Online Offers -- They Actually Work!
Mar. 18th, 2009 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
same_skyI am cross-posting this one from More Than a Little because I have so been looking forward to posting about it. My apologies for those of you who see this twice. :)
The FedEx guy brought me a happy little surprise yesterday--$500 in Shell gas gift cards!
These came as a result of signing up at an online offer website. You know those sites that promise to send you money or a laptop or gift cards? I had never even considered clicking on one of those links because it was obviously just a scam anyway. Thanks to Carrie at Money Saving Methods and her posts about online offers, I finally got up the courage back in January to start one of my own. Basically, you sign up for a certain number of products/services through certain sites, and once those sites are approved and you send in your approval paperwork, they send you the gift they mentioned. There are a number of rules and restrictions and guidelines to follow, but as long as you're organized, it actually works. It took just over two months, start to finish.
I spent a total of $51.34 up front to receive these cards, but I would have only spent $26.35 if you don’t count the $24.99 mistake* I made. That’s a profit of $448.66/$473.65! I spent somewhere from three to five hours on this all together. I spent two hours signing up for offers on the first night, and probably a couple since then doing one replacement offer for one that didn't credit and canceling things. AWESOME. Plus, I got 250 business cards, two credit reports, one trial of GameFly, a bunch of mp3 downloads, and two or three pairs of panty hose.
If you're interested in doing online offers, I really recommend that you read through all the posts, especially this one and the ones about the company you decide to try for. Create a spreadsheet to enter every piece of information that you receive and make sure you put cancelation dates into your calendar so you don't forget about something and then pay much more than you mean to. Many of these trial subscriptions are for services/products that cost a lot of money every month. Just call in before your trial is up, though, and you'll be fine. Also, don't sign up for one until you're ready to begin doing offers, and use a separate email address that you create for this purpose because you will get spam, and lots of it.
I didn't want to post about this until I saw for myself that I would actually get the money. I have a $500 Visa gift card in progress that has been approved, so hopefully that one will also arrive as expected in the next few weeks. I am SO excited. I mean, seriously. I get excited about coupon overages of 30 cents. This is fantastic. :)
*I accidentally clicked "download album" instead of "download song" on a music free trial, which bumped up my trial subscription to a paid subscription, otherwise it wouldn't have cost anything. However, the husband was pretty excited about it in the long run, because he got several CDs out of it that he has been wanting, so we made it part of his Valentine's Day present.
The FedEx guy brought me a happy little surprise yesterday--$500 in Shell gas gift cards!
These came as a result of signing up at an online offer website. You know those sites that promise to send you money or a laptop or gift cards? I had never even considered clicking on one of those links because it was obviously just a scam anyway. Thanks to Carrie at Money Saving Methods and her posts about online offers, I finally got up the courage back in January to start one of my own. Basically, you sign up for a certain number of products/services through certain sites, and once those sites are approved and you send in your approval paperwork, they send you the gift they mentioned. There are a number of rules and restrictions and guidelines to follow, but as long as you're organized, it actually works. It took just over two months, start to finish.
I spent a total of $51.34 up front to receive these cards, but I would have only spent $26.35 if you don’t count the $24.99 mistake* I made. That’s a profit of $448.66/$473.65! I spent somewhere from three to five hours on this all together. I spent two hours signing up for offers on the first night, and probably a couple since then doing one replacement offer for one that didn't credit and canceling things. AWESOME. Plus, I got 250 business cards, two credit reports, one trial of GameFly, a bunch of mp3 downloads, and two or three pairs of panty hose.
If you're interested in doing online offers, I really recommend that you read through all the posts, especially this one and the ones about the company you decide to try for. Create a spreadsheet to enter every piece of information that you receive and make sure you put cancelation dates into your calendar so you don't forget about something and then pay much more than you mean to. Many of these trial subscriptions are for services/products that cost a lot of money every month. Just call in before your trial is up, though, and you'll be fine. Also, don't sign up for one until you're ready to begin doing offers, and use a separate email address that you create for this purpose because you will get spam, and lots of it.
I didn't want to post about this until I saw for myself that I would actually get the money. I have a $500 Visa gift card in progress that has been approved, so hopefully that one will also arrive as expected in the next few weeks. I am SO excited. I mean, seriously. I get excited about coupon overages of 30 cents. This is fantastic. :)
*I accidentally clicked "download album" instead of "download song" on a music free trial, which bumped up my trial subscription to a paid subscription, otherwise it wouldn't have cost anything. However, the husband was pretty excited about it in the long run, because he got several CDs out of it that he has been wanting, so we made it part of his Valentine's Day present.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-18 05:31 pm (UTC)I should give you my spam e-mail address, give you a commission and ask you to do it for me. It can be a little side business for you.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-18 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-20 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-20 02:40 pm (UTC)That would work except it's really against the rules, and you have to sign up for all the offers for the same person as the one doing the offers, so everything would have to go to your house to avoid being obviously against the rules, plus the CC info wouldn't match. Then you would have to return any items that have to be returned, etc. It would be hard, logistically, if nothing else. But I don't think you'd have a problem doing it if you wanted to. I had a hard time deciding to try it, and put it off for several months because I wasn't sure I wanted to pursue it. I'm glad I did though!
no subject
Date: 2009-03-18 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 02:52 am (UTC)