A person just passed me along some information that involved people being able to get free items that a lot of people would want such as a computer or in this case just hard cash as well. So I was reading about it a bit and for this thing in particular it involved you having to try out free offers from companies and in turn the operators would give you an X amount of points for doing so. Similar to a rewards program, once you have accumulated enough points you can then redeem your prize.
There was definitely nothing wrong with this as I have seen a ton of businesses do this as basically the operators are paid to bring them leads and potential customers. With that money, they then use it for say prizes or items for the user. I guess the interesting question is whether or not these types of things are worth it in the end as by going with this route you are most likely going to be on hundreds of telemarketing type of lists as well as having to give up some personal information to receive the offers.
I suppose in some ways this is similar to going to those focus groups type of deals where you get paid for your opinions. I remember one time I was offered about $250 to have this person come down to my office location for about 2 hours as they wanted to compile general information on how various companies handle their printing needs. I didn’t end up doing it though. I guess it really depend on how bad you want or need it.
Maybe I’ll try it out and write about it afterwards. I suppose if it works then that gives people another way to get things if they are tight on a budget and don’t mind have to sacrifice a little bit of their time and information.