TRUSTe says FreeiPods.com not so trusty

We know that FreeiPods.com isn't entirely a scam, in the sense that they have been sending out free iPods to people who manage to complete the offer and are able to sucker convince five friends to do the same, but if you felt uncomfortable with the whole thing before, we have some news that isn't going to make you feel any better. Internet privacy certifier TRUSTe has done something it rarely ever does and asked Gratis Networks, the company behind FreeiPods.com (and many of those other free stuff sites), to remove TRUSTe's privacy seal of approval from all of its sites, saying that the company "violated promises involving the protection of children's information and changed how it managed the private information of its customers without adequately notifying them." Plenty of people have complained about getting tons of spam after signing up for one of Gratis Networks' offers, but this is the first time in at least two years that TRUSTe has brought down the hammer like this so we're guessing they must have done something a smidge worse than just selling their email list. You get what you pay for, dude.

P.S. - Don't be lame and post your "free iPod!" spam in the comments.

[Carmi @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Your last line saysit all. Free offers like this are often more expensive for participants than simply buying the thing.

For example, what is your time worth? How many hours will you need to beat the bushes to twist friends' and family members' arms to go along with the freebie program? What would you be earning if you were otherwise gainfully employed during that period? Similarly, can you quantify the cost of the loss of face you must endure by violating trusted relationships in this manner?

The whole thing has smelled funny since it first launched. These things always do. Looking at who ultimately bites, it's clear that intelligent people who value their relationships and otherwise have better things to do with their time tend to stay away. They'll work, earn the money, and quietly buy the thing in a store.

Carmi
http://writteninc.blogspot.com

[Harold J. Johnson @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Man, don't tell me this! I just signed up for a free Mac mini after reading enough testimonials to convince me that the service was legit. I don't ever sign up for these types of things, but I thought this deal was honest enough, and now I have to worry about...what? More spam? Spam's already made my life hell already and nothing seems to stop it, so what do I have to worry about?

[Garett @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

That is why everyone should have a junk email address that they can check but who cares if it gets a ton of spam, only use it for things you know will spam you.

[Paul @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I bit the bullet and signed up, but only after seeing G4 Tech Tv's bit about it's validity. I completed one offer that cost me almost nothing other than the time involved to sign up for it. I have 1 friend out of the 5 required who has completed an offer as well. The hardest part is obviously convincing other people to submit to what appears to be a trap. To be honest, if their website wasn't designed so well I would have had second thoughts,but freeipods.com is very user freindly and shows you exactly how many offers have been completed, how many friends have completed offers, and updates itself in a timely manner.

[Peter Rojas @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I think the other thing to keep in mind is that you're not just handing over an email address, you're also giving them your contact address (they have to ship your iPod somewhere), and in the case of some of the offers, your credit card info.

[Robert Preseau @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I've been sitting on 4 friends signed up for over a month now. I want an ipod. :-(

[Brian @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

If you are a little weary about giving out your credit card info, there's an easier way. Any mall that is part of the Simon group carries Visa gift cards. They are just like a Visa card, but are pre-loaded with whatever amount you want. I had an old one sitting around that had no money left on it, so I used it and felt safe knowing that if the company tried to charge me anything, they couldn't because there's no money left on the card.

[Casey @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I've received a free iPod, free flat screen, and a free Dell Dimension 4700. I have gotten some spam in my e-mail account, but that's what a spam e-mail account is for!!

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

EXACTLY - "you get what you pay for"

You have done nothing but sucker your friends into getting tons of spam and volunteering yourself - and you thought that was it? You've been seriously had.

[Ian Argent @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Re: Visa gift cards.

You can get prepaid Mastercards at many drugstores; I've been considering getting one specifically for internet purchases. They are reloadable, apparently, even.

[ChillyWilly @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Having done the freeipods.com and received my iPod just before Christmas last year, I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I didn't bug a single friend to sign up and am now working on the freeminimac.com and hoping to receive that at some point.

As for the TRUSTe removal, I think the bigger issue wasn't so much the spam that people get (there is a little checkbox that you must check IF you want your email released for thrid party offers.) but the fact that some of the people that signed up for this were under 18... a lot under 15. The privacy act violations were most likely from parents who felt their kids should have been more protected in their kids offering information online.

Use a free web account like walla or yahoo or gmail if you are going to sign up for one of these. I can honestly say the increase in spam is nothing when I have an iPod that cost me well under $100 in signing up for and keeping an offer that I also enjoy.

And as Brian mentioned, get a prepaid Visa or Mastercard. It's nice if you forget to cancel an offer that you don't want to keep and when there's no money left to charge, it makes it that much easier to cancel.

[John Laur @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Man, these things only cost a couple hundred dollars.. It's not like they are one-of-a-kind. Do you really want to sell your soul for that?

How long do you think you will spend screwing with signing up for some kind of promotion, worrying about cancelling it, dealing with the aftermath (when they sell your information to a bunch of spammers who will resell it ad-infinitum), and then helping 5 or 10 soon-not-to-be friends screw with the same thing?

Fortunately for Gratis, there still are a lot of people who haven't yet or never will realize that time has significant value and people could probably save themselves a lot of it by just buying an ipod or LCD screen or mac mini or whatever the hell it is that they want so bad they are willing to do so much work for free. Your engraved free ipod is just an advertisement that you worked for someone for less than minimum wage and probably will end up having to pay them for the privilege in the long run. Bravo, losers!

[Justin @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I've actually received over $4000 worth of free stuff so far from these sites. It was very simple early on. I put very, very little work into it. After a while the way that I got referrals no longer worked, so I started my own site, and now operate a network of free sites with hundreds of thousands of users.

I would say that these free sites are beneficial if you know how to work the system (within the law of course).

[ChillyWilly @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I think the people that are signing up for these free sites are doing it because they don't have a spare $300 laying around to purchase something like an iPod.

And I don't think it's an issue of working or not. Most of the people that I know that don't have the disposable income to purchase a product like an iPod are working, some of us two jobs. And they are just as grateful to have an iPod now vs. not having one in the fore-seeable future.

Everyone's information has been bought and sold a lot, long before the internet and much longer than these free sites have been in operation. It's just a matter of tracking it all down... hello? have you not heard of a credit report?

Unless you never sign up for online banking, credit card or other "trusted" financial service, ebills from your cell phone company, gas credit card or other average services that operate online, then you most likely will get spam. This is why I have more than one email address.

My rule of thumb is this: if you sign up for something online, no matter what it is, read the TOS and privacy forms. If you don't agree with them, then don't sign up.

[Greg @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I tried the freeipods.com thing, 4 days after I completed getting 5 family members to sign up for an offer (which cost them $1 and they got a free $20 lowes card for trying the offer) I received my IPOD. I was supirsed it was so fast, because they said 6 weeks. So we all get a little more spam, what else is new? btw, i love my ipod!

[Corey @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I'm just glad I got my free iPod before they started engraving that "freeipods.com" thing on the back. LAME!

[Brian @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I'm sure everyone you know has 50 Gmail invites by now, just sign up for one and use it for nothing but spam. Then who gives a crap how much they send you.

[Gratis Internet @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Just so everyone knows the official update, TRUSTe is planning to re-certify Gratis Internet. You can see the joint press release here:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050211/cgf021_1.html

As Fran Maeir, executive director and president of TRUSTe says, "We are pleased that Gratis has agreed to finalize its compliance with the program requirements and to participate in our training program."

We can assure you that our sites are legitimate. If you want proof, just check out www.gratisnetwork.com. We've given out more than $4 million in free products to users since 2000. We're an aboveboard company and have never violated the privacy of our users.

Best,
Gratis Internet

[Slaven @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

"We can assure you that our sites are legitimate. If you want proof, just check out www.gratisnetwork.com. We've given out more than $4 million in free products to users since 2000. We're an aboveboard company and have never violated the privacy of our users."

I don't really care if your members hit up their family and friends for these offers (they wouldn't be my friends for too long if they used me in such a way), but what I hate is what your company is doing to the web: so many enthusiast sites are so swamped with people posting their "How to get a free iPod" offers, and often admins don't have the resources to moderate their forums or comment sections. That leads to more people posting such offers to those sites and regular members simply leaving due to high noise ratio. Just look at what happened to ipodhacks.com forums, it's just sad.

You should implement a no-spam policy for your memmbers: if they are reported for spamming (with a URL to the offending page) you should cancel their account, or force them to change their referral number so they don't benefit from spamming everyone in the world for their free iPod. Please???? :)

[Gratis Internet @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

That's exactly what we do. As stated on our "Refer Friends" page:
"We encourage users to post their referral link online, but we will not tolerate users who post their link where it's unwelcome."

We place accounts on hold if we find they are posting their referral links where they are not welcome.

[Canada Tom @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Holy people, this is just another iteration of the old 'pyramid scheme'. This is simply not sustainable, and in the end someone will *always* lose. Yes, those of you who have received your ipods will no doubt be happy, but in the end there will be *millions* of users who will not get their ipods. You know why? Do the math: 1 person gets 5 people to sign up. Those 5 people get 5 more people each to sign up. We're up to 25. Multiply by 5 a few more times... 25... 125... 625... 3125... 15625... 78000... 390625... 2million... 10million... 50million... 250million

And there you have it. That's almost the entire USA. You're out of people. Yes, this could work for quite a while, but as with all pyramid schemes, only the people who get in early make money. And it's off the backs of the people who joined late.

[ChillyWilly @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I can vouch for the Gratis rep when they say they do place accounts on hold for "spamming their referral link" to unwanted places. Several people in some of the forums I go to have complained about being put on hold for their abuse of posting their link everywhere, including places they shouldn't have.

It's unfortunate when a site for forum gets dumped with any kind of spam, including unwanted "free site" links. But even when a company goes to great lengths to enforce their policies, they can't remove 100% of the unwanted links.

My rule was: scroll past the spam or delete it. Not the most perfect option, but it worked for me. FWIW, I never spammed my link everywhere, only on site and when asked for it. And not a single family member or friend was bugged to do any offers.

[ChillyWilly @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Canada Tom has a point... it is very much like a pyramid scheme, except for the fact that most pyramid schemes leave the person with nothing. So what if someone does an offer and doesn't get their iPod. What if they did the offer and they kept the offer. They got a service or product they liked from it. No different than for them to go to that product's web site and sign up. Only in this case, their credit went to help someone get an iPod. If they want their iPod, they can continue on to get more referrals.

Will they run out of people? Not if there are newer products coming out and people still wouldn't mind doing a small amount of leg work to get one. It's not for everyone and I think people understand that, including companies like Gratis.

This isn't about buying fictional swamp land in Texas that only one person will ever own... it's about a $1 to $20 offer that someone may find useful. At least that's how I see it.

[Slaven @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

>That's exactly what we do. As stated on our "Refer Friends" page:
"We encourage users to post their referral link online, but we will not tolerate users who post their link where it's unwelcome."

That's good to hear, but for example ipodhacks.com specifically states in their forum rules that these posts are not permitted yet your members ignore them. I looked through your site to see where we can report those that abuse the system but I could not find anywhere where we can report these people. If this was made more obvious on your sites I know many of us would feel less resentment when we can do something about it.

[judi @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

three of us got free iPods, none engraved with 'freeiPods.com', and we're all happy with them and with the requirements we completed to do so. no one was co-erced into doing something they didn't want, and in fact, all of the offers selected were something we would have purchased or found useful. I even had friends who had iPods already (or otherwise were not interested in the offer) fulfill three of my requirements because the deals offered were useful to them. and as mentioned by someone else above, what little spam (if it has been from the freeiPods deal, which isn't certain) has been captured by gmail's filter. I have an iPod that I wouldn't have been able to afford, and I'm thankful for that. I pick up some random music offerings from the internets and I'm slowly getting my CD collection onto it. freeiPods is NOT a scam.

[Proph3t @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Proud to say I recieved my free ipod a looong time ago, without any engraving in it at all, brand new, and easily.


Not only that, I managed to get 12/10 referrals needed for their free mini mac offer in less than a week. Easy once again.

Each time I never turned to friends but instead to the internet, so none of my friends had to endure any crap from it (though they are all doing it now that they see I have recieved actual stuff from them).

Oh, and btw, I paid absolutely nothing for the offers and spent a minimal amount of time working towards it.

Those that doubt and say that you are still paying with time and effort to get them are just missing out, and for some reason feel they know more about it than others who are actually getting their free stuff..

[Vince @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I also got my iPod completely free from this site. I believe that if you have time on your hands, its worth it. It took me 3 months to get the thing, but it did come. Im not sure how they run it over there- me and my friend did this together but he got "put on hold" for frauding referals, while we both were honest. So he bought an iriver H320 for 215 bucks. Now he condemns me for my free iPod because the iriver is better. I agree, the iriver is better but it still wasn't free :P

[Raffy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I had a bad experience with another Gratis Network freebie offer, freevideogames.com. After fulfilling their requirements and amassing enough points to get a "free" game, I entered my shipping address and waited for my shipment to be approved. A few days later my account was suspended, and the only explanation from their Customer Service was that I violated one of their sign-up policies about having two accounts assigned to one household.

Apparently my roommate already had an account with them.

No amount of cajoling would get them to even explore an appeal on the case, so now I'm stuck with no free videogame after having spent $30 on their offers to get the points. Thanks, Gratis!

[SDEEDY @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Did the freeipod thing very early like in July last year and got my iPod a month later.

It was a breeze for me to do it back then as I just posted the link in my AIM profile and all my friends hit me up. I got my 5 referrals within a day, credit to my profile-checking-obsessive friends, and then started linking my friends into my profile.

There's no doubt it's harder and will take more time now. How do you guys do this stuff so easily within a week?

[lil demon @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

You guys SUCK!! Why do you give out your credit card number to a company that is making a scam? You guys should just by one, and not take the risk. See, im smart because i bought a Ipod Mini, and i have no spam, and no regrets. Im not an idiot like the other people...;-). Oh well...not my fault if you get tons of porno in your mail.

[CaptSnuffy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

"Oh well...not my fault if you get tons of porno in your mail."

Where can i sign up for that offer?

Haha jk

If this stuff is for real than i can't wait to sing up and start getting free stuff

how exactly are they making money? i mean, most spam they're sending out just gets ignored!

[cng @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

What the problem for me is not whether or not I trust this site and from what I hear, I do. I, however, cannot join because it is only for US citizens! Poor Canadians...

[Cambob @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

People are stupid and iPods are gay. Enough said.

[Sebhelyesfarku @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

People who enter into pyramid schemes are morons. People who enter into pyramid scheme for iP.o.s. are pompous morons.

[Chris @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

please spam me: [e-mail]

[Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Two comments above I must mention.
First, someone mentioned it's not worth your time to convince five friends. All it took for me was about 5 minutes to type up a quick email to my family and friends explaining the offer and providing my link. Unless you're making somewhere in the realm of $3,600 AN HOUR, the time-expense ratio is well worth it.
Second, who would actually sign up for this thinking you won't get spam? Of course you will! That's the point, silly! So use a good spam filter and throw away a few extra postal mailings. Unless you _want_ to pay $300 for an Apple product...
Say what you want, but my free iPod is on it's way from freeipods.com! Suckas!! :P

[Aly @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

Ok I did the freeipods.com offer and I have no complaints ! All my friends are happy too. I always buy dvds, and one of the offers was to join columbia house DVD club & buy 7 dvds in 2 years. This worked out for me since I am always buying dvds anyway. I didn't have to waste any time convincing people I just added their email addresses and the site sent them an invitation email, then when I spoke to those friends, they asked me all about it, I assured them, they iin turn signed up and I had my ipod a month later. Of course for those of you who don't want to wait a month I don't recommend it. For me ( a recent colleg grad paying rent, saving the $300 was worth waiting 1 month for ! ) And I have not gotten any more spam than I usually did . I give them a thumbs up !

[Shyam Thakrar @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I am a spammer: [e-mail]

[Andy @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

"how exactly are they making money? i mean, most spam they're sending out just gets ignored!"

Allow me to clarify the way that they keep this operational:

Your offer (i.e. the offer you filled out) is not credited to your account. It must go through to get your iPod, but that offer is not yours. The offers that are yours, are those of the people you refer. That means that, for the 1 offer you fill out and the 5 offers that people fill out for you, the 5 offers are "yours", i.e. from the money obtained from these 5 offers, your iPod will be purchased.

How they make money:
Companies need clients. Some companies are willing to pay an advertiser for a registered signup that meets certain conditions (staying 2 weeks, buying a trial offer, etc...) These "bounties" average from $20 to $50 per successful client. That would give Gratis from $100-$250 per offer. Since the offers are done through Apple, and since Gratis has purchased 16,000 units from them to date, I'm sure that Apple ships them for about $220 each, meaning that Gratis loses money per iPod shipped. Or does it? How many people do you know of that had their accounts put on hold? How many with 2, 3, 4 successful referrals that just dropped it? That's where Gratis earns their money. Add the small(er) bounties companies probably toss it for botched clients (registered but left, did not properly register, etc...) and you've got their source of income. For every "efficient" signup (5 referrals + self) there are at least 3 or 4 that didn't make it through the hoops. With maybe 2 or 3 refferrals each, that's an additional $120-600 that they make. Of course, these numbers are being pulled out of my ***, but you get the basic idea.

ATM, I'm waiting for them to ship the thing out.

[Ali @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

I think freeipods.com is a total scam and an untrustworthy company. I didn't want an ipod - I was one of those suckers who was convinced by a friend to sign up for an offer so that my friend could get the free ipod. I followed the instructions on their website EXACTLY and when my referral didn't show up in my friend's account I sent an inquiry to their customer service. Here's the response I received from them: "After review, there is no record that you signed up under the user ID# ******* correctly. We can not transfer your account to be his/her referral. We are sorry that this matter could not be resolved to your satisfaction." All I have to say is that even if you follow their procedures and sign up for the offers - there is no guarantee that they will follow through on their promises.

[Tom Hepplewhite @ Dec 19th 2005 12:10AM]

You dont need to refer others you just fake their names and so far they have fallen for it.Suckers.