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A guide to Do It Yourself sites.
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| This guide is geared towards those already in the freebie scene who are considering a DIY site. If you're new to the entire concept of getting freebies, then you may want to read the FAQ first. While some of the FAQ concerns referral-based sites, it also covers the basic questions, such as how these companies can afford to give out free items. |
| DIY - Do It Yourself : An Introduction |
| DIY sites can be appealing, because you can finish them in one sitting if you choose to, and not worry about referring others (well, mostly, I'll get to that later), but be very careful about these sites, because most will rip you off. DIY is easily the most-advertised type of freebie site -- you'll see banner ads for them everywhere, and you probably get spammed with emails about them too. DIY sites can pay off big, but if you sign up at the wrong place you can spend a lot of money and have nothing to show for it. |
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| Step 1: Examine the site closely! |
| But as I said, you have to be careful, and examine the terms closely. How many offers do you need to complete? Do you also have to refer other people? Is there a limit on how long you have to finish the site? |
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| After reading the terms, if it still sounds good, go ahead and sign up. But, don't use your usual email address - you'll get completely spammed to death. Go to Yahoo and sign up for a free email addy (just be sure to check your Bulk mail folder if you're expecting a certain email, cause Yahoo tends to mark some things spam that aren't.) Now, after you've signed up, look at the offers available. They'll probably look easy, and there's probably plenty to choose from, BUT, scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for a link to the next page. It'll usually say something like "after completing 2 offers, click here to continue to page 2", but click it anyways, before doing any offers -- you'll be able to come back to page 1 later. (If there's no link to the next page, look for a login or "check gift status" link at the very bottom of the page.) Page two will probably be easy too, but skip over to page 3. This is how most these websites scam you. If page 3 requires you to complete two offers, there's probably only three to choose from, adn they'll make it nearly impossible, by giving you two auto loan offers and a credit card offer. Unless you plan on getting two auto loans you're SOL. One website I saw actually required purchases of over $1,000 to get credit for each of the page 3 offers... So before you do any offer, ALWAYS check page 3 first (some sites put the hard stuff on page 2 instead). |
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| If everything checked out OK, then first check your email for an activation email - a lot of sites will send you a lik that you must click to verify your account. Next, you can start completing the needed offers, but first do this: grab a sheet of paper and write down all the offers on page 1 -- the names of the offers. Only put one offer on each line and use a second sheet of paper if you need to. A couple inches to the write of each offer put a number "1". Continue to pages 2 and 3 and continue writing down the offers and the corresponding page number to the right. Anytime you come to an offer that you've already written down, don't write the offer name again, simply add the page number to the right of where you did last time. When you're done you'll have a list of all the offers on the site, as well as which pages each offer is on. Why are you doing this you may ask? Because if for example page 3 doesn't have many offers to choose from, and page 1 has a lot more, then you don't want to do one of those offers that is listed on both pages on page 1, because it'll eliminate it as an option on page 3. Or, as another example, maybe page 1 has a couple of easy offers that are not on either of the other two pages. You'll want to make sure you do those on page 1 when you have the chance. |
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| Step 4: Complete your offers |
| OK, time to start actually doing the offers. Make sure you've turned off any pop-up or ad blocker you may have first. And use Internet Explorer if you're not already. You're going to be signing up for quite a few offers, likely a lot of free trials, so each time you do an offer write down the name of it, how much the initial charge is going to be, when the trial period ends if there is one, and what their customer service phone number or email address is. Also be sure to write down which page you completed it on. Keep checking your account status over the next few days and as you are credited with each offer mark it on your paper with a checkmark. You may also want to be checking your bank account and email address - whenever you are charged for an offer or get a welcome message, mark that down too. And keep your welcome messages by the way, so that if you don't receive credit you'll have some proof you did it. Not all DIY sites will manually give you credit however. |
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| You'll likely have to wait anywhere from a week to 20 days before you get credit for all your offers. After you have you'll be told to print out a certificate and mail it in. Along with your "cert" you're gonna be including a W9 tax form, if the gift is valued at more than $600. If you're of the paranoid type, note that you do include your social secrity number on this tax form. There's no way around that, because just as an actual employer needs your SSN to report income paid, so does the freebie site. It's both for their taxes, showing their expenses, and because Uncle Sam is gonna want a piece of your income (even if it's not cash, you pay taxes on the value of the gift). The freebie site will process your certs and somewhere between two and six weeks later you'll get your gift (check the site's Terms for a time estimate). |
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| Some DIY networks out there |
i-Deal Direct
i-Deal Direct runs numerous websites and they make new ones constantly. Few if any of their sites will say actually i-Deal anywhere -- each site is operated independantly or under the name of a subsidary, such as Bullseye Media. But they're usually easy to identify. Here's some screenshots (one, two, and three) to show you what they typically look like (I should not that in screenshot three all of those Pending offers are not offers that I did and wasn't credited for. Every offer you click on to find out more about gets listed. iDeal's crediting is bad, but not that bad...). Bear in mind though that other, very shady, sites may look similar, so always investigate them first. I received a $2,000 check from i-Deal in May '06 as a substitute for an HDTV, and as of this writing I'm expecting a laptop or an equivalent $1,400 check. My experience with i-Deal therefore has been good in general, but some aspects of them are certainly not ideal (pun intended). For one, their customer service is awful. You can email them through their Contact page, but you may or may not get a reply. The other bad thing about iDeal is that if you need to do 6 offers, plan on doing about 9 instead, because it seems you don't get credit half the time. They don't do manual crediting either. In the past all offers (that credit) credit after exactly seven days, with any offers done after seven days crediting in one day, but apparently they've changed that to 20 days. iDeal gives you 60 days to get all your credits and to find any needed referral(s). Yes, despite being what I would call a DIY site, iDeal requires at least one referral. When iDeal sites are brand new the requirements are typically 6 offers (2 on each page) plus one referral. After a while (figure two months or so), the requirements go up to 8 or 10 offers and two refs, and then eventually to five refs. Don't bother if you need more than 8 offers and 1 or 2 refs. Also, look at the value of the gift being offered. If it's only a $500 gift, you may not want to bother at all. Some people claim that iDeal disqualifies people for no good reason and to avoid them, but this has not happened to me, and I know of lots of people who complete their sites with no problem. So I'd give it a try. Given the opportunity I'd do a third iDeal site. Another plus about iDeal is they say you can do an offer more than once if it's been more than 6 months. I've never repeated an offer however, and I don't recommend that you do either.
NuiTech
This network is known to be legit, but I haven't completed one of their sites yet. To identify them, look at these screenshots (one, two). From what i hear they have good crediting, deliver your item within a couple of weeks of you completing the site, and they actually have customer service available by phone. Their sites' requirements are typically 18 offers for a $2000 item. The higher priced the item, the better the requirements, proprtionately (ie a $1200 item may be 15 offers, or something fairly cheap, like an XBox 360, may require 8 offers).
Sites to avoid
Just some of the sites that will rip you off with an impossible-to-complete page of offers (note that I haven't tried to complete these, but just basing my opinion on their requirements and offers): ConsumerPromotionCenter (I've certainly seen worse, but it's still not worth your time) , InternetOpinionGroup (last page is doable, but has three expensive web hosting offers and credit card applications) , FreeGiftWorld (limited offers on page three requires you to get DirectTV, and and offers may take 60 days to credit) , IncentiveLeader (requires you to buy two different satellite systems on page three...) , ConsumerRewardZone (required two auto loans on page three...) |
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Still under constuction...
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| FEATURED |
Points.Somethin4Nothin
Refer as few people as you want, do as many different offers as you want, and exchange your points for as many prizes as you want.
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