Free iPods and LCD's

[Ratt]

Yeah... WTF am I doing posting this on the SEQ site at all, much less in the news section.

That's a fine question, and one I'd be asking in your position as well. However - I've actually *seen* an iPod delivered from this. I was shocked and amazed when it arrived at my friends house.

Since then, there has also been a Wired article about it, and they've semi-investigated the legitimate nature of it. On top of that, I did a little research into the economics of it, and what I found was pretty crazy.

Basically, the sites that are part of the "offers" are giving huge sums of money in the form of kick backs for bringing in new potential customers. When I saw the figures and did the math on it, I was really dumbfounded. The guy that runs the free ipod site and the free flatscreen site is probably raking in several hundred thousand dollars a month right now. Yes - that's right, several hundred thousand at least. That's why they can afford to give away free iPods and Flatscreens for completing the referrals.

Anyway, that's not the point of my post. My point is, if you want a free iPod and/or a free Flat screen - then this is legit, at least for now. I've verified it myself. Now, it's possible that they are just sending out iPods and Flatscreens to the first few thousand that complete the offers - so maybe the well will dry up and it will turn into a huge scam. However, I've personally seen the iPod they send out, and it's definitely a real iPod. I haven't seen a flatscreen, but I've heard from reliable sources that they are also sent out just as described.

So that brings me to this news post. Yes, it's a shameless plug for my own referrals, I admit that - but it's also a legitimate chance at a free iPod and Flatscreen with a little bit of leg work - so I thought I'd throw it out there for the SEQ community, at least until the well drys up and the whole business is shut down.

So here are my links - use 'em as-is so I get the referral credit. I will remove my links once I get 5 and 8 people respectively to complete an offer.


They use to offer an Ebay signup as one of the "offers" - however that appears to have gone away. I reccomend using the Rhapsody one. However, you can use any one you want. They seem to add/change the offers fairly regularly, so maybe the Ebay one will show up again.

*EDIT*

Removed flatscreen link
Removed ipod link

*/EDIT*

[Choofer]

Bah i miss out its a USA offer only :(

Choof

[cavemanbob]

I wish I lived in the states, I'd love a chance at a free LCD, but oh well.

[Ratt]

I forgot to mention this:

If you do an offer, be sure to do everything in Internet Explorer... I did it in Firefox a couple times and it completely failed. The site is pretty IE-centric, sadly... but what can you do?

[pooz]

wtf is this pyramid scheme crap doing on SEQ's forums?

[someoneelse]

I filled this out, but only part way. Spam to the email address I used started in about 10 minutes. Fortunetly, I used a throw away account.

[uRit1u2CBBA=]

wtf is this pyramid scheme crap doing on SEQ's forums?

If it came from anyone besides Ratt, I'd be thinking the same as you.

But since he's an Admin, who am I to complain.

[Ratt]

wtf is this pyramid scheme crap doing on SEQ's forums?

Technically, it's not a pyramid scheme (nor a matrix scheme). Since it's actually legit, it's not a scheme at all.


I filled this out, but only part way. Spam to the email address I used started in about 10 minutes. Fortunetly, I used a throw away account.

I find that extremely hard to believe. Well, not the spam part, but it didn't come from the site in question. I've received no spam from them so far. They say they will "occasionally" send out offers and stuff - ie - they will ocassionally spam you... but neither myself, nor any of the people who's signed up that I've spoken to have reported receiving any mail, except the confirmation email, from the sites.



If it came from anyone besides Ratt, I'd be thinking the same as you.

But since he's an Admin, who am I to complain.

I debated on whether or not I should even bring it up... but as I said in the first post - the real clincher was the fact that I've actually seen an iPod delivered as a result of this. If I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes, I'd have never, ever believed it.

After seeing the iPod, I questioned how this was even financially feasible. Again, as I said, the kick backs these companies give for new customers is anywhere from $50 - $170 ... and a few of them give over $100 per NEW CUSTOMER.

Now do the math here. Worst case scenario, each new customer nets $50. For the iPod, a total of 6 people must sign up - that's $300 - the cost of a new iPod in bulk? Less than $200. That's $100 net profit. Now, not every customer will only produce $50, but some will produce more. Some will have MORE than 5 referrals. Everything after the first 4 people that sign up is PURE profit. On top of this fact, some of the companies offer a cut of the money the new customer spends as well - again pure profit.

That's a LOT of money to be made. How do you get hundreds or thousands of people to sign up on something that looks SO much like a scam? It would be nearly impossible... unless you offer something REALLY juicy and actually produce it. That's where the iPods and Flat screens come in. Who doesn't want a free $250 iPod or free $400 flat screen?

Could you run this as a semi-scam and make money? Yep - you could. However, you'd have only a fraction of the volume you'd get if you offered something of real value and actually delivered. So it appears that the trade off here is less pure profit per customer in return for pure profit in the form of volume. It's all a matter of scale.

Why the hell am I selling this? It's not my job to sell it, nor do I care if anyone signs up. But the reason I went ahead and posted it was the fact that you *can* actually get a free iPod and I'm going to assume a free Flat screen with some legwork. Yes, I know it sounds like a scam or "too good to be true." I *know* that. Believe me I do... but do a little research yourself and see how much these companies are giving to the freeipods.com people for each sign up and you'll see exactly what I saw - the freeipods.com people are coming out WAYYYYY ahead on this deal.

If I were smart, and had the time, I'd setup a similar site and rake in the bucks... but I have neither the time nor the impeteus to manage such a beast.

If you want outside verification of what I say (I'd think my credibility is pretty high, but hey...):

http://affiliates.ebay.com/how-affiliate-program-works/compensation/

<B>Look at the amounts they give for new customers</b>

That is just one example of the kick backs companies give for referring new customers. Now do the math and see why a free iPod for LCD is cost effective. Now multiply that by 2000 people per month.

[Choofer]

I'm on your side RATT i just want you to find one i can use in Australia :)


Choof

[quackrabbit]

I like their terms of service...
1. Receipt of Product

(a) FreeFlatScreens.com is a free service and does not guarantee receipt of any product regardless of offers completed or points accumulated.

(b) FreeFlatScreens.com will take measures to ensure that the user receives orders within a reasonable amount of time. However, FreeFlatScreens.com does not make any guarantee on delivery time or availability of product.


And you have to refer 8 friends who have to complete an offer before they will even ship you your not so guaranteed free flat screen.

Somone who gets a flatscreen, please let me know. =)

[Ratt]

Oddly enough, I just qualified for the flatscreen... so I will let ya'll know in 6 - 8 weeks if it's legit. I'll take some pics of the screen itself and the shipping box, etc and post 'em.

However, I still need 1 more person to complete an offer on the iPod link. There's a bunch of people that signed up, but only 4 people have completed offers. Talk about weird, I didn't think I'd get the flatscreen sign ups anytime soon, and certainly not before the iPod sign ups.

But anyway, when and if the Flatscreen arrives expect pics. Same goes for the iPod if I can get 1 more person. I think a lot of people tried using a browser other than IE to complete the offers, which doesn't seem to work 90% of the time. Sucks ass that you have to use IE.

(http://www.freeipods.com/default.aspx?referer=7615933)

[frotty]

This is a classic pyramid scheme, or MLM (Multi-level Marketing scheme). Draw out how the "affiliate program" works. One person ties into 5 people, each of those to 5 more. See the pyramid, yet? They claim it to be "viral marketing" but that isn't the case because you can never market laterally or upwards in the chain. You can't get credit for someone above you/next to you in the pyramid doing a *different* offer. And why not?

What's wrong with that, you may wonder, the companies are still profitting the same way, if it's the same user who's done a different deal or not, or a different user. The answer is obvious - the exponential decay of "available number of users" will stunt so slowly, the number of successful nodes will increase so sharply, that you can't help but be overwhelmed by having to feed everyone their iPods.

This entire pyramid scheme works on the premise that if you invite 5 friends, that's one less friend THEY have to invite - so the chance for success diminishes and the actual number of iPods that get sent out seems miniscule compared to the number of successful registrations into these companies.

So, in the early stages of any pyramid scheme, from small town christmas funds (which get busted) or "gifting clubs," everyone is quite the profiteer - "free ipods is real, i've seen someone get one!" But suddenly you find that your odds of success become slim to none, and you're basically taking part in a losing consentual consumerist circle-jerk.

[frotty]

So, in the early stages of any pyramid scheme, from small town christmas funds (which get busted) or "gifting clubs," everyone is quite the profiteer - "free ipods is real, i've seen someone get one!" But suddenly you find that your odds of success become slim to none, and you're basically taking part in a losing consentual consumerist circle-jerk.
Don't get me wrong - pyramid schemes are lucrative for anyone who gets in on them early enough that they can ascertain they can complete their portion of the chain. And just think, some $150~ after bulk ordering, shipping/handling sent to one person who is essentially responsible for every node underneath themselves that they're attached to is *peanuts.*

You don't have to rationalize it at a single cluster (parent + 5 children) level to see that it's massively profittable for the free ipod folks. The failure rate of any node, eventually, will far outweigh the success rate in the long run. So, yes, glancing at wired and seeing that freeipods'll have sent out ~$50,000,000 worth of ipods at some near juncture doesn't reveal the supporting economy that they'll generate failure nodes responsible for a massive amount of unreciprocated revenue.

[Ratt]

You don't have to rationalize it at a single cluster (parent + 5 children) level to see that it's massively profittable for the free ipod folks. The failure rate of any node, eventually, will far outweigh the success rate in the long run. So, yes, glancing at wired and seeing that freeipods'll have sent out ~$50,000,000 worth of ipods at some near juncture doesn't reveal the supporting economy that they'll generate failure nodes responsible for a massive amount of unreciprocated revenue.
I agree 100% - I think this is the key to why it's profitable to send out the iPods and Flatscreens... and why this isn't bogus or a get rich quick scheme. It will always be more lucrative to the operators of the site to actually deliver on their promises, because each iPod they deliver is worth less than the cost it took to get them to the point of having to ship the product. Especially in the case of "failed nodes" as you point out.

Couple the fact that you can only get one iPod per person (I know, you can cheat and use a different name/address/etc...) - and most people are going to have MORE than 5 referrals due to saturation, and even successful nodes are still profitable.

[someoneelse]

I find that extremely hard to believe. Well, not the spam part, but it didn't come from the site in question. I've received no spam from them so far. They say they will "occasionally" send out offers and stuff - ie - they will ocassionally spam you... but neither myself, nor any of the people who's signed up that I've spoken to have reported receiving any mail, except the confirmation email, from the sites.


You correct in that I only received one confirmation email from the host site. However, I am now receiving email to this account from a series of other sites. Sample subject lines include: Need Cash Quick?, Refinance and Lower Your Payment, Get OVERNIGHT Advance of up to 500 Bucks, etc. Since this email address has never been used for anything but giving it to freeipods.com, the only place the spammers could have gotten this address is from freeipods.com.

Their terms and conditions don't say you will get spam. It even says they try to deal only with honest companies. However, they also have a clause saying you can't hold them responsible if you do get spam. Not that any of this surprises me in the least. That is why I used a throw away email address.

[fryfrog]

I think I know what happened and why you are probably getting spam. When you fill out the offer, they start throwing questions on single pages at you about signing up for OTHER lists with a vague text above it saying something like "to continue, click yes" or something like that. After about 4 of these, I gave up ... realizing that the original ipods page was still in the back and done... I had just been needlessly signing up for shit.

So at the very least, I am one of those that didn't go through with it :p

I did click the unsubscribe link on a TON of the spam, and it seems to have reduced it to a trickle. I haven't done the unsubscribe thing on the rest yet, i just forwarded my mail to a gmail account and it has cought all the spam nicely.

I had trouble giving away 6 free gmail accounts, everyone already had one... so I doubt I would have any luck with the ipod thing :)

[Ratt]

I expect the iPod to arrive in a few days...

Behold:

[Ratt]

Just arrived this morning:

[Freakyuno]

It's not the only place they could have gotten that email addy from, depending on which service you use, of course. If you used one of the plethera of free web based email services out there, most of them have a clause in their TOS that allows their affiliates to email you for marketing purposes.

Its unlikely that this is just coicidence though, and looks quite favorably to the fact that they publish your email addy to a subscription based directory to companys that purchase it for marketing.

[Freakyuno]

I expect the iPod to arrive in a few days...

Behold:

Ratt....dude....forget free monitors and ipods, you need to find a site giving away free computer desks.

[Ratt]

Oh hell no... I like that table. I'm a tall guy, and 99% of computer desks I've tried to use are too f'ing short, and give me wrist cramps. This table is about 3 - 4" higher than a computer desk, so my wrists wrest at a natural angle when typing or mousing.

[BlueAdept]

Wow. I really didnt think that you would have really gotten anything. Congrats on your new ipod and lcd.

[aguyfromaplace]

Umm, this is probably dead and all, but anyone care to do mine?
http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=7477052
I'll even PayPal the first 3 (only need 3 more) people $5 for doing it, but not until after it confirms you've completed an offer.