BAD NEWS to those who are still processing...

I e-mailed Gratis about our long Processing wait and this is what they wrote me...

After a user completes the steps required to receive the product, Gratis Internet will take measures to ensure that the user receives orders within a reasonable amount of time. Delivery times vary amongst product suppliers, but most orders are received within 30 days from placing the order. Let me also explain what our different order statuses mean. “Pending” means we are working on processing your order. This usually takes 3 to 5 business days, but can take more time due to high volume or account verification. “In Progress” (1, 2, and 3 are all the same) means that your order has been sent to our vendor and we are awaiting shipment status. Again, iPods are on a serious backorder, so many users have had an order in pending for several WEEKS. Once an order has shipped your status will change to “Shipped” and you should receive the item in approximately 4 to 6 business days. We do not currently provide tracking numbers for orders placed on our website. We are working on adding this functionality. Please ONLY contact us if your order has been marked SHIPPED for over a week, and we can follow up with tracking it down. liliAt the present time, we have been experiencing a serious backlog of Ipod shipments due to their immense popularity. We have recently changed vendors and that has not made the process any easierlili. [ba3bedfe2fd]Another 3 weeks [/ba3bedfe2fd][/sizea3bedfe2fd]would be the best estimate we can give you at the moment. Thanks for your patience.

i think 3 weeks is an automated response time because ive never seen a response from them that didnt include that 3 weeks garbage.. they are telling us october STVers the same thing

[quoteab7dda68bc="r2d2_unit"]i think 3 weeks is an automated response time because ive never seen a response from them that didnt include that 3 weeks garbage.. they are telling us october STVers the same thing[/quoteab7dda68bc]

ohh, alright. Well I placed my order on the 8th of November, does anything think theres a possibility I might get my i pod within a the first week of december, considering that's already one month right there.

not a chance mate, sorry.

ordered mine on oct 5th, making it 1 month and 12 days, and no signs of it arriving any time soon.

[quote4a87889869="djcolumbiano"]not a chance mate, sorry.

ordered mine on oct 5th, making it 1 month and 12 days, and no signs of it arriving any time soon.[/quote4a87889869]

That's a shame...and add the fact that you're going to have to wait atleast another month from whatever future STV date you get. This is rediculous. ?

bogosity

@#$%

another 3 weeks for stv!?!?!?! thats ARGH!

It's complete garbage. I think they are still extremely unprepaired for the situation they're in and somehow think it might die off. Anyways, I don't understand what could possibly hold up shipments so long. I had a friend leaving for Iraq recently and he called Apple, ordered his and BAM...it arrives. The only delay I see is that I read somewhere that they were engraving the ipods and I thought I saw some pics. Don't call me an expert and don't quote me but that's kind of childish if I had to throw in my two cents. They make their money and they make so much that they want to tatoo everybodies ipods.....not to mention the delay that would put on shipments...

OMFG .....1-2 month wait for a COMPLETELY FREE IPOD....WHAT BULL SHIT!


Jesus, its free...wait the two months.

I think this program's life cycle is about to end....

[quote153eda573c="Lunarpancake"]OMFG .....1-2 month wait for a COMPLETELY FREE IPOD....WHAT BULL SHIT!


Jesus, its free...wait the two months.[/quote153eda573c]

here we go again witht that, "WAIT!!!!!!!!, it's a FREE iPOD" speech.

[quote9508389b3a]here we go again witht that, "WAIT!!!!!!!!, it's a FREE iPOD" speech.[/quote9508389b3a]

Yeah, you're right we worked so hard for that iPod and we don't get anything! Gratis is exploiting us and we should unionize and sue them!

lol

Come on now, I've spent really [b9508389b3a]a lot[/b9508389b3a] of time on this (as users around here can confirm), I've even started spending a little money on it that I don't really expect to be paid back to me, and I still think this is free and that it would still be if I had to wait 3 more months before I ship.

Now, I guess you're going to tell me that you're time is so precious, etc. Fine. Sue them then.

[quote7709558fd8="l0th"][quote7709558fd8]here we go again witht that, "WAIT!!!!!!!!, it's a FREE iPOD" speech.[/quote7709558fd8]

Yeah, you're right we worked so hard for that iPod and we don't get anything! Gratis is exploiting us and we should unionize and sue them!

lol

Come on now, I've spent really [b7709558fd8]a lot[/b7709558fd8] of time on this (as users around here can confirm), I've even started spending a little money on it that I don't really expect to be paid back to me, and I still think this is free and that it would still be if I had to wait 3 more months before I ship.

Now, I guess you're going to tell me that you're time is so precious, etc. Fine. Sue them then.[/quote7709558fd8]

I know, as much work as i put into freeipods.com, I don't think you should technically call it a "Free" iPod. For the last 2 months, I put so much time into this It was almost like i was a Gratis employee, now this Gratis Empolyee wants his pay, NOW!!!!!!!!!

Agreed, its not free, we are contracted thru them basically to sell their products and recieve a reward. I want my damn photoipod.

It's a business proposition. We make them MORE money than an iPod costs and they are supposed to ship us an iPod. We held up our end of the deal and they have yet to do theirs. Who cares if it's free? It's still a business arrangement. If this was in the real world there would be lawsuits because if you say 3-5 business days processing and it's been 23 days says last STV date that is horrible business practices. YES it's free but it's not like they're giving them out for nothing. We had to do a certain amount of work. Look at it this way. How well do you think it would hold up if you were working for a company and they kept promising your paycheck but kept making excuses saying, "liliAt the present time, we have been experiencing a serious backlog of payment checks due to their immense popularity. It turns out we're out of ink so please be patient as our best estimate is three more weekslili."? I honestly doubt you would say "We're getting paid for free guys. I can wait two months to get my check."

[quote44b31227e4]It's still a business arrangement.[/quote44b31227e4]

You're right. That's why you should have a closer look at the terms of this business arrangement you agreed to. You'll see that not only Gratis doesn't have to give you an iPod within a certain time limit they're not even obliged to give you an iPod at all.

Most contracts always benefit the person who wrote the contract and the person who is on the side of fullfilling the contract. They have the power in the first place so of course their terms of service is going to be written for them . They know we have no where to turn. Their customer service might as well just be a bot program.

Not only do most people fullfill their end of the bargain but they fullfill it and then some. I just kept referring people until I got 5 greens, I know a lot of my people completed the offer but it just the offers they completed were not credited yet.

That considered the people that send them more referrals and people that give up with not enough referrals they seriously should be making enough of a killing to be able to do a better job.

This still does not change the fact that Apple can not make enough of them.

If you want to believe it or not, IPODS are just on back order.

Backorder or no backorder that is no excuse for their lack of customer service and the order in which they ship being so random and a mystery.

as long as i get it by Christmas im happy

is it possible that the shipments are backed up because Apple doesn't want to sell gratis the iPods right now. They might want to focus all of their production on the Christmas rush...

so processing means, there still verifing your account?

or processing means there submitting your order to vender?

I think processing means submitting your order to the vendor or in the process of doing so. Then when it is sent you go STV. But this doens't explain how you can get placed on hold while on STV, since you're already approved.

[quotef7a3133c3e="TomLeykis"]Backorder or no backorder that is no excuse for their lack of customer service and the order in which they ship being so random and a mystery.[/quotef7a3133c3e]
I agree. And the point from you previous post about them getting referrals from those who never complete is where they are making their money. That's their whole business model to ship out as few free iPods as possible to people. So the delay in us getting our iPods is no surprise since we are dealing with the contract drafters.

We did our job to get them referrals... most likely more than the 5 we needed to fulfill our end of the deal (i had over 30 yellows and who knows how many more of them went green after I got approved). It makes sense for them to at least get the 10-15% of people that do complete their deals their iPod. At minimum, it makes their business legitimate and encourages new users to sign up.

P.S. Still waiting here in Utah. any sign of iPods down in Dixie?

i can't see how they're backordered so badly. offer centric has been shipping them out in no time. (i got mine in 5 days, not to brag or anything) so I think the fact that they are back ordered is a bunch of shit. if OC can do it, why not Gratis?

-Cap'n

It's called holiday rush. In case you hadnt notcied Christmas shopping season has started, which means iPods are in HUGE retail demand.

yeah, they're in huge demand, but aren't they in even bigger supply?

I used to run an ebuisiness like this.

I'd turn a profit by buying and selling DVDs online. When I started to back up it was because I accidentally spent to much...and wound up in debt and had to shut down.

I think Gratis can't fill all of these offers. I think they are waiting for more money to come in.

-Blav

I dont know why nobody believes me.


There have been vendors that have had their orders placed since June with no luck getting their ipods.


Seriously, buying direct from apple is the ONLY way Gratis had any chance of filling their large order of ipods.

Look at the other offers. People get their PC/TV/ETC in a rather quick matter.

The last time I checked, last week, Apple had 3500 commited orders. They had more inventory arriving this week, and I am sure that they will all be commited the second they arrive.


Smaller companies like Offercentric can buy up a few loose ipods here and there. Offercentric would NOT be able to fill orders if they had the same amount of orders that freeipods.com has

The fact remains, the ipod is on national backorder.

I am sure that your ipods will come, just gotta wait wait wait.


The holiday time will be MUCH worse in terms of ipods. Obviously the biggest selling time of electronics.



If you guys REALLY care, i can tell you how many ipods go in and out of apples warehouses, but honestly, the end result is that they still have 0 left at the end of the day.

i did a customer service about inquiry about it, and they replied

"Please be patient. You will receive your product. As soon as your status updates it will be reflected in your account."

so why don't they just give me $300 and I can go buy my own ipod at any o the dozens of vendors around me with stock ON the shelf !! I will suck it up and pay the $18 in tax.

Chris Taylor
http//www.nerys.com/

I think there's something I don't understand then. The national backorder shouldn't matter for what we're talking about here. I thought processing meant that the order was being processed at Gratis. Even if there are backorders everywhere, I don't see why Gratis should add ours, so that we don't wait [b61c3a51377]even more[/b61c3a51377] when we become stv.

Am I wrong about this? I thought processing meant that no vendor having iPods in stock has heard about us yet. If I'm right about this, it means that we're talking about backorders that don't even include us.... Now think about the wait that is to come once we become stvs. shock

[quote43f661e592="l0th"]I think there's something I don't understand then. The national backorder shouldn't matter for what we're talking about here. I thought processing meant that the order was being processed at Gratis. Even if there are backorders everywhere, I don't see why Gratis should add ours, so that we don't wait [b43f661e592]even more[/b43f661e592] when we become stv.

Am I wrong about this? I thought processing meant that no vendor having iPods in stock has heard about us yet. If I'm right about this, it means that we're talking about backorders that don't even include us.... Now think about the wait that is to come once we become stvs. shock[/quote43f661e592]

I don't know, that would be pretty messed up of Gratis to make us wait a month to go STV, then another month to get shipped. shock

i've been wating 4 months since i started this offer.
in retrospect i guess 2 more months is just 50% more.
im 2/3's their

[quote7056d9ab60]I don't know, that would be pretty messed up of Gratis to make us wait a month to go STV, then another month to get shipped.[/quote7056d9ab60]

I don't think Gratis would be responsible for the wait once we're stv.

All I know is that I've been processing since 10/13 for freeipods, and that I don't see why I wouldn't have to wait that much and more once my status change from processing to stv at freephotoipods.

I don't want to cause panic here, but all the people who have been processing for less than a month might want to consider that this is maybe not even half of what they'll have to wait to get their free gift.

thing is i don't see a reason why apple would not sell to gratis, true its on high demand, but gratis also pays probably the same amount as any other company does, and gratis does buy a lot of them, so they are a major contributer to apple.....unless they worked out a deal in which gratis gets the for cheaper or something.....

[quoteff615ff943]thing is i don't see a reason why apple would not sell to gratis[/quoteff615ff943]

me neither. Unless Gratis doesn't have the money to pay. That would explain the processing time there's no processing at all going on, Gratis is just waiting to cash the checks from the companies they advertise before they can send our orders to vendors.

Seriously, if there are already national backorders a month before christmas, if Gratis doesn't send our orders out within the next 15 days, our gifts won't ship before.... I don't even want to think about it.

I have been waiting since july to get my ipod. I made my account in July then got put on hold in September.. Then i got taken off hold in October then i went to processing 10/27/04.

[quotee66bfda782="brownfx"]I have been waiting since july to get my ipod. I made my account in July then got put on hold in September.. Then i got taken off hold in October then i went to processing 10/27/04.[/quotee66bfda782]

That's sad.

Now that I look back on this thread, I laugh. lol