Gratis = SCAM!

I’m having quite a bit of trouble sleeping tonight so I’ve been doing some searching through google for a few things to keep me occupied. Unfortunately, I’ve come across something that I wasn’t expecting that has me a tad bit extremely pissed off!

A few months back, the Gratis Network went out of their way to email all of the users in the database telling them that their ‘new policy’ for accounts is a 90-day turn around time. This means that a user has 90 days to sign up and complete an offer, refer x amount of friends to do the same and then you have to wait it out until your account is approved. This “90 Day” email more than likely came from a company that Gratis sold their email databases to…I didn’t find this out until recently when I checked the inbox I use for freebies and there are THOUSANDS of spam emails in there because of this bull shit. But….I digress

I went out of my way to find the last 5 referrals I needed for my Digital Camera. I pushed, begged and even paid for people to complete an offer to qualify me for this camera. I figured I wouldn’t be losing anything because I have received an iPod as well as a television from this company before.

When I saw the notification stating that I qualified for cash out, I noticed small print stating that I have to print out a .PDF file, fill it out and then SNAIL MAIL it back to them. I thought “Wow, no more internet based ordering…interesting”. It took them a month and a half to approve my form. On June 27th, 2006 – they began ‘processing’ my order.

Now, in dealing with this company in the past – I figured it would be a quick two weeks and I’d have my camera. Well…I was wrong. Unfortunately, since receiving these items (over a year ago) their company has drastically gone down hill. They now have a frequently copied-and-pasted notice to anyone inquiring about when they’re going to receive their free item. At first I thought this was based on just digitalcameras.freepay.com but it turns out this is a universal message to any and everyone going through this company and is waiting on their free item.

Thank you for contacting FreePay Customer Service. Our Fulfillment Department has received your order. Once an order has been placed, it is added to a queue on a first come first served basis. We currently do not carry excess inventory in our fulfillment center therefore your product is not ordered from the manufacturer until it has been placed. Furthermore, orders are bundled together and ordered in bulk typically on a monthly basis. Therefore we are unable to provide a specific timeframe. Currently, we are experiencing delays of up to 90 days. We realize that this is beyond your normal expectation. These steps are necessary in order for us to continue to provide free products to our customers. We recognize this may further delay receipt of your product but want to assure you of our commitment to honor all legitimate orders. We apologize that further inquiries into this matter can not be processed; as there is no additional information available until your order status has changed from ?¢‚Ǩ?ìpending?¢‚Ǩ¬ù, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìprocessing?¢‚Ǩ¬ù, or ?¢‚Ǩ?ìin progress?¢‚Ǩ¬ù to ?¢‚Ǩ?ìshipped?¢‚Ǩ¬ù. Please note that our Fulfillment Department is currently processing all placed orders dating back to April 2006. We appreciate your continued patience. Sincerely, The FreePay Customer Service Team

This was the same notice that I received on my Freepay account status. However, I did not copy and paste this notice from there. I copied it from a woman’s comment on someone’s site. This comment was posted in MAY 2006.

So it’s very safe to say that there’s a 99.9% chance that I will not be receiving my camera from Gratis. The only legit company left, thus far is Offer Centric – whom has also changed a lot of shit around as well. I’m 8 referrals away from my $1800 and now the only offers they have require a deposit of a large sum of cash – sorry, it’s just not worth it. I’m working 3 jobs, I can make the $1800 in a week, so I’m done with that shit.

But, moving back to Gratis. The thing they’re really good at doing is ratifying the Terms of Service every time things seem to get ‘rough’ in regards to user feedback. They’re also very quick to place accounts on hold because someone was ‘walked through the sign up process’ or because they simply don’t wish to tell you what you did wrong. The important fact to remember would be that whether they approve you or not, they’re still being paid for every single valid referral that comes through the gratis network on every single site.

This means that Gratis has ripped off the internet community of not only millions of dollars, but of trust in general considering how quick they are to turn around and sell your email address to an outside party. They changed their name to “Freepay” to avoid the bad press now that they’re permitting sign-ups in other countries. They claim to have shipped over $14 Million in products (over the course of the last 3 years), even though the company brings in about $20-$25 million a year in revenue from users completing offers. With numbers like that, you would assume that alot more free items would be shipped out. If you started a business to prove how much you wanted to ‘pay back the community’ at least take your hand out of the cookie jar. It’s not one for them, ten for me – butt suckers.

It’s safe to say that if you’re even considering signing up for anything in relation to Gratis that you deserve to be smacked excessively with a frozen trout.

I’ll be taking mine out of the freezer momentarily.

If it weren?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t for the fact that you guys loved me enough to click all of my Google-ads and earn me over $115.00 today, I think I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d be beating the shit out of something right now. Maybe I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll gain enough revenue from ad-clicks so that I can just go out and get my own damn camera. At least I know this one will show up after I order it?¢‚Ǩ¬¶heh. I appreciate all of the clicking, it truly made my night.