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NeverFade
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
 
2005-02-01, 23:59

Ya know those banner ads - the ones that you click on to kill a cockroach or something, well, it takes you to another website and has a free prize for doing whatever...

Well, I have never done this, but what is the 'whatever'? I have seen many mini ipods, ipods, I saw a 17" G5 iMac and I was tempted to see what it was, BUT just today I was really tempted when the prize was either a 42" Sony Plasma display or Panasonic!!

I sitll have not done this since I don't want to give out my information, and I always go by the rule, "If it's too good to be true, it usually is..."

So, WTF is this all about? Has anyone done it?
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Luca
ಠ_ರೃ
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
 
2005-02-02, 01:18

Well, I don't know about the banner ads since I haven't actually seen a banner ad in a few weeks (mmmm I love Firefox's AdBlock extension), but there are indeed a lot of "Free __________" things going around. The deal is that if you sign up for five or six different offers, and then get five other people to each sign up for an offer through you, you get a free something or other. The catch is that each of those five people then needs to find five other people to complete offers for them in order to get their free iPod/Mac mini/etc, and so on. It's just a pyramid scheme.

Now, I've actually heard that people have gotten free iPods through these deals. They do usually deliver if you complete everything. The problem is that it's difficult to complete everything. A week ago, we were swamped with people posting referral links and begging the members of our board here to sign up through them so they could get a free Mac mini.

Just so you know, those people were given one warning and then banned if they kept misbehaving. A lot of them stopped after we warned them, because they were simply confused and curious. Some of them were assholes and we banned them.
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NeverFade
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
 
2005-02-02, 10:52

Thanks for the response Luca -
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Wrao
Yarp
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Road Warrior
 
2005-02-02, 10:59

That's basically the gist of it. While there are many variations, ultimately there are a couple things to remember for all of them. They will make you jump through hoops. They reserve the right to give you a gift of equal or lesser value. I'm sure that there are people out there who have actually won something of value, and are happy with it, and it was great whatever. But they would be an extremely small minority.

It's similar to rebate deals, Often times you see pretty decent computers for absurdly low prices, it might be like $399!!! OMG WTF?!*



* after $500 worth in mail-in rebates that will not only take weeks and months of your time, but we don't even have to honor
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scratt
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: M-F: Thailand Weekends : F1 2010 - Various Tracks!
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2005-02-02, 11:08

Also a lot of them will have four or five 'gifts'...

1. Will be $1,000,000
2. Will be a new Jaguar
3. Will be a Plasma TV home cincema system with a lifetimes supply of popcorn and DVS.
4. Will be a trip to New York* **

* New York if you are in America, Wales if you are in the UK - whatever, but somewhere that is a local flight, or bus fare away and not that exotic.

** And you must buy at least four nights in the Hilton their to be eligible.

Guess which one you get....

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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