November 20, 2008
Filed under: Freebie Searching Tips — @ 2:05 am
Usually, you can get great products through free online offers but sometimes the offers aren’t real and you could end up getting scammed. You might just get lots and lots of junk mail, email, and telemarketing calls or you could end up the victim of identity theft.
Because there are some scams on the Internet that promise free products but collect your personal information for bad purposes, it pays to be wary of any online offer for free stuff. Here are some of the most common free stuff scams that you should be watching out for.
The Too Good to be True Offer – You’ve seen these offers online before most likely. These offers will promise high end or luxury merchandise for doing nothing or for filling out a simple survey. The most common scam of this type offers participants a free state of the art laptop computer just for filling out a quick survey.
The reality is that you fill out the survey and then you are required to sign up for a subscription or buy another thing to get the laptop. Many of the costs are hidden. Soon you are spending more on other offers than you would to just buy a laptop. If it sounds too good to be true, it no doubt is.
Another offer that you’ll see a lot online that falls under the Too Good to be True scam is an offer of a free vacation. Ads on web pages will sometimes promise that you have won a free luxury vacation or cruise to someplace tropical and warm just for clicking on the ad. It seems so easy, after all who couldn’t use a vacation? But if you click on the ad you’ll see that it’s not that simple.
A good way to know if the offer is legitimate or not is to use some common sense when considering the offer. While it would be wonderful if you could really get a new laptop or plasma screen TV for filling out a survey, does it really seem plausible? If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Unsolicited offers – These scams are everywhere on the Internet. One of the reasons that you should set up an alternate email account that you can use to get free stuff on the Internet is because some sites will sell your email address to spammers who will send you all kinds of unsolicited offers.
The unsolicited offer scam that gets used the most is an offer that supposedly comes from a foreign dignitary, many in Nigeria, who wants your bank account information. This email promises to deposit a huge sum of money in your bank account and if you will forward that money to this person you will be allowed to keep a chunk of it for yourself. This is a scam; there is no dignitary or lawyer or whoever else the email is supposedly from. Don’t fall for it.
Unsolicited offers are almost always bad news. Don’t fall for them.
“The Catch” offer – These offers are a bit like the Too Good to be True offers except on the surface they seem legitimate. An email or a website might tell you that you have won a totally free vacation or a totally free hotel stay or a totally free laptop and only in the fine print does it say that there is a catch.
The catch is usually something expensive, like you have to pay taxes on the vacation, and cover your own airfare, incidentals, food, and drinks so what they are really offering you is a free pass to a resort or a free night in a hotel. If you have supposedly won a laptop, the catch is usually that the laptop is virtually un-useable without the addition of expensive software that you need to pay for.
Usually, with electronics, the catch is either that you have to pay an additional fee for some necessary component like a cell phone battery or cell phone service, a hard drive, or some memory. Or, with electronics, the catch might also be that you are being offered a used or refurbished or returned piece of equipment. Then they will try to sell you a warranty or service plan.
Another common catch scam is that the product is free but that you are going to have to pay for shipping and handling. Some offers like that are legitimate, but if the product weighs less than a pound and they want to charge you $20 for shipping and handling then the product isn’t really free; they are just tricking you into thinking it’s free but really you are paying for it when you pay the shipping and handling fees.
The Bait and Switch scam – Almost everyone has been taken in by this scam at one point or another. You run across an advertisement or an offer for a free product so you click on the link provided. Then you have to fill out your personal information. Once you have done that you are directed to another page to answer another set of questions.
After that, you are directed to a long page filled with offers from the company’s “sales partners,” which are automatically selected to sign you up for dozens of worthless products. To not receive those products and offers you will need to go through and deselect each box by hand. After that, you are taken to another page where you need to watch a commercial for another product.
After pages and pages of forms, finally you reach the end and are told that the product you initially wanted, the reason you began the process, is unavailable but that you can purchase another similar product in the company’s store. If you are asked to fill out more than just a simple survey and your personal information to get a sample then the offer is probably not legitimate.
There are many scams being practiced online, these are just some of them. Being aware of these types of scams and looking at each offer for free stuff with a critical eye can make it possible for you to get great stuff on the Internet instead of getting scammed on the Internet.
Al
November 8, 2008
Filed under: Freebies — @ 2:35 am
I have just uploaded another freebie by Stephen Pierce called “Stephen’s Goal Get’Em Report”.
This report demonstrates how you can effectively accomplish approximately 95% of all the goals you set, if you use his strategies outlined in this free and short 13 page guide.
It starts off like this:
Stephen’s Goal Get’Em Report
According to the Association for Training and Development, we have a 95% chance of actually hitting the goals that we set for ourselves when we have someone we are accountable to. This Special Report outlines steps that you can and will want to take to ensure that you’re meeting your goals.
Most people know how to start stuff but very few people know how to complete stuff. So while it would seem appropriate at the beginning of this report to say let’s get started…. I prefer to say let’s get completed!
1. Find an accountability partner.
This includes a business associate or a family member who can hold you accountable, someone that you can have a huddle with. If you already have business partners or business associates, it’s a good idea to share this with each other so that you can keep that person accountable and you, yourself, can be held accountable.
If we’re not held accountable and we’re not checking in with somebody, or somebody isn’t checking in with us, then the likelihood of us hitting the goals we set for ourselves diminishes big time. Our company holds our entire team accountable for specific numbers and specific results on a day-to-day basis, because it’s the day-to-day things that each team member is doing that ultimately drives the larger goals.
One of the things that you constantly want to make sure of is, “Is this activity I’m engaged in right now moving me closer towards the larger objective?” If . . . . . - more strategies in the complete report.
———————————–
Download the complete report from The Realgoalgetter Ezines page, which has other freebie info there, or if you are in a hurry just right click this link - Stephen’s Goal’Em Report and save directly to you computer.
Enjoy.
Al
October 31, 2008
Filed under: Freebie Searching Tips — @ 8:39 am
Yes, Freebies are for Real! If you tell someone that something is free however, many times they will immediately start looking for the catch.
After all, the age old words of wisdom “there is no such thing as a free lunch” have usually been proven true for people time and again throughout life. A healthy cynicism towards free stuff usually springs up with good reason, and if we must err, we should err on the side of caution.
If you are one of these skeptical types, however, you may be missing out on some really great stuff. The truth is that you CAN get free things that are really and truly free, and yes, actually worth having. You just have to know where to look for these usually well disguised free goodies.
OK, here is where the caveat comes in. The definition of “free” often depends on your definition of “cost.” As any economist can tell you, cost really doesn’t only come down to how much money you have to hand over to get something.
There can be additional costs, like inconvenience and time spent doing something. And true, some freebies have these “non monetary” kinds of costs associated with them.
You have to balance all of the costs associated with the value of the free stuff you are getting and decide if it is worth it to you. The two biggest costs associated with freebies? Time and convenience top of the list.
Time is a big factor in many free offers. Companies want a bit of your time in exchange for their free products. Indeed, some companies literally want hours of your time.
Have you ever taken advantage of one of those “free weekend vacation” offers in which you received free accommodation in a beach house or condo for a weekend in exchange for suffering through a long presentation and intense sales pitch?
For some people, they can handle the presentation and have no qualms about refusing to buy anything and the free vacation more than makes up for it. Other people would rather pay any price to avoid having to listen to one of these spiels. So, while these weekends are freebies, for some people, they cost too much.
More often, a company wants your time in a less obvious way – they want you to spend time filling out forms. These forms may simply be your name, address and email address, or they may be very lengthy, quizzing you about buying habits and the like.
The reason the companies want you to do these forms is often for market research, and they are more than happy to give you a freebie in exchange for this. Many people find the time spent filling out these forms will worth it to get a great free product.
Convenience is the other cost involved with many freebies. Time and convenience go hand in hand in some cases – after all, it may not be especially convenient to fill out form after form simply because it is time consuming, but convenience takes another hit from freebies in the form of spam email.
Often, signing up for a freebie can land you on a spam email list, and for some people, getting tons of spam is so inconvenient that they would rather pay full price.
The truth about all of these costs of freebies is that the freebie is in the eye of the beholder. You must decide what you are willing to put up with in order to get the free products.
Once you know the limits to your freebie costs, than you can cash in on some really great products that don’t cost you a dime monetarily. When you spend five minutes filling out a form and get rewarded with a free DVD player that you have been wanting, you will realize that there are many free things out there to be had.
September 30, 2008
Filed under: Freebies — @ 5:35 am
I just made available a free goal setting ebook on our main site, The Realgoalgetter. It is called “The Power Of Setting Goals”. If you haven’t felt the energy and power that effective goal setting adds to your life, I strongly suggest that you give it a chance.
There are no strings attached, no email address necessary, just click on over and get your free ebook and free reports at the link below. Oh yeah, there are three free reports too.
The book will be for free for a limited time only so I’d advise you to “not” to put this off. Go get it right away and start working on your most important goals immediately. There is no excuse now.
To download your free copy, visit the FREE RGG Ezines Page. The book is a great read and outlines four simple steps that guide you to your most important goals and shares how to step up your goals program.
Of course while you are there, if you decide to take advantage of our free weekly ezines, we will be happy to send them to you. (GRINS)
I hope that you enjoy this free ebook and put it to good use.
Al Smith
September 27, 2008
Filed under: Freebies — @ 6:07 pm
Internet Marketers! Here is a planning calendar that will keep you focused in your online business in 2009 . . .
Today I was surfing online and ran into a free 2009 Internet Marketing Planning Calendar giveaway from Alice Seba. No strings attached, no sign ups required.
The link for the free planner documents from her site is Internet Marketing Sweetie - FREE Download
Here is a little teaser from her site (which you should check out by the way), and the link again. Here is Alice Seba –
———————————–
Here’s My Planning System - You Can Have it Free
Each year, I plan my products and major promotions in advance. Of course, I’m flexible and can readjust, but the basics of what is going to happen month-to-month is all laid out for me. That makes my monthly, weekly and even daily planning a whole lot easier when the time comes.
I’ve put together a downloadable version of my planning calendar that you can use for your own business. Or feel free to take the ideas and adapt them into your own personal planning style. There is no right or wrong on how to plan…but effective planning is always right.
Click here to download your 2009 Planning Calendar (zip folder - 891.98 KB)
There are several documents included…be sure to read the instructions first.
———————————–
OK, back to me now.
Just in case you have trouble downloading from her site, I have zipped a file you can access the FREE planning calendar on Al Recommends FREE 2009 Planning Calendar. You will need a zipping tool like “Winzip”, or “Zip It”, “7 Zip” to unzip the folder.
If you haven’t got either of these you can google “FREE Zipping Tools” and some other free ones will be suggested. Enjoy!
Al
Filed under: Freebie Searching Tips — @ 11:36 am
Five Fast Ways to Find Free Stuff Online
Are you crazy about web freebies and almost free goodies? I love free stuff, I mean, who doesn’t love to get things for free? Most people appreciate the occasional free sample in the mail, but there is a specific group of individuals—freebie hunters—that are dedicated to finding the very best in freebie offers.
Fortunately for them, and all of us, the World Wide Web is a treasure trove of freebies, special offers and promotions. All you have to do is search for them, and the search engines make this soooo easy . . .
Coupons and free samples are just some of what you can get by becoming a dedicated freebies hunter. If you are new to the world of active freebie hunting, here are five ways you can go about finding more free stuff.
1. Getting a Hold of Free Samples.
Free samples are the bread and butter of the dedicated freebie hunter. Who doesn’t like free samples? Free stuff is good stuff. However, be forewarned that once you get into the world of free samples, it can be easy to get carried away.
You may find that your mailbox can fast become flooded with free samples. If not your physical mailbox, your inbox can also become flooded with free coupon offers. Always read the fine print carefully when you are soliciting a free sample directly from a manufacturer. You may inadvertently be signing up for newsletters, promotions and ads.
To find the best and latest free samples, visit the StartSampling.com website. StartSampling is an innovative company that allows you to sample new products from exciting companies.
If you have a favorite company, you can head to their website and sign up directly for new product samples and discount coupons. For instance, if you are a fan of Crest brand toothpaste or Oil of Olay products, you can sign up with them directly for free samples and coupons.
2. Looking for Free Communications Tools?
If you are looking for the best in free telecommunications tools, you are in luck. For those of you tired of being overcharged for faulty 4-1-1 telephone calls, there is now a free directory that you can turn to.
Free directory assistance is now available to you at 1-800-FREE-411. This free directory assistance allows you to get most numbers that you need at absolutely no charge. However, you will have to listen to a short advertisement before you are allowed to find your number.
For even more free telecommunications tools, check out this handy phone tool. The next time you are stuck in an unpleasant situation and need to escape, plan on using the popularitydialer.com. Simply set the time you need and you will receive a fake call that can pull you out of a less than desirable situation.
3. Finding Free Memory. Need more ways to stay on top of things? Are post-it notes just not cutting it? If you need a little more, you will find that memotome.com can be a great help.
Memotome.com is a free scheduling tool that allows you to stay on top of events and dates. It is free to become a member and you even get access to free party and event planning tools.
4. Get Your Fill of Free Literature.
Are you an avid reader? If so, you will find that paperbackswap.com is a reader’s paradise. All you have to do is choose the book you want to read and request it. You should receive the book in the mail in a few short days. You can also list your own paperback books that you would like to get rid of.
5. Your Free Route to Financial Planning. If you are looking to become a financial planner, check out the very free planning tools that are available online. You can take advantage of free calculators that allow you to figure out your income and savings.
Just google the free stuff or keywords (make sure FREE is included with the keywords) you are looking for and you will be amazed at the results coming back to you!
September 10, 2008
Filed under: Freebie Searching Tips — @ 4:52 am
When I was growing up, I used to watch my grandmother cut out discount coupons. I have seen many old people do the same thing. They live on a fixed income, and they do not have money to waste. For those of us who are young and upwardly mobile, however, I had never thought that cutting out discount coupons really made sense.
Why spend the time looking for discount coupon codes when you could be enjoying yourself? After all, you only save a few dollars here and there, which doesn’t really amount to that much. When I tried it out myself, however, I was surprised.
You see, nowadays you can find discount codes for more things than ever before. You used to have to clip your coupons from the circular fliers. Basically, you were at the mercy of what they wanted to offer you.
Every week, certain companies would send out coupon discounts, and if you didn’t want to buy what they were selling, you were out of luck. Nowadays, however, you can find discount codes on the Internet.
A lot of companies will offer you printable coupons online. Although these printable discount coupons will often pretend to be for a limited time, usually they are not. Usually, they will keep the discount coupon offering going for as long as it seems to be getting them business.
The other day, for example, I was shopping for a new printer for my computer. I looked online and, sure enough, I found Circuit City discount coupons. Rather than looking through all of the discount coupons to see if any of them fit my needs, I could type in the product that you wanted and see if they had coupons for it. I have even seen websites that allow you to get up to 20% off just by taking in the discount codes that they give you on the Internet.
Basically, no matter what you are buying, it makes sense to look for discount coupons online before you go to buy it. If you do not have them, it will only be a matter of wasting a few minutes.
If, however, they offer discount coupons for that particular product, you may have just saved yourself a little chunk of change. Even if you don’t need that little bit of money, think how quickly it will add up with all of the things that you buy.
September 7, 2008
Filed under: Freebie Searching Tips — @ 10:01 pm
Your Frugal, Money Saving Websites and Forums Are A Great Resource for Free Stuff
In any economy, it is essential for us to save money and therefore any way there is to get free stuff is a good way. Many pages online offer help, advice and even coupons on how to save money and be frugal.
These websites offer coupons to reduce the grocery or department store bill, send out monthly newsletter with the best money saving tips and even direct their visitors to free stuff.
Many bigger companies, manufacturers of everyday household items and restaurants offer coupons for reduced price or sometimes free products. Visiting every month all the different manufacturers’ web pages can be very lengthy and proves to be not very efficient.
But by visiting one of the sites that cumulate all that information into their web pages, one can save enormous amounts of time and additionally save dollars when shopping.
Essentially, when looking for web pages that offer grocery coupons, links to free products and more it is important to make sure that a trustworthy site is entered. On the Internet, viruses and identity theft are a great concern.
Of course, many of these online coupon resources require signing up, but it always depends on the information they ask to determine whether a page is fraud or not. In general such pages should not ask for social security numbers, credit card numbers or other account information. They may ask for name, age, telephone number and address.
Signing up to one of these wonderful money saving pages is quick and easy. Many of these web pages also offer coupon printers so that the barcode on coupons gets printed legible for the store scanner.
Some of the coupons and rebates found on those pages will help the shopper to free products or credit on a store card so that the shopper is able to receive free products at the next shopping trip.
There are pages that even offer state customized advice. These pages offer a list of coupons, free products and special offers from certain stores close to the location that was picked as home location.
This function offers shoppers the opportunity to exactly know where they are able to get free or reduced products close to home and shoppers do not have to do a lengthy search to find out which stores will accept certain deals and coupons.
Some of the pages also offer forums, where other shoppers will post advice or deals that they saw in the area. This is often a great tool to save, since stores will have a reduced sale, a clearance sale after a certain holiday and other shoppers will post where they saw great deals.
This way whoever is subscribed to receive alerts from the forum gets to know where great seasonal or short-term deals due to promotions and clearances can be found. The more pages a shopper is a part of, the more deals can be found and the more money can be saved.
Money savers are everywhere and with little effort shoppers can save money for college funds, vacations funds or just to have some money for fun. When looking to reduce monthly spending and still trying to stay at a certain standard of living, online resources can be used to just do that.
There are many companies, that will offer free trial sizes or regular sizes of new or improved products and to find out about such deals, a subscription to one of the moneysaving websites can help shoppers to more of these free products.
It is easy and fun to save money, and the more experienced a shopper gets and the more a shopper learns about saving money with these websites, the more will actually be saved.
Remember that a penny saved is usually worth 2 pennies earned . . . (before and after taxes makes a huge difference)
September 2, 2008
Filed under: Freebie Searching Tips — @ 7:41 pm
Evaluating your Free Offers of Stuff
Getting free stuff can be a lot of fun, and for many people, the hunt for freebies is as fun as actually enjoying the free products themselves. There is a dark side to freebie offers, however.
Many scam artists have come to realize that pretending to offer free things is a great way to trick people into handing over sensitive information about them than can be used in identity theft operations or even bilk them out of cold, hard cash.
For that reason, it is important to make sure you know how to be safe out there when you’re looking for free offers. There are some things you can do to make sure you freebie hunting only brings you good times – these common sense rules are a great place to start.
You’ve heard it a million times before – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The reason you have heard it so many times is that it almost holds water.
Think about the reason that companies give away free things.
They’re usually not doing it for charity. They want you try to their products in the hope that you will come back to them as a paying customer in the future, and they’re doing it to build good will for their company over all.
They’re definitely not doing it to go broke. So consider whether the freebie offers you come across make sense according to these criteria. Does it make sense that a company will give you a free bag of their new flavor of chips or a trial size jar of their new face cream?
Sure it does, because if you like it, you may buy these products in the future.
Does it make sense that a company will give you an all expenses paid, two-week first class trip to Bali for you and ten of your friends?
Not so much. Don’t waste your time on these too good to be true freebies – they may end up costing your big time in the long run.
By the same token, the more outlandish an offer sounds, the more you have to look for the small print. Sure, maybe the hotel chain is willing to give you a free weekend in their beachfront hotel.
The small print in the offer might say that you have to agree to spend 10 hours a day at a sales seminar or that the free weekend is yours after you pay for a two week stay.
One particular airline ran an offer for a free coach class plane ticket from New York to London. The small print said you had to buy two, full price first class tickets on that same route before you could get the free on – at a cost of around $8,000 per ticket.
Before you jump, make sure you get all of the details.
Freebie offers that actually require you to shell out some money are very tricky. Sometimes they are legitimate – after all, if you are accustomed to paying full price first class airfare, a free coach class ticket can be a real score.
But many times, when you have to pay to get something for free, that is a red flag that a scammer is at work.
You should never send money, even for postage, to a company that you don’t know. Also, keep an eye on the costs for things like postage even if you do know the company name.
If they’re asking for $50 postage to send you a free magazine, then you know something is up.
Lastly, beware giving out too much personal information. There’s NO reason a company giving away free shampoo needs your bank account details. Protect your private info and if you’re unsure, move on to the next freebie offer.
See you next time.
Al
September 1, 2008
Filed under: Freebie Searching Tips — @ 8:00 am
How to Avoid Spam and Junk Email and Still Enjoy Freebies
Free stuff is great, but when you are facing an inbox that is literally choking on spam, than you may find yourself wondering just how free your freebies really are. Spam and junk email are the unwanted consequences of cashing in on great free deals online, and it is enough to keep some people away from freebie offers entirely.
Here’s the good news, however – you might not able to stop the spammers in their tracks completely, but there are a lot of things you can do to keep the annoyance caused by junk email to a minimum. Get on the defensive and reclaim the control you have over your inbox.
Rule number one for cashing in on freebies is to set up a separate email account that you use only for your free stuff hunting.
There are tons of web based email programs that you can join for free, and you can use these new email accounts as your point of contact for the companies from who you get freebie offers. Gmail is one that has great spam catchers.
After all, giving your email address to a company is simply part of getting freebies – that is why the company is giving away freebies in the first place. They want to collect your email address so they can email you about their products and hopefully convince you to shell out some cash for them in the future.
By protecting your main email address, you can easily control the amount of spam you have to wade through when you just want to read your personal or business emails.
You know that a company wants your email address in a exchange for a freebie, and you know why they want it, but what you might not know is that not all companies are created equal when it comes to it how the treat your email address.
To know this, you have to check out a company’s privacy policy. Some companies will allow you to opt out of all future emails, including the ones from them, meaning in theory that your email address should never end up on any junk email solicitation list after your get your freebie.
Other companies with poor ethics don’t let you opt out of their emails, but they let you choose whether or not they can give your address to partner companies who have products to offer that you “might be interested in.” With these companies, at least you can keep the amount of solicitations to a minimum.
Still other companies follow a “no holds barred” kind of plan, in which they are allowed to share your email address with anyone they choose. These last kinds of companies are the kinds that end up loading you up with the spam, because they often sell the lists of email addresses they collect to companies that send out spam messages.
Proceed with caution when a company has a policy like this one. If you can’t find a privacy policy at all on the website from which you are getting your freebie, then it might be best to move on to a different free offer.
Another spam reducing trick that a lot of people miss out on is ignoring spam completely. Don’t open your spam messages, and whatever you do, don’t ask to be removed from a mailing list. That might seem like the logical way to stop the spam, but all you do when you do that is confirm to the spammers that their email is going to a real, live person.
Last but not least, if even your dedicated freebie email address is gasping under the pressure of the spam, abandon it and start a new one. If you collect freebies on a regular basis, the word will eventually get out and the junk emailers will find you. Start a new address and get a clean slate.
I have a Gmail address and the SPAM usually ends up in the SPAM Folder so no worries there.
Remember, protect your main email boxes and use “disposable” addresses when searching for your freebies online. See you next time.
Al
Next Page »
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9b80ee68-46e9-4ad5-bc52-51cb06bddd85)