Last December I posted about how to get an iPhone or $580 cash for free. Well, I did it and got my $580! Click the thumbnail to the right to see a full-size image of the PayPal transaction.
Here’s the timeline:
- December 14, 2007: I signed up at a freebie site under someone else’s referral link and signed up for a trial month of GameFly.com.
- December 17, 2007: My account is credited for doing the GameFly.com trial.
- December 18, 2007: I posted on my blog that I got my free iPod Touch and also posted my referral link for the free iPhone or $580.
- February 17, 2008: I had the 11 referrals I needed for $580 cash, so I submitted my account for approval.
- February 22, 2008: My account was approved and I placed the order for the $580.
- February 23, 2008: I wake up the very next morning to an email notification that the $580 was delivered to my PayPal account!
I got another FREE iPod Touch, too!
During this time I also completed another freebie site on the side and got the 32 GB iPod Touch. I already got the 16 GB iPod Touch for free from a different freebie site, but now that I have the 32 GB one, I’m probably going to sell the 16 GB iPod on eBay.
If you want to earn a free iPhone or iPod Touch (or almost any other Apple product), sign up under this referral link, complete a couple trial offers to reach 100% and then refer some people to do the same under your link.
Get a PlayStation 3 or a Wii!
Next I’m going to cash out on the PlayStation 3 and Wii sites. Obviously I have first-hand evidence that this is real and legit, not a rip-off scam or some pain-in-the-neck process. Here’s how you can get a FREE PlayStation 3 or Wii (or cash):
- For the Wii, click this link: http://80.macrobucks.com/?referral=4342
- For the PS3, click this link: http://www.YourPS34free.com/index.php?ref=4727939
- Sign up and choose an account type (”referral” is the easiest).
- Complete trial offers (only 1 offer for PS3; enough for 2.0 credits at Wii site) and then refer other people to do the same under your referral link. (PS3 requires 8 referrals, the Wii requires 3.)
- Receive your FREE PlayStation 3 or Wii!
It honestly isn’t any more difficult than that. If you have any questions about the process, I’ve done it many times, so feel free to ask in the comments below.
One important tip
Make sure your browser is set to accept all cookies while you go through the sign-up process both at the freebie site and when you complete offers. If you click an offer and don’t sign up for it on that visit, make sure you clear your cookies before going back to it again. Otherwise the tracking cookie might not register that you signed up for their service from the freebie site and you’ll have to request a manual credit, which can take several weeks.
My experience with offers I’ve completed so far
- Stamps.com — This offer was painless and easy. I signed up for a free trial month of their service at a time when I was selling a lot of stuff on eBay. They gave me $5.00 of free postage just to try it out, but I liked it so much I voluntarily bought a lot more postage for my eBay items. To get credit for trying this offer, just sign up for the trial, download the free software (Windows only) and purchase some postage with the free $5.00 they give you.
- Photostamps.com — Another painless and easy one that credited my freebie site instantly. All I had to do was order a sheet of stamps for $24.98 using a photo. Since my wife was getting ready to send Christmas cards at the time, I order a sheet of stamps using a picture of the two of us together for the cards. It was also nice because there was no trial involved that I had to remember to cancel later if I didn’t like the service.
- GameFly.com — Since my free Xbox 360 Elite, Xbox Live subscription and Halo 3 arrived, I wanted more games to play on it. GameFly.com took a couple business days to credit my freebie account (as it said it would) and for $9.95 I enjoyed a month of unlimited video game rentals.
- Blockbuster.com — This was a fun one. For $10.68 I got a month of unlimited movie rentals through their website, keeping up to 3 movies at a time and 4 in-store movie exchanges. Again, this offer took a couple days to credit my freebie account, but that was on-time for this offer.
- Google SEO Supervisor — Figured I’d check this one out since a lot of my blog traffic comes from Google and I depend on the Google Ads here to cover the site’s expenses. It cost me $4.95 to get two trial weeks of access to their site’s members area to learn how to optimize everything for Google and Adsense.
- Emusic — At first I signed up for the cheapest plan at $9.99 for 30 downloads per month since I didn’t expect to find much music there that would be of interest to me, but actually I quickly found many recent albums from bands I listened to in my teen years that are no longer on the radio. My 30 downloads went fast and there was still a lot more I wanted, so I upgraded to the $14.99 plan for 50 downloads. NOTE: When I first signed up, I could not log into emusic’s site nor did I receive a confirmation email, but by the next morning the email arrived and everything was good to go. I also did not receive credit for this offer, so today I submitted a “manual credit request” with a copy of my confirmation email. I should receive credit within 10 business days.
- FreeCreditReport.com, Free Online Credit Report — Each of these worked the same way. For $1.00 I set up an account to check my credit report with the three big crediting agencies and monitor my credit for a trial period. I didn’t end up keeping any of the services, however.
- Bargain Homes — I never got credit for completing this $1.00 trial period offer. I reported it to the freebie site, sent them the email confirmation Bargain Homes sent me for signing up and the guys at the freebie site were gracious enough to instead give me double credit for different offer I completed there.
- RealtyTrac, Simply You, RealtyStore — All these sites work pretty much the same way. I paid $1.00 each for a trial period to access a members only section of their website, whether that be for personal care products or special real estate deals in my area (mostly foreclosures). My wife and I were looking to buy a house at that time, so I decided to give them a try. Didn’t find anything that compelled me to spend more than the $1.00 or keep the services past the trial period, though.
Freebies I’ve earned
- FREE Xbox 360 Elite, 12-month subscription to Xbox Live and Halo 3
- FREE 12-month subscription to Xbox Live
- FREE Halo 3 video game
- FREE 16GB iPod Touch
- FREE $580 cash in place of an iPhone (see above)
- FREE 32GB iPod Touch (see above)
How to earn referrals for your freebie site
Most people would love to earn some of these free prizes, but there’s three common excuses:
- It’s a scam!
- I’ll get hit with a ton of spam mail.
- Completing offers costs more than the prize itself!
- I don’t think I can get others to complete referrals for me.
For #1, check out the links above. I’ve done it several times and received several prizes, so I know it’s not a scam. Concerning #2, I have not received one single shred of spam as a result of completing these trial offers or freebie sites, not via email nor postal mail. These companies actually have pretty aggressive privacy statements. Number 3 also is not true. Read above about the offers I’ve tried. The most I ever paid for an offer was $24.98 for a sheet of photo stamps. Most offers cost between absolutely nothing and $15. And about #4, check out this post I wrote that gives 10 ideas for how to earn referrals for your freebie site. They work for me, anyway!
About me: I am married to my beautiful wife, 
March 4th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Man… I couldn’t even get one person to sign up for an offer when I tried for a 360! I countered all of the excuses and still no takers.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:23 am
yeah Tim you’re the man. Obviously you’re friends are better than mine.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Tim,
I would gladly give one of those lovely items away for you on my site;)
That’s really cool that it has worked well for you!
Giving away a Wii or PS3 at a lock-in really makes the jr. highers excited and or also provides a nice touch to a youth room.
I’m still waiting for someone to buy me a coffee on my site - (about page)
We should get all us bloggers together at a NYWC this fall and go out and eat! Sorry, don’t know where that came from - random brain of a YP.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Congrats Tim! You’re doing quite well for yourself.
p.s. A nice review of the offers. I wish more people did that.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
@ Chris S: Yeah, the first freebie always takes a long time because no one believes it. After you get over that hump, though, the rest come a lot easier.
@ Chris: I think my friends are just greedy.
Since I got my Xbox and then the iPod Touch and then the $580 and then another iPod Touch, I find people are more apt to try it now that they see it’s real.
@ Steve: It would be cool to meet up again and have a little more than a muffin. I’m actually contemplating Group’s National Youth Ministry Conference instead of the NYWC, though.
@ Mark: Thanks, man. I appreciate your help in the comments around here, too.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:48 am
i just stumbled on this while surfing the web. it’s hard to believe that this free stuff is not fake. i always thought those were scams or the offers you have to subscribe to were really expensive.
so…. a question about the referrals. referrals count when someone clicks on your link and signs up for an account or do they actually have to complete offers?
April 4th, 2008 at 12:58 am
@ Eric: Yeah, this stuff is really free and honestly works. Granted, not all the companies out there that claim to do this are legit, but some of them are. The ones I use above have a long and proven track record. Plus, I can personally vouch for them because I’ve been awarded prizes from them multiple times.
To answer your question, a referral counts when someone clicks on your link, signs up for an account, actually completes the offer requirements and receives credit for it. In other words, once they’re finished with completing offers and have received the appropriate credit for it, then they can start getting referrals through their link and your account is credited for one referral. Make sense?
April 4th, 2008 at 10:34 am
@Eric: I can vouch for the company’s legitimacy too. I also got a lot of stuff from them, including a ps3 and wii bundle (didn’t want a 360).
Your referrals have to signup using your link and do just one offer. When they get credit for your offer, you get credit too. They DO NOT need to get their own referrals, unless they too want to do the process and get a gift of their own.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:22 am
You know i’ve been going through site after site on my friends pc just waiting for a break to find a offer that does not nee a credit card, but cant find a thing and you know the funny thing is I just want one thing one of those touch pods so if anyone has any ideas for me to obtain one id be so thankfull for the info Chris the lame guy lol GB
June 11th, 2008 at 9:16 am
@vinceck2004: Debit cards work exactly the same way if you have one. In fact, that’s what I use.