The FreePay Phenomenon

From Free Condoms to Free Playstation 3s


2006-12-02 12:11


In 2000, a company called Gratis Internet began offering free condoms through their website, freecondoms.com. This site grew so popular that Gratis took the next step and launched a free iPod website. How does the site work? To get a free iPod, users must register with an account and complete a free trial offer with an affiliate company, such as AOL or Blockbuster online. The user then signs up five friends who also must complete an offer, then the initial user gets a free iPod mailed to them. The "referrals" (the friends who signed up) can then themselves get five friends each for THEIR free iPod, and so on. Of course, Gratis isn't providing this service out of the goodness of their hearts. They are paid between $25 and $90 for each completed offer, in exchange for driving traffic towards the advertisers. In addition, Gratis makes a profit whenever a user doesn't get enough signups for their free gift.

In May of 2006, FreePay (formerly Gratis) implemented a "90-day" policy, allowing users only three months to complete the offer and refer five friends. In combination with allegations of selling users emails, and extremely slow shipping times, this paved the way for similar sites offering the same free gifts to take the forefront. In particular, Transcendent Innovations (TraInn) now leads the pack with a huge membership including hundreds of people who have received multiple free iPods and gaming consoles from their various sites.

By being the only major site to impose a time limit, and one of the slowest sites to actually send out the deserved prizes, FreePay has opened the door for a flood of other legitimate freebie sites providing better service and equal prizes. In recent months, FreePay has improved their customer service and has begun shipping out prizes again, but only time will tell if they can win back the trust of their customers. FreePay may have made up the rules of the "free iPod" concept, but at this rate they may end up losing the game to the next generation of freebie sites.


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Comments

2007 October 2, 06:51 john wrote :
i like ps3s