Since this is a pretty active forum, a lot of folks thought it might be useful to compile a list of sites that offer fake freebies. Sometimes the freebie just doesn't come for whatever reason. But a lot of times, they're phishing sites, address harvesting sites, or just flat-out scammers. Hopefully, if enough people find this list useful, it can become a sticky for members to check first before posting, thus cutting down on the number of illegitimate deals we see pop up over & over & over (freebeermug.com comes to mind...).
I'll start with what I've been able to find elsewhere so far... please feel free to comment with suggestions of sites to add to or remove from this list. I'll do my best to keep it updated in this first post. Thanks!
Please do not post or sign up for freebies from the following sites... The freebies will never come.
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Some tipoffs are how recent the site is, the fact that it isn't affiliated with the manufacturer, that it adds weird disclaimers that basically absolve them of sending you anything, among other things. To further confirm my suspicions, I do a network 'whois' search. You will see others do this too, they use an online tool that allows them to research the domain. Here are a few I use, the first I have had/used the longest.
With any of the above, enter the IP address of the offer in the dialogue box, and click submit. You get a complete history of the domain, who created it, when it was created, the server hosting it. Anything new with 1 year or less licenses is most likely a fraud, intended to harvest for spam, or phish for information.
There are a lot of bogus offers being put up on the intrawebs lately, obviously intended to sucker in the clueless with a freebie. Chances are, if it's not the manufacturer, or a reputable company authorized by the manufacturer (Like WalMart, StartSampling, etc.), it's a fake offer.
Message edited by: digelt on 2009-06-05 09:53:21 CDT
Leatherface00 said:provigal said:digelt said:Barbiedawl said:quality health
Is it qualityhealth.com?
Once in a while you'll get a small sample from QH, but it's not worth the hoops they make you jump and the spam they send.
Well, if they do send samples, then they shouldn't be on the list. If people are willing to jump through hoops, then it's a legitimate freebie.
If you count them, then half the ones on the list are 'legitimate freebies', yet most on nearly every forum don't think so. It's the hoops you have to jumo through that make them not actually free. here is how they work:
You click on to sign-up for offer. You get a page with a bunch of offers for which you must click 'yes' or 'no' to. Once you have done that, you may go through another 2 to five pages like that. Think you are done? Not yet! Even though they say you are almost finished. Now they take you to the 'silver level page'. You absolutely must click yes to a minimum of number of offers they specify. These are credit card offers, trial subscription to magazines, book clubs, movie clubs, music clubs, or something else.
Those offers must be completed according to the regulations. You must actually receive the credit card, and/or actually signed-up and paid the fee for the trial membership, to qualify for the freebie. This repeats itself on the next page with the 'gold offers', and then on yet another page with the 'platinum ones'. Each level has requirements that you must meet to get the so-called 'freebie', which makes them freebies not at all. In the meantime, you have spent a good portion of your time wading through pages of offers to which you must click 'yes' pr 'no' to. A half-hour or more for a freebie you may not get anyway.
By the time you are done, you have signed up, and paid for, various trial-memberships, which you cannot cancel, until the trial is about to expire. And if you forget to cancel during that usual 7-day window they give you, you end up getting billed for membership, because when you signed-up, you authorized them to bill your chosen method of payment. The places you sign-up for, report back to them if you met the requirements for signing up. This can take as long as 6 months. Some never report that you met the requirements. It only takes one affiliate not reporting back, for you to lose out on the freebie. Way too iffy. And you have spent a few dollars or more along the way.
That's why many of these are not legitimate freebies. I got a sample from Quality Health when they first started, and I signed up. It took a year to get here. It was a pocket-pack of kleenex tissues. Since then, they have been doing the going through hoops by signing-up for this or that crap. And they spam you like crazy with more hoop jumping offers from their affiliates.
EDIT to add to the clueless neggers of this post, according to FW's own FAQ, Quality Health and the others on the list that make you jump hoops, are NOT freebies. How about reading the FAQ before negging? If you want access to these offers, Google the sites in the list digelt created, spend 20 minutes + signing-up for just one of them, and I guarantee the others will quickly find their way to your inbox, in droves. They don't belong on FW, and I explained why, if you have a problem with that, then try posting a constructive post as to why. Unless you can contribute to the discussion constructively, your neg votes are essentially meaningless, as there is no rational or understanding behind them. The same goes for you negging digelt for this thread.
<---Getting tired of the idiotic voting that goes on here by people with no spine hiding behind their votes, who say nothing and mostly contribute nothing.
Message edited by: SweetClover on 2008-09-24 03:20:53 CDT
How to spot a possible fake scamming, spam harvesting, phishing website.
This information is copied and pasted from another thread where the OP asked how to determine the validity of some of the questionable ones out there
SweetClover said:Some tipoffs are how recent the site is, the fact that it isn't affiliated with the manufacturer, that it adds weird disclaimers that basically absolve them of sending you anything, among other things. To further confirm my suspicions, I do a network 'whois' search. You will see others do this too, they use an online tool that allows them to research the domain. Here are a few I use, the first I have had/used the longest.
With any of the above, enter the IP address of the offer in the dialogue box, and click submit. You get a complete history of the domain, who created it, when it was created, the server hosting it. Anything new with 1 year or less licenses is most likely a fraud, intended to harvest for spam, or phish for information.
There are a lot of bogus offers being put up on the intrawebs lately, obviously intended to sucker in the clueless with a freebie. Chances are, if it's not the manufacturer, or a reputable company authorized by the manufacturer (Like WalMart, StartSampling, etc.), it's a fake offer.
MumzOf2 said:(username removed), after a while you'll know a bad site just by looking at it and it will prompt you to look up the domain. I can't explain it, but the site will just have a look to it. Google ADS..if it's a site only a few days old usually by weeks end it will be full of Google Ad Sense, a full size product too good to be true type of thing, the graphics, etc.. Plus at the bottom of the page it will say not endorsed by such and such company like one other member mentioned. Some bad phishing sites are better at making their site look more professional, but usually a few links will always be "under construction."
SweetClover said:And to add, if you have any doubt, those Whois domain searches will give you lots of clues. I keep them bookmarked, so I have access to them at any given time. MumzOf2 is right, the site will just look 'off' for some reason, usually cheap layout, and such. A legitimate site will have a professional layout to it. These phishing/scamming/spamming sites, all are very amateurish looking. Some of these have been around for years, though, so sometimes you only find out by experience. KCWEB is an example of this. They've been scamming and spamming since I went online 10 years ago.
Message edited by: SweetClover on 2008-09-24 03:22:20 CDT
iowahawkeye said:Brandarama Boy, you ain't kidding! I'll add it right now.
dairymtu said:There's one for the free shaker from kahlua. That never comes. So old never came. And that verisign usb flash drive it does come, i have a 2GB Anyone else want to add to whether the kahlua deal is legit or not? I haven't been able to come up with any feedback online that suggests it's a scam.
Now that verisign one... I think you're in a very small (and lucky) minority, dairymtu. I did a bit of research on that one, and found page after page of people complaining that they'd signed up many times for that freebie and got nothing but spam, unwelcome phone calls, and headaches.
I never got my shaker and boy a white russian blended with kahlua, french vanilla ice cream and grey goose will certainly chase your spam blues away. don't forget to coat your glass rim with sugar,(or perhaps one of those samples of flavored splenda etc. that we have so many of) UMM UMM good!! How long ago did y'all get the shaker? I just thought of one that should be added -whoever is offering the gay wooden skull air freshener, I need to know if anyone ever got it after literally years of being posted.
Message edited by: thenona on 2008-09-26 13:35:50 CDT
Got my free shaker from Kahlua too. Used it, even, it's a handy little thing. I've even ordered labels from them for Christmas gift bottles from a freebie on here.
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I never got my shaker and boy a white russian blended with kahlua, french vanilla ice cream and grey goose will certainly chase your spam blues away. don't forget to coat your glass rim with sugar,(or perhaps one of those samples of flavored splenda etc. that we have so many of) UMM UMM good!! How long ago did y'all get the shaker? I just thought of one that should be added -whoever is offering the gay wooden skull air freshener, I need to know if anyone ever got it after literally years of being posted.
