The Free Gift World

How many times have you been surfing the internet, to be faced with some form of advertisement offering you some free gift? Well after seeing numerous adverts for free this and free that, I decided it was time to dive in and uncover this hidden world of so called free gifts.

September 2006 was the starting point on my journey to reveal if when and how these websites give away free gifts. As it was close to Christmas I decided an Xbox 360 was my gift of choice as my younger son would be over the moon.

So armed with a few websites which offer these so called free gifts I started to research each website by using link searches on Google to try and see if there was an army of people linking to the sites, which would give me more confidence on which to join.

A few hours later I decide on 1 website and sign up. What you are required to do to claim the free gift (Xbox 360) in my case, is complete one of the many offers the website has to offer. The amount of offers is quiet impressive and seems to cover every base, from free trials to joining casinos and spending £10 as an example. Once you have completed your offer, they credit you and at this point allot of people will be thinking ok that was too easy for a free Xbox 360. Well it's just the start of a little journey called referrals. (Aka greens) I will explain greens later.

Reading the terms and conditions I am now required to refer 10 people to the same website, but using a unique referral code which you are issued. now this is where you start to think, hang on how am I going to refer 10 people to join and each of them have to in turn complete one of the offers. When they complete one of the offers successfully I gain 1 credit (green). convincing some of my family to signup for me was an interesting exercise having to explain what I was doing and try to help them understand what I myself wasn't 100% sure of. I did in the end manage to convince 6 of my family to sign up and help me on my journey, a journey at this point I didn't know if it was going to end in joy and happiness or tears and disappointment.

Ok I now have six people signed up and all have completed an offer, the offers I and my six family members choose was a two week no obligation free trial with Love film, the requirements are you rent at least one DVD during the free trial to qualify for your credit. So I'm left thinking how do I get 4 more people signed up and get them to complete an offer. My first instinct was to start asking friends which proved quiet fruitful and managed 3 more people.

The last person I needed proved to be quiet a challenge as no more family or friends would be willing to signup and complete an offer for me. This started me thinking of advertising, but what would I put and what format I would use to advertise my referral code. calling cards was my first thought but then realised this would not work very well due to the referral code being quiet long, people would not sit there and type in a 30+ letters of a web address. That same evening I placed a few items of children's clothing on eBay and it was only after I was looking back at the adverts it dawned on me.

I opened one of the adverts and clicked the edit button, scrolling to the bottom of my advert I type in the words "would you like a free games console?" then my clickable referral code under it.

2 days passed and I logged into my account on the free gift website, the words "you have now completed the requirements for your free gift" please click submit for your account to be verified.
I was very excited and then realised that I had in fact now got 13 credits on my account.
Everyday for two weeks I was logging into my account and checking for some confirmation that I had got my free Xbox 360. Two more days passed and I was beginning to wonder if all this was some sort of scam, reading the terms and condition over and over to make sure there was nothing hiding in the depths of their documentation to say I could not have my free gift.

On the 28th of November I checked my account once more; "CONGRATULATIONS" please press the order button. I was skipping around the living room like a 10 year old child whose just been told he's having 2 Christmas's this year. With shaky hands I clicked the order button; I was then faced with an estimated delivery date of 18th of December 2006. family and friends who had signed up for me were now getting excited as they also could get a free gift, as the days passed very slowly I have to add I still had this doubt in the back of my mind would they really send me the Xbox 360.

18th December arrived being so close to Christmas I was having more doubts that it may not arrive and if they have sent it out will it arrive this side of Christmas with it being a very busy period for parcels.

11.45 am approx the door went, my heart jumped when I looked out of the window to see a UPS delivery man standing at my door. The package was very big and the delivery man must have thought I was mad as I kept saying "I can't believe they sent it". I had 10 minutes to spare before collecting my son from play group so quickly ripped the package open, it was an Xbox 360 I was almost with joy there was no way I could have bought my son this Xbox, and now he will have a Christmas to remember.

There are many websites offering free gifts but not all of them are genuine. But they do exist and you really can get free expensive gifts. Have faith if you want to try.