I’m sure you’ve seen the pop-ups promising you a free XBOX 360, and all you have to do is enter your email address, or a free $200 gift card to your favorite retail store if you just answer a quick survey on what your favorite restaurant is. Most likely you have, since they are everywhere, and if you are like me, you probably thought it was a scam. I mean, how on earth could you get something worth $50 - $1,000 for free? It just doesn’t make sense.
Well, I can tell you now from personal experience that it does work. The reason I can say this is that I decided on May 2nd 2007 that I was going to do one of these offers, and then October 9th 2007, I was finally able to hold the gift card in my hand. How did I do this? Let me explain…
First off, I would have never done it if I hadn’t seen someone else start the process and be confident about it. A blogger that I enjoy reading (Money Dummy) decided to do it, and since I completely trust her judgment, a month later I decided to try as well. I knew going into it that I would have to complete 4 different offers, and that it would cost me money, but I knew how to go about doing it so that I would eventually get the gift card…and here is what you need to know if you’re thinking about trying it.
1. Pick a legitimate company/brand. If you like an offer, make sure that they have given out gift cards in the past. I used YourTopBrands, and was very happy with them. They also work under the name Brandarama, as well as a few others.
2. Make sure you do all of the offers you are supposed to. For example, in mine I had to do 4 offers – 1 from each page. If I had done 2 from one of the pages, and 2 from another, I wouldn’t have completed the offer, and wouldn’t have gotten the gift card. Make sure you follow the directions exactly.
3. Look at the offer choices, and see what makes sense for you. Personally, I liked an offer that was a $0.99 30-day trial to a music site. It was very little money, and I could easily cancel out of it. I also tried to find offers that I would actually use (although that didn’t happen in every case), but I wanted to make sure I was spending as little out of pocket as possible, while doing an offer that would be done quickly and easily.
4. Make sure you cancel out of whatever you have to! Many of the offers you will be able to choose from will be some sort of monthly program, or trial, where after 30 days you will get billed again. Make sure you write down the date you did the offer, and when you must cancel by, and make sure you do cancel by that date.
5. Every time you do an offer, take a screen shot showing that you completed it. For example if you had to sign up to a website, take a screen shot of the page that says welcome with your name on it. This will help if your offer doesn’t show up as completed within the given timeframe. If you can send them the screen shot, you can help prove that you did complete the offer.
6. Save any emails that you get from the offers you complete. Again, this will help you prove that you did join or purchase what you needed to in order to complete the offer. So if the company you did the offer for doesn’t get back to the gift card company, you can email them with your email and screen shot, and prove that it should be listed as complete.
7. Once all of your offers are complete, you will have to send them a form saying that you want the gift card and that you completed all the offers. It’s a really simple form; you just print it out and write your name and address on it. Make sure you not only send them this form, but also go to the post office and send it certified mail (and if you’d like, also get a return receipt). This will make sure that you know they received it, and can prove that it was sent as well. This will also (in my opinion) make them take you seriously so that they can’t just easily “lose” your form and forget about you.
8. Keep reminding them you are waiting. Once your status is confirmed, they usually say the wait is 4-6 weeks. After about 4 weeks or so, start either emailing or calling them every 2-3 weeks, just asking the status of the card. It does seem that they are always backlogged as far as shipping the gift cards, but it does remind them that you are still there, and are still waiting.
9. Be prepared to wait. I started the process on May 2nd and all of my offers were completed and confirmed within a week. I mailed the form on May 21st (within a few days after being able to print the form out and mail), and the website changed my status to “Status is Confirmed; to be Shipped” on June 18th. I did not receive the gift card until October 9th.
Here are a few more helpful tips when trying to decide on an offer. The bigger the gift card, the more offers you will have to complete to get them. For example, you might only need one or two small offers for a $100 gift card, but you’ll have to do bigger offers (and more of them) for a $500 or $1,000 gift card. As long as you keep on top of everything, you shouldn’t have a problem, and things should go smoothly. Every time I emailed customer support, I got a response within 24 hours.
Yes, I had to wait 5 full months from the time I started the offer until I had the gift card in my hands, but was it worth it? Of course! Overall, I ended up spending less than $50.00, and less than an hour of my time, and got $1,000 in return for it. Would I do it again? You bet. I plan on finding another offer to start next!
Since I have used this company before and know that they are trustworthy, I thought I’d share a few of their current offers. I will be doing one of them, just don’t know which yet.
$400 in American Express Gift Card
$500 Gift Certificate to Borders or Barnes & Nobles - Your choice
$500 American Express Gift Card for Baby Shopping Spree
