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Over at Wired News, Leander Kahney follows up on the FreeIpods.com scammers, who do business as Gratis Internet of Washington, D.C..
Seems there's been a lot of complaints (besides my rant here) about the company:
Wired News has been inundated with complaints about spam, mishandled accounts and shipping delays.Earlier this month, Jim Youll, a 39-year-old CTO from Cambridge, Massachusetts, signed up with a virgin e-mail address and within hours started receiving spam.
"This is not an encouraging trend," he said, "and these are not targeted ads. They are garden-variety junk spams."
Aaron Shier, a 19-year-old student from Hamilton, New York, sent numerous unanswered queries to the company while waiting nearly 40 days to receive his iPod. When he did get it, it was from Hewlett-Packard, not the Apple Computer one he ordered.
"I am still getting spammed and so are the people who signed up for me," he said. "They stay true to their word that they will get you out a product, but their customer service is miserable."
And what about their spam practices?
Martin and Jewell denied e-mail addresses are sold to third parties, and said there's a clear unsubscribe mechanism for opting out of their marketing list. (Wired News received complaints that the unsubscribe mechanism doesn't work.)After the interview, Martin and Jewell said they will discontinue sending marketing e-mails.
Hmm, when I tried to opt out, they said it would take up to a week to stop the emails, though it only took them two hours to send the first ones.
Co-founders Peter Martin and Rob Jewell must be having the same problem trying to stop all the emails, cause I got two more of them today from these scammers.
Either that or these "above-the-board businessmen" told Leander a bald-faced lie.
(Note just got another spam from these slimeballs as I was writing this.)
Anyone up for calling Mr. Robert Jewell to see which one it was?
202-595-9123 ext.712. rob@gratisinternet.com
Posted by Ryan Singel at September 23, 2004 11:38 AM
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Today, March 23, New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed suit against Gratis Internet , the 'brains' behind the Freepay Freeipods.com pyramid marketing schemes, alleging the company massively violated its privacy policy by selling its customer ... [Read More]
Tracked on March 24, 2006 10:27 AM
Post a commentThey are definitely scammers alright. They consistently ignore completed referrals and refuse to send out iPods to users who have completed their requirements (such as myself). They can come up with any kind of excuse to put your account on hold and then never send you your ipod. Avoid these cheaters!
Posted by: Reed at October 12, 2004 05:27 PM
Anyone up for a class action lawsuit against freeipods.com
Posted by: Beyoung at October 13, 2004 07:12 PM
Seems like a class action lawsuit is only a few months away - they've started flagging perfectly valid accounts as fraudulent, with no recourse left to the user. They also refuse to explain _why_ an account has been deemed fraudulent, for "proprietary" reasons.
Check back in a year, bet you can claim on the lawsuit. Won't be a free ipod, but it should be _something_.
Posted by: GDorn at February 9, 2005 02:47 PM
I had at least 10 completed referals. But every time it got close to 5, one would go bad and I would be back to 4. This happened multiple times, so I know they are liars. Then when I inquired, they said they are not obliged to tell me. I asked one of my "invalid" referalls to ask why they were denied. Reason given was same IP address was used! Then I asked where in the agreement it says people can't sign up on my computer. I mean what if they live somewhere else, but using my computer? Apparently that does make sense to these thieves. Sue lets sue.
Posted by: Moose at September 23, 2005 09:24 AM
I only did theier freeipods site a couple months back (as that was the only site Canadians could do then) and did get my 30gb video ipod. I was optimistic that they would release more sites to Canadians soon, but for a long time this didn't seem to happen.
However, thankfully, just when they did release new sites, the news about the privacy breaches surfaced and thier 90 day policy came into action. So, like many others we decided to discontinue signing up for thier sites and start calling them a scam.
I'm still continuing on with this freebie deals but with other sites that give a more personal approach because they're smaller networks. I've recieved 2 more ipods and a psp, and am always awiting more and more! :D
Posted by: mark at April 4, 2006 06:01 PM
Many users find that after having successfully signed up their 5 people one of their referrals is placed on hold at the last minute thus rendering all of their efforts useless.
A good way of expressing disapproval at freeipods misleadng “on hold” con is to:
a) make a complaint to the services that you signed up to via freeipods
b) cancel the services that you sign up to, mentioning that freeipods are the reason
PS If you post this comment on 5 blogs I will send you a free ipod.
Posted by: Andrew Morgan at June 22, 2006 02:46 PM