Simviation Forums

Some pop-up asked me if I trusted President Bush and for my answer, they would send me a free laptop. Of course I trust President Bush, but I decided not to give the pop-up my email address because I know there ain't no free lunch. So what is is with these "free" giveaways? I get the occasional pop-up for free XBox360s and all sorts of other crap. How do these things work? Who really pays in the end? Thanks.

i think they just lure people into giving them your email, and spam your mail with all the other junk they have to sell  :P

Some pop-up asked me if I trusted President Bush and for my answer, they would send me a free laptop. Of course I trust President Bush, but I decided not to give the pop-up my email address because I know there ain't no free lunch. So what is is with these "free" giveaways? I get the occasional pop-up for free XBox360s and all sorts of other crap. How do these things work? Who really pays in the end? Thanks.

I hate those kind of ads. They always say things like " would you vote for bush " and they get so annoying. They don't mean anything anyway. Those ads should be banned. I like the good ads like ones advertising flight sim. The most annoying one I found would be at http://www.fsdome.com I made a thread about it here http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1170942639 Don't stay on fsdome long otherwise you will hear buzzing in your ears for a few days.  ;D

Ive explored some of them (never with a real E-mail) What they do is get you to join memberships on other sites and once you've spent money THERE I guess they send you a laptop. So your not paying for a laptop but rather memberships at websites you don't want

Ive explored some of them (never with a real E-mail) What they do is get you to join memberships on other sites and once you've spent money THERE I guess they send you a laptop. So your not paying for a laptop but rather memberships at websites you don't want

bingo. Those advertisers pay these companies lots of money to get those people in with offers.

yup. what it is is you sign up, they send you to a link where you have to buy and/or subscribe to products and service (most of which you don't want), AND most of them want 5 of your closest to buy these as well. its not a scam, but its not worth it either.

you think its a scam, but they write it clear as day: *restrictions apply or *under our terms.

just go buy a laptop, and try to get a windows vista-less one

Ramos

Let this be a lesson to you:
Anything free is worth what you pay for it.

I experimented with one of those once too, also with a fake e-mail. I thought I was getting somewhere, because all of the sites they wanted me to sign up to had a "free trial membership" that only lasts like a week. But then they hit me with the "get 5 of your friends to sign up too!" and I gave up. I don't know 5 people who would be willing to go to all of the trouble of making a fake email, and signing up to that crap just to get a laptop for me.

Anything free is worth what you pay for it.

My laptop begs to differ.

Before the stupid questions pop-up: It's my dad's used business laptop. A P4M 1,8Ghz + 256MB Ram + Mobility Radeon.

Some of those ads are legitimate, but they ask ALOT before you get your free laptop.  Remember FreePC's about 6-8 years ago?  I got one of those.  But anyway, you gotta give your email, then to another screen.  Then they ask something else of you, and more.  ....gotta get all that marketing data before they lower the boom.  Once you get past all that, they tell you you gotta patronize a bunch of their sponsors before you're eligable for the laptop.  And by the time you say to yourself, "I'm not going through all that trouble", they already got your marketing info.  Prepare for the flood of spam.  That's why I use a public hotmail email for all this stuff.   8-)

Yeah, if you really want to go through this free laptop thing, first go to yahoo and get a free email address. I think at last count i had about ten email addresses...

I think at last count i had about ten email addresses...

Made me laugh.