Always look a gift horse in the mouth

Roll up, roll up for lots of freebies. That’s what the creators of the following sites are hoping you’ll do, anyway.

Com-prizes(dot)com seems to host numerous offers and deals which do their best to get the attention of Twitter / Myspace users.

For example, twiter(dot)com-prizes(dot)com (yes, they did spell “Twitter” like that).


Click to Enlarge

The end-user is asked to fill in a few generic questions about social networking, then “receive up to $2,741.88 in cash”. The next screen – located at 5staroutlet(dot)com - contains a “sort of” attempt at a cheque image, along with various items of merchandise listed under the cash amount. It’s worth noting that above the section where you fill in your card details is a sentence that reads: “To receive my items, I only pay a modest release fee of just US $31.95”.


Click to Enlarge

A quick check of the T&C’s is interesting:


Click to Enlarge

“All items listed are not prizes or gifts as it is part of an intentional publicity program and therefore it is a merchandise offering and not a sweepstakes, prize draw or contest.”

Bold added by me. Also, this:


Click to Enlarge

Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K, methinks. They even call the items they send out “Awards” on the payment screen (look at the text in the circle, next to the VISA logo).

A similar page exists for Myspace users located at myspace(dot)com-prizes(dot)com, which also throws some random social networking questions at you before whipping out a “Free iPad” offer:


Click to Enlarge

This one operates almost identically to the landing page written about by Tom back in October, and of course “free” actually means “sign up for lots of different offers before you get anything”.


Click to Enlarge

Sign me up. Or not, as the case may be.

Further reading here, there and everywhere.

Christopher Boyd