Slashdot Mirror
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."
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!
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not to be a grammar Nazi (I probably can't even spell grammar), but "ain't" is a word, it's just depracated in modern English due to frequeny misusage (such as in the TANSTAAFL acronym). "Ain't" (or an't) is a contraction for "am not", and thus the only proper usage of it would be in the form of "I ain't...". "Is not..." and "are not.." are misusages. But technically, I ain't making any major errors in this sentance.
(And for those actual grammar Nazis out there, yes, beginning a sentance with "but" or "and" is technically acceptable as well, so don't come bitching at me about that last sentance. Or anything else for that matter. This post is offered "as is" with no guarantee of grammar, spelling, or factual correctness. YMMV).
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
First I'd like to say that I'm a bit skeptical of the story. Mainly the last line:
"I ended up selling it on eBay," Culbert said happily. "I got $400 for it. "
Freeipods.com only has the $299 20GB iPods. When I sold mine on ebay I couldn't get more than 280$ out of it.
My Experiences:
FreeiPods is by far the easiest to do. So far I've reciveed 7 iPods. Yes, I know this is against their policy, deal. My first one took the longest. I was afraid I'd never get 5 people so I cheated my way up to 5. By then it was August. I hit campus like a madman. I flyered everywhere. I hit up the "For Sale" newsgroup for campus. The refferrals just poured in.
But only for the iPods. No one seemed interested in anything else. I got my 27" TV, but just barely. I'm stuck at 6 for my FreePC. Flyering for DVD and PVP has been about useless. No one cares. The lure of the iPod is, "Oo iPod." Some people were dumb enough to sign up with their @university.edu account. MOST of my completed offers were dumb jock types.
I haven't recieved ANY spam from Gratis. I own my own domain so every account for everything has its own e-mail address. My experience with offercentric offers has not been the same. I am constantly getting junk mail for each of the individual accounts. I know that it had to have been a sale of e-mail addresses, because some of the accounts I hadn't even completed an offer for yet. Some times I'll get 5 pieces of SPAM at the exact same time. One delivered to each of my Offer Centric e-mail addresses.
It works. The novelty is dying off. But there are still people that still haven't heard of it yet. It takes some creative marketing to get it done, if you think by signing up you'll instantly get 5, think again.
Whether you consider the Pyramid Scheme a scam, is up to you.
For me it is not up to me. I live in Belgium and the governement has made a law that makes Pyramid Sc(e)ams illegal
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
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
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.
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.
You should also write an essay about the amazing lowing profile of Slashdot users.
See all those lame iPod signatures with referrer? Thats what I talk about. Look when did they subscribe. Look if there is a single 5 digit guy/gal having that signature.
Yep, that's what I talk about.
From now on, I admit I will overrate all posts mentioning that lame free iPod. I don't think anything useful/insightful will come out from a guy/gal is so low to abuse signature system of slashdot for a free (!) thing in return.
I never abused slashdot for years and thats why I have excellent karma. That should give something back to me.
I don't have to view anything except Slashdot ads while using this site.