status on their website. Thinking it's a scam, and they just tossed it, I figured what the hell, I'll make sure they didn't. I re-sent in my redemption certificate, proof of delivery and signature required. Within a week, they had mailed me a check for $149.99. The check beat the postcard from Florida with the signature from TheUseful.com by a day also.
So in conclusion, I am happy with the way it turned out. For the investment of a bit of time documenting everything, postage of one set of CDs to Utah, and a registered letter to Florida, I got 6 DVDs from Blockbuster to copy and a check for $150, which helped pay some Christmas bills. The check was actually better than getting an Xbox, new or refurbed.
What it breaks down to is not the spam or the unsolicitated e-mail. Those can be avoided easily by temporary addresses and friend's -phone numbers However the problem comes when you actually are qualified for the IPod, you get the runaround. Then it becomes a matter of how much is your time worth. Sure you will get the ipod but I know with the time I spent cancelling orders, offers, talking on the phone, and e-mailing, I could have earned the money flipping burgers :) If you go to places like ripoffreport.com you will find similar testimonies.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Thats why I have .Mac for my email. So that I can have 4 other addresses that that funnel into one main address. Then when one gets spammed because I gave it out, I can just turn it off, and make up a new one. So this will come in handy when getting my free iPod.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
12345
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I like how he actually did comment that some programs like Gratis's aren't QUITE as shady. If you take your time to not rush into the it blindly it's not too hard to come out on top keeping in mind you're prepared to do a little bit of work, are careful, and also get in on the game relatively early (since it does play out like a Pyramid scheme in the end.) In the end I came out with a free Mac mini. It wasn't too hard to get the referrals needed at all, though it would get harder the more you try to do. In the end I just had to wait a month, not all that much longer than someone who'd ordered a Mac mini late from Apple. My spam inflow never increased and even then I never used my primary email account for this. It seems like as long as you're careful you really can benefit but in the end I don't see this form of "advertising" sticking around for much longer. You can see my full review of Gratis and getting a Mac mini here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/neoookami/323580. html
I've seen those consumer incentive places and they look pretty sleezy to me, but I DID get an ipod for free from freeipods.com. And it really was free.... with the possible exception of some junk mail to my house (easy enough to throw away) and some spam to an email account I don't use, and some telemarketing to a phone number that isn't really mine (When forced, I give out numbers that are a few digits off).
Seriously people I don't get the "They're going to spam me under" argument. Who doesn't have access to a 'spam account' now a days? If not, get a free one from google. As to the 'deals' they make you do, if you're careful you and your friends won't have to pay a dime. The key is be CAREFUL...
oh and avoid that consumer incentive one... but just looking at that site should be evidence enough
Now maybe all you iPod owner wannabe's can remove the "Get a free ipod" link from your signature lines? For that matter, why not remove the free mini mac offers while we're at it?
Get a conga line going and it's not a hassle.
It's not just the pyramid scheme operators spamming people who sign up. It's all the retards who spam slashdot and other forums day and night, injecting their worthless comments into every possible discussion, all so they can spam for the pyramid scheme they signed up for. Truly these people are a scourge on slashdot and on the internet. If they wish to sign up for this scam ("free" != $0) fine. In the unlikely occurence that they have friends they can even tell them in person for all I care. But stop spamming slashdot with your 'free' ipod sigs.
--
I spammed slashdot for my almost free ipod and you can too!!
I'm sorry to hear you got flamed.
Some script kiddies probably got jealous.
I think everyone knows that this is a piramid scheme, but it also works. You just "hack" the system with dummy email addresses, and get the iPod.
I myself found it easier to buy a shuffle, than have to nag on my friends, but I've never heard of anyone NOT getting an iPod after sucessfuly jumping through the hoops, while I did hear of people who got theirs.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I put banners and text all over my website, and i had about 90 referrals total. The 5 completed (2 were friends of mine, so really only 3 strangers completed)
got my ipod in september. I dont notice any phone/mail spam, but i do notice email spam.. luckily only at a special address i made for free* sites
i just got my 10th complete referral for freeminimacs on march 7.. i had like 200 people sign up in total.. should get my free mini mac soon.
If you do it, have lots of friends or a busy site.. and make a special email address just for it
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Um, we "smart" people know that if something is too good to be true, it probably is. But that doesn't make this guy's report any less valuable. It's good to know the enemy's techniques, even if you're too clever by half to fall for them.
Now I get to see an army of Slashdot comments with links to their free iPod pyramid schemes. Lovely!
"It's a pyramid schme, it's evil, it's annoying, and so on and so forth..."
:P
Just like Social Security.
I particularly like the "iPod for $10!" scams where you pay ten bucks and then advertise around and get more people to pay their ten bucks. Every "cycle" the guy at the front gets his new iPod!
what they don't tell you and lay out is that if you are #1500 on the list and the list cycles every 100 nwe signups is you are waiting for 150,000 people to sign up after you.. Good luck!
you see these asswipes on ebay all the time selling the "plan" and people are buying..
Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
By modding all these "Free XYZ!!!11" spammers down to -1!
Above comment aside, I have to say what a "great" scheme they have going on with these Free XYZ marketings. We have people plastering these links on blogs, sites like slashdot, forums, email, etc, and yet these companies like most that run on referral spam they will not do jack about it.
Plus they have a great thing going, all they have to do is give out a few of them, or start posting all these fake "I got mine!" type comments to get enough suckers to fall for it. Plus thanks to the internet, the friend of a blogger of a podcaster of a.... etc is even more "believable."
Heck, they can even post sites that you can get out of being billed for the crap you much sign people up. After having AOL not honoring our cancellation of our AOL account for 3-4 months a while back, I really doubt any of these offers don't have some clause or plan in place for cases like the "purchase & cancel" I see suggested.
There ain't such thing as a free iPod. Ever tried getting a free Disney ticket? It'll at least cost you a morning and expose you to trained time sharing salesmen.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
You mean like the iPod?
Be a man and pay for your own toys.
Free Ipod = Getting Spammed beyond belief, your personal information sold, your identity stolen, and Oh Yea, No Ipod, but mabye an Exciting new E-Pod? (pull the string and it plays a little tune)
Free Candy = Getting shoved into a van and touched in horrible ways
Free Lunch = Your about to be asked for something big (Money, Favor, etc), or given lousy news
Free Space Ship Ride = You are actually getting tricked into cutting off your own genitals, and then offing yourself as a comit goes by. Oh wait, mabye that one is legit?
Free Study Medical Care = You are about to grow a tail and vomit your spleen out
Free Software = You have just added your computer to the network of a million spam zombies
Free offer to "Serve Mankind" = IT'S A COOKBOOK!! IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!!
Like they say "if it sounds to good to be true... You are about to be eaten by aliens!"
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Look, since it is a pyramid scheme, some people don't get an ipod. Specifically, those who don't go out and get referrals. However, if you join a conga line early enough, like before it hits 40 people, you will actually get your ipod.It's not that hard. Use a disposable email address if oyu are worried about spam, and only get an offer that you would ahve wanted anyway. Not all of us have the kind of money to buy an ipod with cash, so this is a reasonable thing to do.
Wired has shown that this scheme is not disingenous.
Here is the link to the various offers if you want to them yourself.
Free ipods - the original offer from Gratis networks
MP3 players for free - I like this one as it gives you the option of cash, much better than an ipod in my opinion
Grab Free Gear - LCD's, gameboy's, lots of stuff
Here is smartcongalines -they have many various offers for everything from shuffles to playstations and xboxes or mini pc's. This is good for those who are not interested in actively getting referrals, just sign up, and wait. It may take some time, but sooner or later hyou will get ipod or whatever.
Check these out, and remember to read the small print and use your brain. If you are smart, you can benefit from this whole free ipod fad.
I signed up with my gmail account and have not received ONE single piece of spam. When you sign up you simply don't check the two check boxes about future offers etc. That was 2 months ago and still, no spam. The two people I got to do offers have seen zero spam as well.
And not to defend their business model but they are pretty upfront about the whole thing. They don't lie to you and try to trick you in any way. The offers you have to do many times comes from reputable vendors like Blockbuster etc. And yea they cost you money. Why would you get a free Ipod by doing an offer that cost's nothing? Many of the offers there cost only $1 for a month's Trial.
Now if I ever get to 5 referrals and they screw me I'll probably be the first to curse them out. I can't vouch for them as someone you should do business with. But I've seen several people do the offers and play by the rules and get a Free Ipod. Worst case I'm out by a $1 and a little time. Seems like a decent risk to take IMHO.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
i signed up for this "ploy" and have had no problems with it. I've known and come into contact with dozens of people who have also gone for the same scheme. Of the ones who completed the terms and offer, all of them have received their iPods/ Mac Minis/ monitor/ etc.. They haven't received any more spam than before signing up, and in the three months since I signed up, I haven't received anything extra either.
The offers are mostly a buy in, but some are free or easy to cancel. I signed up for the Blockbuster trial which assisted me in finding that it is a completely worthless service and that I should go with another provider for online rentals. So I guess the offer almost helped me out, even. Now if only I could have had help [;-)] from two more people to complete the same, I would be happily listening to my music on the road.
^W erases the *word* to the left (in this case =bi=), if he had used ^H he should've written bi^H^Hcomplain
freeipods was great in the beginning. You can sign up for free aol broadband, 2 week trial of blockbuster, etc. $0 was spent. There's no problem with spam because you should be creating a seperate email for this anyway. Junk snail mail? College kids sometimes change their address every year. Also getting a $400 ipod for free? So worth it if you're in college. That's like 1 months rent. Maybe full time workers find it time consuming and totally not worth it. But for the tight budgeted school kid...they'll do it as many times as they can.
the concept of freeipods is merely affiliate marketing rebranded, so that the end user does the promotion instead of the site having to.
By getting paid per lead they give the companies which you sign up to as "offers" the companies take the risk that the user will not cancel the trial, and therefore it will be profitable, while the company offering the ipods makes a profit from the leads while buying the ipods at wholesale prices
Business Voyeur
it interesting that is seems more of a ponzi scheme than a pyramid
Now, how about a Free iSun Fire E25K?
And was free. (Now its about $1 per person, plus a couple mins on the phone to cancel the offer.)
And as far as telemarketing, you used your real phone number??
proof: Mine with a photo the day it arrived. (It was $20, but only because the GF wanted to try the blockbuster dvd thing for an extra month. If I'd cancelled instead, it would have cost $0 and 20 minutes of my time doing forms - skip the marketing survey btw - and getting referrals.)
www.gotontheinter.net
Updated vaguely once a whenever, maybe once a whenever-and-a-half.
The point of free ipod is to offer you something that costs essentially only time, as opposed to mountains of cash. That, to the vast majority of people out there, is valuable. I've got a pal who paid people to sign up for the orders for him and collected his ipod for about $50 bucks. Saved a boatload of money.
Read jack phelps dot net
I lost count of how much money I'm due for clicking on the monkey.
Nevertheless, Gratis' Free*.com network is actually legitimate, regardless of whatever spam people receive. Who signs up for anything on the internet they never want to see again with their real email address anyway? Gmail invites aren't difficult to find, people.
I received an iPod from Gratis after three months, and promptly sold it on eBay because, by that time, I didn't want it. Considering it cost nothing to sign up, nothing to complete an offer, and nothing to get my link out (posted graciously by a webmaster on a popular site), I'd say it was worth it.
Maybe by strict definition it is a "pyramid scheme" if we dissociate it from its malicious connotations, because, by the time everyone in the world signs up, only 20% (or less) of the population will receive iPods. Nevertheless, since that isn't happening, no reason not to sign up if you can convince 5 apathetic friends to help you with little reward. But, the craze has past, and only new Gratis offers are likely to see a prompt return on your [no] cost investment.
its even easier to win an iPod in a competition now than it was to get a digital radio a year or so ago. and if you can't get an old-model of eBay, you can always wait for a hand-me-down when your brother thinks "that's it. i'm getting a Rio."
how can apple still be selling so many iPods after they've flooded the market to the extent that their value is collapsing?
i have an iRiver H120. both cheaper (and shipped with accessories) and much better (or at least geekier) - it can play ogg vorbis, has optical in and out, and can do direct encoding.
I typed a lame post on my blog about how you can enter almost anything into the field for the zip code. Use the web developer extenion for firefox to remove the form limit. The server still accepts it and will display what you input on the next page. Even HTML code.
I even made an image gallery with some examples (anyone recognise the heavily pixellated image).
I am aware this post is a lame plug for my site where I have done immature things with this. However it shows the front page is misleading the users into thinking they are exclusive.
If free iPods are a scam, looks like free iPod Shuffle are the real deal. For those living in Canada, TD Canada Trust (one of the largest banks in north america) is offering a free iPod shuffle when switching your primary chequing account to TD.
And unforunately looks like you cannot simply open a dummy account which you use several times and then close later. You have to use their EasySwitch program which automatically does the switch for you.
This seems to only be available to residents of Calgary, Ottawa, Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge.
A million monkeys and this is the best sig they could come up with...
I was sceptical at first, but I signed up for the Free Mac Mini from the gratis internet company (I think the others are a scam). I didn't do the iPod offer because I wanted a Mini more than an iPod.
Anyways, I got the 10 people required to sign up after a while, and they said the order is pending. I waited a while, but I realized the Minis were out of stock everywhere, so they probably can't get it from their supplier. Around the same day that Minis came back into stock a couple weeks ago, they said they shipped the Mini and I got it a couple days later! I am typing this on the Mini right now.
A looong time ago, I tried the "Green Laser Pointer" scheme, a protytype of this one (I think also run by Niu). That was about three years ago. I never got the green laser pointer, but my mail server still gets about 800 spams/day addressed to the pseudo I used.
Haha, you're such a cock. Really. Pat on the back, mate.
I got my free ipod this week. It took a while to get all of the completions I needed since I'm not willing to push any "cancel later" offers on my friends or family.
The email account I created for the iPod offer has stayed remarkably free of SPAM. My snail mail spam hasn't increased either. I still get 10 offers a week to re-finance my house. But, that was the normal background noise before I gave them my address. There's been no marketing that I could track back to the freeiPods offer.
I'm really enjoying the iPod. I would not have spent the money on it. But, now that I've got it, I really think it's worth the $250 (really, any other HD MP3 player would be for that matter).
And, if you are worried about the compatibility with linux, I haven't had the first problem. I use gtkpod. It emerges beautifully on Gentoo.
----------
perl -e 'print(pack("H*","646176652e7761676e657240676d616
I think this is yet another piece of evidence that demonstrates how evil Affiliate Marketing is - most all spam and these sorts of sleazy scams rely on affiliate programs to make their money - and it insulates the vendors from the [scam/spam]mers. AOL (or replica rolex) can't spam or scam themselves (because they'd be an easy target for lawsuits or can-spam enforcement), but through an affiliate program they can pay someone else to bring them customers - knowing full well (or not - but come on!) that spam/sleazy programs like this are the mechanisms being employed behind the scenes.
Something needs to be done, at the very least the media should come down hard on companies that use affiliate programs.
I've been seeing a lot of this lately: "Free (as in..."
Please, stop it. It was cute for a while, but it's annoying now. If you have to explain the word every time it's used, it's simply a bad choice of an adjective. It's been like 10 years since the creation of the term "Open Source" to tackle this problem. Also, the GPL has gained enough publicity that if FSF zealots object to the term "Open Source" they can simply say "GPL".
Mod this up if you agree with me. It's time to start making some waves.
I signed up with Ancestry.com when that was available, which was a free trial. I cancelled that after a week or so, so there were no charges.
I got 3 referrals from a gaming website's forums, and another 2 from my personal website.
Got my free iPod after about 6 or 7 weeks.
This was back in mid July, 2004, so I caught it relatively early.
Pics! http://suqur.shackspace.com/idontbelieve/
I'm sitting on a brand new beautiful ipod, and all thanks to gratis. Me and five friends even made some money on it.
As of a month ago, they had an offer for circuit city's rewards program or something like that. I honestly don't know what it was for sure, but they gave everyone who signed up for a $1 trial offer a $20 gift card. So here's how it worked:
1. Sign up for freeipods.com, make sure to UNCHECK all checkboxes regarding additional email.
2. Spend literally two minutes clicking no to all of their questions
3. Click on the link for circuit city, fill in legitmate information.
4. Tell a bunch of friends about it, and ONLY EXPLAIN TO THE ONES WHO ARE INTERESTED how they can get $19 at circuit city. (Note: I'm not ruining friendships this way)
5. Cancel the circuit city offer after the gift card comes.
6. Wait a month
7. I'm listening to music on my ipod, shall we say, "profit"
I made money, (at circuit city), so did my friends, and now I have a free ipod. I NEVER spammed my referral link, it was only word of mouth. Things like this can be a problem, but only for those of us without scruples.
FWIW, I've got very little spam, and I really didn't give away much personal info.
YMMV.
Well since this is fairly on-topic, anyone want to sign up for a Free Flat Screen under my account?
**ducks head**
LA LA LA... Not listening!
*grin*
You probably shouldn't click this.
Quick, name a non-DRM format the iPod does not play. Hmmm... oh! I know! It doesn't support FLAC, I think... though, you could convert that FLAC to an AIFF or WAV and you'd be in business, i guess...
Just curious, why do you think iPods play only DRM formats??? Only Sony would try to do something so crazy as make a player that doesn't support at least MP3... and even they would figure it out after the it failed to sell...
Rather than one of those complex schemes, why not just enter a free giveaway? We give away a free iPod Shuffle once per month to our newsletter subscribers. All you have to do is subscribe to our very low volume newseletter announcing our specials:
http://www.assortedinternet.com/specials/
Take care,
Brian
yeah i signed up when i first heard about it, and about a month later i got a cell phone in the mail from t-mobil, which i immediately sent back. then another month later i got a bill for $85 in the mail. i called...really pissed...and they cancelled my account...
Just send me you bank account info so that I can show you how it works.
n ull
Contact me at Barister_Michael_Jackson@i-am-a-lawyer-no-really.
Even if you were smart enough to use a free mail account, you still get the chance to be telespammed.
DNC list? Doesn't apply since you opted in to their services, and they usually have a nice clause allowing them to give the number to others.
Be prepared to be bombarded with phone calls. Don't think that caller ID will save you, even charities/surveys that have been bombarding us don't list a name or number. So while you can just ignore them, look forward to having your phone ringing a lot.
Citibank has one that has 5% on gas & groceries, 1% on everything (and possibly a 2% range, but I forget).
The catch is a $300/year cap, which means only the first $6k of gas/grocery, about $500/month, gets it. This is pretty close to what we spend on that, so my wife & I both took one. Easier than using the one card for just gas & grocery, and the capital one for everything else. (And since most of that is wally-world, Discover is useless [only 1/4% there!])
hawk
From vendor chipset PDFs (emphasis added by me):
Real-time encoding of MP3 and ACELP.NET audio formats
Real-time decoding of MP3, WMA, AAC and ACELP.NET formats
Real-time decoding of JPEG and MJPEG formats
TV Out-CCIR 601/656 8-bit digital video output to external NTSC/PAL decoder
Support for up to four Enhanced IDE ...
Supports robust data encryption/decryption, including Microsoft(R) DRM technologies
--snip--
Whether or not Apple choses to ever support it in the layer 7(/8) is up to them. It's not a hardware limitation. The chipset itself is pretty robust.
You mean all I have to do is tell them I'm 12" by 2" and they give me a free iPod?! Cool.
I might drop a hint about all my ex's calling me "Rammstein" and see if they throw in a free iTMS voucher.
The problem is the english language, which has one word for two different things. We should just adopt the most common terms from other languages and use those
libre - free as in speech
gratis - free as in beer
http://notanumber.net/
Apparently moderators cannot adequately distinguish between unsolicited spam and a relevent article that happens to have a link to the free mac site.
Moderators - get a clue. I'm responding to the parent about his experiences how easy people will sell their details for a free t-shirt, and how what I went through w/ the mac mini really wasn't so bad at all.
I don't know why these moderators are so freaking anal today.
Aside from the bad spelling and grammar that inevitably arise in these idiotic threads, it always crackes me up that they insist "it's not a scam." Seriously, my dad taught me this at a young age, if they tell you it's not a scam, it probably is.
Anyone? Anyone?
Bueller? Bueller?
10100111001
First of all, the company profiled, Incentive Reward Center, is not the freeiPod company. They aren't even on the radar. Gratis Internet operates the most well known freeiPod site, while OfferCentric comes in second. Both are reputable companies that have good track records shipping products and providing customer service. Secondly, the author compains about spam. Both Gratis and Offercentric do not spam your email addresses. I have had over twenty people do referrals under me with these two corporations and have had no trouble. Finally, there is the issue of paying for offers. This is a total non starter because you know the terms of each offer before you choose to complete it! There are several free offers, including the easy eFax, which even allows cancellations within the 14 day trial to be done online. I can confirm eFax does not spam either. Is getting free stuff from these sites difficult? Yes. Is it feasible? Definately. Don't let this poorly researched article scare you away if you're dedicated.
I am employed by the subject of the article.
This is not a scam; we do ship out loads of free ipods and other goodies. You will have to sign up for offers. That's just how it works.
We're completely legit, and no one is holding a gun to your head to get you to sign up.
Sometimes people will qualify for their ipod, send in their certificate for redemption, and not see any change on the status page. This occurs due to the very large amount of requests. Hopefully, we'll get your ipod or whatever out to you much faster in the future, but don't worry - you WILL get your gift.
It was mentioned that our terms and conditions mention a check will be substituted in some cases. If that happens, the check will be equal to the retail value of the item.
Mr. Lazarus's article is laughable at best, slanderous and potentially damaging to a legal and legitimate enterprise at worst. These programs are obviously not for everyone - but for many, they get to check out a few services that they may or may not use (it introduces some people to the video rental by net/mail thing), and gets them a free ipod in the process.
I'm a pretty moral person and wouldn't work someplace that scammed people or didn't send out the gifts they were promised. Doing so would be wrong and very possibly have undesireable criminal consequences. To sum things up, great care is taken so that anyone who signs up, qualifies for a gift by completing the offers, and goes through the process *will* get a gift, period.
Posting AC for obvious reasons.
So when is this free-ipod shit gonna hit Europe ? :)
Allthough very sceptic about it all ; I -do- have 5 referrals allready lined up
These kinds of free stuff deals have been around forever. They used to be on the back cover of Boys Fun Adventure, offering free telescopes and the like.
/. demographic. They've grown up a bit.
The difference here is that they're offering something attractive to the
The real website is here . Don't visit any imposter site with "weird" characters in the URL.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
It works but it's more ponzi scheme than pyramid. Only the early ones in receive anything.
TINSTAAFL = There is no such thing as a free lunch. In this case, there is no such thing as a free iPod, as you have to not only sell your information to spammers, but also apply for offers for more services on the web as well.
I I present a new acronym:
TINSTAAFI = There is no such thing as a free iPod
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I'm laughing my ass off at the moderators on this one. Flamebait? My first post was about trying to clarify the difference between different free ipod schemes. Troll? My second post was addressing the AC's ridiculous claims that I'm some evil spammer from hell. These idiots post this drivel constantly on here trashing a system with blatant falsities, and get modded up, and I make a clear, concise summary of my experience with the service and get modded down with a vengeance. Slashdot moderation cracks me the fuck up sometimes. Now as the topic says, THIS post is offtopic and should be modded down as such. I've got karma to burn =)
I myself have done many of these offers. 3 of them from Gratis, the company responsible for Freeipods.com. So far, from that company alone I have gotten a 20GB iPod, a 40GB photo iPod, and a 1GB shuffle iPod.
I get absolutely NO spam from them in my inbox, and I know because I created a Gmail account just for this purpose. I have also gotten no increase in snail mail junk either.
The offers I did cost me a grand total of $6.95. Two of them were free, and one of them cost me $6.95 in shipping and handling. I'd say that isn't too shabby.
I get my referrals from random clicks on my sig here at slashdot, and in large part to my web site that I set up mostly for this purpose. It works well, and takes maybe 5-10 minutes of my day to post on my web site and try to get people to help me (and others) out with the deals.
If you want to try an offer out from this company, try the free PSP link in my sig. Same company. They're legit, it is easy, and it is free.
Just shut up, no one gives a fuck what you have to say. I'll even call the whaaambulance for you. But you're getting modded down for whining about your moderation like an idiot. The original moderation was probably for your mac mini links.
The Farewell Tour II
>> For an uninformed or disconected soul, the "chance" for a free iPod
>>is well worth selling out your vital statistics.
>You mean all I have to do is tell them I'm 12" by 2"
Obvious responses (take your pick):-
(1) Well, if you're 12" by 2", I'd hate to think how small your penis is.
(2) Unfortunately, that's 12" *thick* and 2" long. (Yeah, I know thickness is ultimately more important than length, but that's taking it a bit far).
People fail to realize that their time has value. The chump who got his $400 ipod in exchange for lots of pain with opening and closing accounts, shelling out some cash, arguing with vendors, using bunk email addresses so as not to drown beneath the deluge of spam, and so on, probably spent 40 hours overall. If you subtract the $75 from $400 and divide the remainder by 40, you end up with a cost per hour of about $8.13. I suppose that you could argue that taxes and such make the Ipod worth more, or the hours worth less, or something, but I would counter with the cost of the pain of having to deal with all of these issues.
Another way to look at it is to compare the cost of those hours against the cost of doing something else, from an overall well-being perspective. Perhaps instead of spending 40 hours fenagling a free Ipod from some shyster in Florida the chump would have a higher quality of life doing something he actually liked.
Maybe people just undervalue their time.
Maybe people just get obsessed with the idea of "free."
Adrian Goins - President / CEO
Arces Network, LLC
...hot on the heels of the Halo 2 game review. Seriously, this offer has been gone over countless times in countless publications since its inception LAST YEAR. TechTV, among others, have run stories on it. New York Times has done the same. MONTHS AGO. I'm looking forward to the "Should we go to war in Iraq?" and "mp3: the future of music?" articles in the near future.
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
The old addage holds true now just as much as it always has:
"You don't get owt for nowt".
If you think otherwise, you're either stupid or I'm missing something really obvious that could make me a lot of money.
I don't own an ipod or know much about it but:
.ogg?
"Quick, name a non-DRM format the iPod does not play."
Artists against online scams http://www.aa419.org/
and submit a dummy email address,
That's probably against their terms...
Is it right to steal from an annoying idiot to feed the poor? It seems pretty annoying at least. And stupid.
Hm...
Besides the iPod, they also have Bose noise cancelling headphones, a Nikon digital camera,...
I've always wondered what happens when one plays rap music through noise-cancelling headphones... does it get real quiet?
Post to this if you've suceeded via one of these systems. No point bragging, or giving methods, just reply with a 'yes, I won'.
Anything less than 1000 distinct replies, considering this sites readership, and, how low this'll be moderated, says it's a rip off.
[which it is]
But...I thought companies could make money by giving away free iPods, as long as they do it on the internets! I mean it seems like the profit margin might be small, but if you give enough away....
This guy gave only a brief mention to Gratis Internet and no mention at all to J&T Cooper (Coopbro) or Offercentric. The programs of these companies are pretty transparent and entirely reasonable. Lumping them in with the likes of Incentive Reward Center is linking Kiwanis with Hell's Angels.
Insert witty sig here.
But your sig is spam. If you haven't been modded down for it, you've been lucky.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
"What it doesn't say is that the offer terms will expose you to reams of spam and marketing solicitations, that the user survey is actually a lengthy marketing ploy"
Shocked! Shocked I am! Who would have thought that giving your contact info to shady online marketers would expose you to spam and (I'm about to puke) *marketing surveys*?! Thank God for courageous reporters like this who aren't afraid to "tell it like it is."
Too subtle?
No wonder why your family is poor. They should spend their free time learning instead of goofing off with "free offers". Some people throw their time in the trash as if it wasn't worth enough.
This is shamelessly copy/pasted directly from dictionary.com. Mind the history:
ain't Audio pronunciation of "ain't" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (nt)
Nonstandard
1. Contraction of am not.
2. Used also as a contraction for are not, is not, has not, and have not.
Usage Note: Ain't has a long history of controversy. It first appeared in 1778, evolving from an earlier an't, which arose almost a century earlier as a contraction of are not and am not. In fact, ain't arose at the tail end of an era that saw the introduction of a number of our most common contractions, including don't and won't. But while don't and won't eventually became accepted at all levels of speech and writing, ain't was to receive a barrage of criticism in the 19th century for having no set sequence of words from which it can be contracted and for being a "vulgarism," that is, a term used by the lower classes, although an't at least had been originally used by the upper classes as well. At the same time ain't's uses were multiplying to include has not, have not, and is not, by influence of forms like ha'n't and i'n't. It may be that these extended uses helped fuel the negative reaction. Whatever the case, criticism of ain't by usage commentators and teachers has not subsided, and the use of ain't is often regarded as a sign of ignorance. But despite all the attempts to ban it, ain't continues to enjoy extensive use in speech. Even educated and upper-class speakers see no substitute in folksy expressions such as Say it ain't so and You ain't seen nothin' yet. The stigmatization of ain't leaves us with no happy alternative for use in first-person questions. The widely used aren't I? though illogical, was found acceptable for use in speech by a majority of the Usage Panel in an earlier survey, but in writing there is no acceptable substitute for the stilted am I not?
Fuck off and die spammers!
You sell your soul to Satan inc, and various other corporate entities
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
You're really no worse than the people that put flyers under windshields of cars in parking lots, in the grand scheme of things. In other words, you're an annoying nuisance.
Make up all the rationalizations and justifications that you want. To me you're no better than someone pushing herbal life or amway, i.e., a tool.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Please guys, gals... Modify the lameness filter so the signatures having sort of referrer in the URL doesn't pass.
I don't care if its scam or real. They give us no choice than disabling legit signatures displayed.
This thing goes bigger each day. Stop before it becomes crisis.
Halleluja! I could make money with this goverment mandated "it's free!" thing!
Do they have this wonderfull system in Iraq(==eyerak) too?
If he is a real music lover, and that poor, he could sell the iPOD and buy a cheaper MP3-player and some records...
Naturally they have to pay for the lunch in turn, so the problem of scarcity hasn't gone away, but even there we need to realise what nature has provided for free. All kinds of intellectual property are non-rival, or even anti-rival. TINSTAAFL is easy to quote, but there is little that could be more misleading. Consider children: you may be investing in your genes, but you are not investing in yourself, to be sure! TINSTAAFL is the mantra of mindless meanness IMO.
Wikileaks, no DNS
jimbo jones, independent inventor working out of his caravan deep in the American Ozarks has developed a method of atomating the 4X 'experience' software that we've seen advertised so heavily.
basically he has trained one of his piano playing chickens to peck at the red and green lights as appropriate for initiating his margin trades. jimbo has mortgaged said caravan and 500 sq ft 'ranch' and expects to be putting in a bid on neverland any day now...
nt
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori
".ogg?"
Now name one used by anyone that ever leaves the house...
No, those people still actively invade a space somewhat considered "yours". You came to slashdot, I didn't go to your space.
My sig is more like someone advertising something on a community bulletin board or kiosk.
you're correct, but not accurate. his problem is a typo -- he's got the right inputs and the right outputs (for the context) but is misreporting the equation. to fix it, s/*/+/g ...
... + r^n
we know this because of what he's counting -- the number of people involved in the pyramid. the actual equation is the sum of powers of r from 0 to n, where r is the number of referrals needed to obtain your freebie and n is the depth of the pyramid. thus:
r^0 + r^1 + r^2 + r^3 +
in the grandparent's example, r=5, n=3, and the equation collapses to:
1 + 5 + 5^2 + 5^3 = 156
intuitively, it makes sense that a pyramid with three levels of 5 referrers would involve ~150 people, not ~15000 people, so the grandparent's result does pass the smell test. (good job catching the typo though.)
I don't see how anyone really gets screwed.
I tried to get into it and completed a free offer and the same free offer under myself. I tried to get others to sign up with links on my blog, but no spamming and I didn't send them to ppl I knew.
I never got it, but I did get some spam. Good thing is, I signed up with gMail accounts and that spam never hit my inbox once. Likewise, I imagine that I've improved their, and others spam filters because of this.
Still, I never got the iPod, but never lost anything. I suspect anyone using a web based e-mail service from Hotmail to Yahoo! would also be pretty safe.
It's a long shot, but something for free is almost always worth trying for. There have been books written on typical sweepstakes because someone has to win (think Reader's Digest sweepstakes, not online Swiss lotteries) and if you enter correctly it could be you. There is nothing wrong with reading the rules and trying to stick within them to get what is promised.
These are great promotions for housewives and others who have the time on their hands. Some people just love a bargin.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Really, Would someone who has done this answer? Preferably someone who used freeipod
1) what's the cheapest offer?
2) do you have to answer any of the spam you get?
can you actually open a trash account with hotmail or somesuch?
3) Can 6 people be each others five friends? (can you be a friend to someone who is being a friend to you?) (boy ain't that doublespeak!)
At least the Gratis sites say they don't want you posting your links on places they aren't welcome. But as far as I'm concerned you can keep your sig if you stop posting comments.
The Farewell Tour II
No, those people still actively invade a space somewhat considered "yours". You came to slashdot, I didn't go to your space.
I see you're determined to justify your nuisance, by saying "I'm not as annoying at the flyer people, because I'm not touching anyone's car."
I could counter with a further example of the "make money at home with your computer" signs that pollute every available square inch of public vertical surface and telephone pole where I live, but I won't, as you'll just come up with another minor difference to prove how you're not a nuisance and perfectly innocent.
The point is, you are polluting the commons. Maybe not to the same degree as blog spammers, but you're practically there. You're like the suburban brats that come into San Francisco and bum change on Haight, only worse, because you should know better.
I'm really surprised that you don't realize this. I wonder if you actually know what "the commons" is. Read this, so you'll know what I'm talking about.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
"Some people throw their time in the trash as if it wasn't worth enough." ...says a guy who reads slashdot.
You are a customer whore. And a scammer. I can have no respect for a person, who tries to cheat someone (even if it's a corporation) out of money or iPods.
If you want to get money, sell a product for a honest price. If you want to get a product, pay for it. Everything else is just pathetic.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
I take .oggs with me when I leave the house with my Neuros.
You're going to have to try harder.
Don't get me wrong, I really like the idea of Ogg Vorbis and, better, non-proprietary file formats in general... but... uh, well... these MP3 things seem to work pretty well and i can play them all over the place... at the risk of pissing off someone really emotionally committed to Ogg Vorbis...
Isn't saying that a given audio device doesn't support .ogg a pretty safe bet???
I know that pyramid schemes are evil. How do I know? They were the villain on the old Batman live-action show. Sadly, I can't remember the episode number just now...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
sure it is, and use mp3 myself for the reason that it's near universal.
I just replyed to the parent without judging the ipod device over not playing ogg vorbis files
Artists against online scams http://www.aa419.org/