<sarcasm>
Let's see; I give my e-mail address to some company I've never heard of before that promises me a free iPod just for signing up for "marketing offers" and now I am surprised when that results in a flood of SPAM. What's more I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, that they are slow in shipping the iPod, an item which is back ordered at some Apple Stores.
</sarcasm>

Come on people, what the heck did you expect? Nothing is really free.

... then it probably is!

Those free iPod offers DO look tempting, but what do people expect to get in return?

This is why you use a disposable email address to register at such sites. Get a free account from Yahoo or some such place and when it gets spammed up you just walk away from it. Save your "permanent" email for communicating with people you trust such as the MacObserver or RealityCheck.

This is why you read the privacy policy before giving out personal information including email addresses. People who signed up for this offer agreed to be spammed. From freeipods.com privacy policy:

"We may also use your email address to send you information about new services, features, and special offers from us. Members may opt-out of receiving future mailings of this nature by following the relevant instructions articulated in the body of these promotional emails.

To refer a friend, you will be asked to provide their email address so that we can send them a one-time invitation on your behalf to join our website. All referral email addresses are securely protected. Gratis Internet operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.

There may be a short optional survey on our site which, with your consent, will collect the personally identifiable information entered on the preceding address form page in order to supply you with information about various special offers and services. You are provided with the option of opting out of these surveys, and must consent to each offer on an individual basis for your personally identifiable information to be transmitted.

We may send you offers on behalf of our business partners. Keep in mind that if you take advantage of an offer from a Gratis Internet business partner and thus, become their customer, they may independently wish to send offers to you. In the event that you are not interested in receiving future offers from these affiliates, you must contact them directly to fulfill your list removal request.

As a member of our site(s), we will be sending emails for various reasons as you continue to use our site. For example, a welcome email will be sent thanking you for joining, or an email telling you an order has shipped, etc. These emails are required for logistical purposes and users cannot opt-out of these types of emails."

Your best bet for a disposable email address is spamgourmet.com. You set up a free account which forwards to your real email address, but instead of using that name, you add a word and a number telling how many emails it should accept to create unlimited throw-away addresses that stop working after a certain number of emails.

Why do any of you even bother responding to RC? It's like responding to someone picking on you when you were a kid - if you ignore the chump then eventually he will go away. As long as you give in to his crap he will continue to post his moronic thoughts.

This guy just plagairized the quotes from a Wired article.

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Anonymous wrote:
This guy just plagairized the quotes from a Wired article.

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Guest wrote:
This guy just plagairized the quotes from a Wired article.

Ok, so I bit and went over to www.freeipods.com. I went as far as creating an account (to a spam mailbox) but when I got to the offers they all require some sort of a credit card or for you to apply for a credit card. Ok thats not a big surprise but the credit card applications are on NON SECURE pages? So I call one of the CC companies (Discover) and they tell me that freeipods is not a partner of theirs. They may be legit but only as a company that collects the info and forwards the info to Discover. Oh and the customer service lady says if the offer is legit it takes 18 to 20 weeks to get your gift. Hmmmm. So does anyone know anyone who signed up and got a free iPod or is this just a 100% scam? Inquiring minds want to know.

Ender

I can't believe someone took the time to type more than a whole paragraph response to all of this.

All legitimate arguments above... I suppose... but seriously. Its a standard pyramid scam. You have to get five friends to do it, and you have to have a credit card to get the free subscriptions with these companies.

Seriously... you could make better use of your time begging for money on the streets to save up.

I found one of these ads for free iPods, and just out of curiosity followed the link to the site, started the registration process, waiting for the link to the privacy policy. After reading it, I closed my browser window and went somewhere else. I just didn’t like the smell of it … is my nose more sensitive than other people’s ???
Come on. Do these complainers also open spam email and follow the links ?

How many of these companies are based offshore?

I got my 20 Gig Generation 4 from FreeIpods.com

Don't knock it unless you talk to someone who got it.

-Nick Catalano

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AFCdtLoeb wrote:
How many of these companies are based offshore?

Who in the hell thinks it's valid to complain about freeipods.com. What the f**k do people expect when a website says you can get a free iPod? A better way of getting an iPod than say... buying one?

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AyaSofya wrote:

Freeipods.com is based at a PO Box in Washington DC.

Which was that the Gratis presidents, when asked about the emails, decided to stop sending any promotional emails to subscribers. They are obviously very concerned about their image and are not trying to spam the $#!% out of you guys. I think this article paints them in a pretty unfair light.

Where do some of you guys have your heads? You're asking if it's legitimate and you really do get an iPod. The answer is YES, YOU DO.

<a href="http://www.google.com/">Hey, look, maybe Google has some answers!</a>

Seriously, do some research before you flame a company. They really are doing what they say they do; that is, giving away free iPods for completing an offer and referring five friends. Tons of people have reported this on blogs and forums and posted proof (eg. invoices). And it really is Apple causing the delay.

By the way, I got my iPod a few days ago. They are offering to ship out HP iPods so that you can receive your item faster. That's what I did.

Oh, oops. No HTML. Well, you get my point.

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Guest wrote:
Where do some of you guys have your heads? You're asking if it's legitimate and you really do get an iPod. The answer is YES, YOU DO.

<a href="http://www.google.com/">Hey, look, maybe Google has some answers!</a>

Seriously, do some research before you flame a company. They really are doing what they say they do; that is, giving away free iPods for completing an offer and referring five friends. Tons of people have reported this on blogs and forums and posted proof (eg. invoices). And it really is Apple causing the delay.

By the way, I got my iPod a few days ago. They are offering to ship out HP iPods so that you can receive your item faster. That's what I did.

No, no diffrence. It is the exact same machine, but HP's may be being built in higher quantites.

I am sure that itis mainly the Window$ users are complaining. I mean, just think about it. If they were dumb enough to buy the bill of goods M$ sold them in the first place they'll belive anything.

LOL.

-Dan

I think the company is registered with the BBB (better business bureau). It's legit, so if they're scamming their customers, then people DO have a right to complain (and or sue).

I joined freeflatscreens.com and got the blockbuster membership and passed along eight email addresses (friends spam email addresses). Now I try to sign on to freeflatscreens.com account and it doesn't recognize my email and password. I request my password to be sent to me but it never does. You try to find it's customer service web page but there is none! So right now, I AM FEELING SCAMMED!!! At this point I'm going contact Blockbuster and see if they can remedy this, otherwise I'm just going to cancel out of blockbuster and seek a full refund through them since it's not a neccesity to me. This really sucks and I can be a incredibly big pain in the ass to people like this who think can get away with treating the public like suckers. Game On Mofo's.

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AFCdtLoeb wrote:
No, no diffrence. It is the exact same machine, but HP's may be being built in higher quantites.

Nah, it's not a scam, my friend just got his -- though some of their offers claim to be free but require your credit card anyways, makes no sense to me.. That's why I don't like it.

Just got my ipod from that site... took a few months to get the 5 referals ... but it worked.

And I did the one totally free offer they had in the list .. so i never paid a cent. They always hide 1 free one - but it usually disappears by noon... log on early to snag it before it's gone.

ROCK!