Juju

Update: I'm offering a Gmail invite for a referral!

This is not a scam. (even though a lot of scams start out by saying they are not scams) Here's how it works:

1. You sign up and complete an offer.
2. You sucker 5 other people to sign up and complete an offer.
3. ...
4. PROFIT! (you get a free 20GB iPod, iPod mini, or $250 iTunes Gift Certificate)

Impossible you say? There's reports all over the place about people actually getting their free iPods. The company running this (Gratis Internet) does several deals like this. Think about it, they could make 40 bucks for referring someone to one of the offers and they make money by betting the majority of the people who do it don't manage to get 5 people. Some of the offers require you to subscribe to something, but most of them you can cancel before the free trial runs out and you won't have to pay anything. (or in the case of the eBay offer, so long as you don't win the bid it doesn't cost you anything) So the most you end up paying is getting your email address added to yet another spam list. (after about 8 years on the internet with the same email address, I'm on all of them anyway. Thank god for TMDA)

So anyway here's some tips to help you get your free iPod:

• Use Internet Explorer. (I can't believe I just said that) Apparently some people have had problems getting the offer credits if you use Mozilla or Firefox, then again some people say it works fine. Your millage may vary.
• Don't signup a referral on the same IP address. They will detect it and think you're cheating and ban you from doing the promotion. For instance, I referred my wife. Instead of signing up my wife at home where I also signed up, I signed her up at my computer at work.
• I recommend doing the eBay promotion, but remember: you have to open a new account (even if you already have an ebay account) and you must bid on an item so that you become the high bidder (try to find an auction for something that just started and has no bids and that you're sure someone will eventually outbid you so you don't have to pay)
• Seems the eBay promotion has been removed. They added back the Ancestry.com promotion which I hear can be done for free and cancelled online. So thats probably the easiest one to do.

For information, help, and more evidence that it's legit, check out the Free iPod Guide. If you do decide to give it a try, please make sure you click on my referral link, thanks. :) I plan on updating this post over time as I work on getting referrals and to give people an idea of how long the process takes.

08-01-2004:

Signed up at freeipods.com.

I used the form on the page to send a referral email to 8 suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hfriends. Note: the email that gets sent to them looks way too much like spam despite being From: you. Might be better off just emailing friends to tell them about it.

I tried doing the ebay promotion, but for some reason I never got a confirmation email from ebay to create my account. I'll give it another day or two.

08-02-2004:

I still didn't get a confirmation from ebay, so I tried doing the offer again and creating another new account using one of my other email addresses. It went through right away. While looking for something cheap to bid on so that I'll get outbid, I actually found some things I would actually like to buy and bid on it. (I guess sleazy marketing schemes can payoff sometimes)

Signed my wife up and ran the ebay offer as well. (note: I registered her while I was at work so as not to come from the same ip)

08-03-2004:

My wife and I both got emails that our ebay offers were approved! Only took one day, maybe I was just lucky.

08-06-2004:

Still no more referrals and I'm getting desperate. I've turned to the dark side and added a popup ad to my website to make it display this iPod page. At least I take some comfort in the fact that it will only annoy IE users. :) You should be using Firefox anyway.

08-09-2004:

I got two more people that have joined, but not completed an offer. That means if all the people that have joined complete an offer, then I'll get my iPod! Unfortunately I know one of those 4 probably won't do it. :(

08-13-2004:

PROGRESS! Finally. I got a few more people that have signed up and today I found that 2 of them actually completed an offer! 3 down 2 to go. Enjoy your gmail invites people. :)

08-19-2004:

The exchange of gmail invites for referrals seems to have gotten a lot of sign ups but none of them have completed a referral yet. I'm up to 10 joined, but not completed offer and 3 completed offers. I'm so close... come on people, complete referrals! If you're having trouble, post a message here and I'll help.

Current Status:

3 Referral completed 10 Joined, but offer not completed