Tuesday, August 08, 2006

My Free Spam

Experiment: myfreehp.com
Status: In Testing

I was driving today, and I heard an offer on the radio. It was an offer for a free laptop. Now, I prefer to think of myself as a pretty intelligent person, so I was well aware that this was either a scam or an invitation to allow a billion companies to solicit my mailbox with the compassion of a pimp in Amsterdam. But, seeing as how I needed something to type today, I figured I would try a little experiment, and see exactly if this offer was real or not. Here is how the experiment went:

Step 1 – sign up at myfreehp.com
Step 2 – click through 3 pages of offers, choosing “no” on all of them.
Step 3 – well, I walked into this one…

Basically step three was what I expected. I answered “no” on all of the advertisement options, because it said that I did not need to choose “yes” to any of them. Then, as I get through those three pages, I am presented with a page stating I have to choose 4 offers and complete the trial sign-up, then I would be able to verify my address for the sipping of my, ahem, free laptop. So I chose these 4:

1 – All Cool Music: first I had to enter my name an email address, then I had to choose an option for payment. This is what I expected, so I left the page open without filing it out and went onto my second choice.

2 – Yourmusic.com: this is a site where you pay $5.99 for any CD. Now it is important to remember that the radio commercial stated there is nothing to buy, and all I am doing is filling out surveys. Maybe the survey companies just forgot to mention that whole paying for shit I don’t want or need part. Anyway, like the first one, I left it open and did not complete registration.

3 – BMG Music Service: we all know what this is, same MO as the last 2.

4 – My Daily Dose – something about free health literature. Basically, I just got tired of reading all of them and picked the first one that did not look like a sexual enhancement of some sort.

Next I started browsing through all the other pages, trying to get to the end. I was then place back on the front page, after it stated that I completed the process. So naturally, I try to log in to see that status of my “free laptop”, and guess what? My password doesn’t work, of course. This is not surprising at all. So I had them send me a new password, and once I get it I will follow up on this, and I will let you all now the outcome.

-B
It’s gonna be a world of hurt

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