Freebies Galore?
What is better than a bargain, a discount, a good deal, an on-sale item? A Freebie, that’s what! Economists, however, would disagree with me, because the theory is that if a thing is free, its intrinsic value for the customer will be reduced. Whatever! I love freebies so lets go shopping. Without any money!
Freebies Archive is a site that claims to offer all manner of things free, including free laptops and free iPhones. Now that made me very suspicious so I delved a bit. Lots of pages regretted to inform me that the offers were no longer available or had expired; others redirected me to pages where I saw that in order to get the alleged ‘free’ iPhone you have to do all kinds of things and the rules stated:
“Please note Sponsor offers may require you to sample and/or purchase products of interest and/or take other actions such as applying for or obtaining a loan or extension of credit (including credit cards), transferring a balance, or similar steps. In order to remain eligible for your gift, you must complete all of the sponsor offers that require you to sample and purchase products of interest within 180 days of signing up for our service.”
Hmmm, not free after all. I looked with rather less suspicion upon the free samples sections. However a lot of these also redirected me. My desire to get 6 free toothpastes took me to a site called Brandrama (wonder if this one was named by someone hung up on the ghastly 80s band Bananarama) where I was firstly asked for my email address and the home page told me that the six tubes would be mine if I “took a survey and completed participation requirements where I sampled and purchased products of interest”. Most of the offers ominously informed me “Participation required”. Lots of strings there, and sounds like work to me.
Frankly disheartened I clicked on the free antivirus software, very hopeful that at least this would yield a genuine freebie? Nada, me hearties! The page offered zilch, it came up blank! Thoroughly dejected I ploughed on to the free Books and magazines section. A free magazine subscription offered me “the opportunity to participate in health surveys and polls.” And in all probability it will be an email subscription, so my ebbing enthusiasm evaporated entirely. Then there were free fonts to be downloaded, which I did, but my computer informed me that I would need to go and find the appropriate program to open the damn thing.
I hereby, most gloomily conclude that there is no such thing as a free lunch. But you know what, I am an eternal optimist and my quest for the freebie shall continue, I will bring you good tiding about it anon!
