New Fraud Reporting Form at Gratis Sites

http//www.freeipods.com/Faqs.aspx?FAQID=1378

If you find a website or person in violation of their terms, especially section V, report it there!

Fraud hurts everybody.

And what is section 5?

Here's section V of the Terms (freeipods.com/Terms.aspx)

V. HOLD

1. Common Reasons for Being Placed on Hold

(a) Multiple accounts.

(b) Fraudulent referrals.

(c) Negative feedback from one of our affiliates or offers being completed and immediately canceled.

(d) More than one account at a user's shipping address.

(e) Posting information on a website, forum, or auction that has to do with "canceling the offers" included, but not limited to, cancellation phone numbers, cancellation time frames, and any encouragement or direction to cancel the offers after signing up with them.

(f) Any other reason or a combination of reasons at the sole discretion of Gratis Internet.

2. Additional terms regarding "hold" status

(a) We reserve the right to place a user's account on hold at any time.

(b) We are not responsible for notifying a user about his or her account being placed on hold.

(c) If an account is placed on hold, all orders will be frozen and the user will be unable to order from any of the Gratis Internet websites.

(d) A user who has had his or her account placed on hold may not create another account.

(e) A user's account will be on hold indefinitely. Holds do not expire.

(f) A user may not receive any reimbursement for points or referrals accumulated prior to being placed on hold.

(g) If a user feels that he or she has been placed on hold in error (i.e. has not acted against the terms of Gratis Internet), he or she may contact us via our website.

(h) We reserve the right to place a user's account on hold after they have gotten credit for a free item, and even after ordering and receiving their free item. We also hold the right to follow up legally on fraudulent activities.

I noticed the update on the main page that said "Gratis is taking legal action against a few people". Are these "few people" people that have like...10 accounts each, or what? It would be nearly impossible for Gratis to take legal action against everyone who has more than one account. As of that the date of that FreeiPod clip from the NBC station in Boston, they said that they have over 50 million users on FIP, alone. I'm sure it has grown much more since them....

I can understand their desire not to have people encouraging others to cancel the offers, but to ask them not to post telephone numbers.... that seems a bit much.

You may not want to encourage that action, but it's that person's decision. If they don't have the option, then they will not sign up at all, and I can see that happening everywhere, if Gratis is serious about that bit.

If your referral is too dumb to figure out how to cancel, they probably can't figure out how to use an iPod

The idea is that people try offers they are legitimately interested in, not ones that have a cancellation number available. If at the end of the trial they don't like the offer, they're free to cancel, but they should do that entirely on their own.

[quote7cd4aad478="Admin"]The idea is that people try offers they are legitimately interested in, not ones that have a cancellation number available. If at the end of the trial they don't like the offer, they're free to cancel, but they should do that entirely on their own.[/quote7cd4aad478]

There's no way gratis has a leg to stand on if they think they can pursue legal action for posting phone numbers or time-frames...

[quote7c33142a9d="lip"]I noticed the update on the main page that said "Gratis is taking legal action against a few people". Are these "few people" people that have like...10 accounts each, or what? It would be nearly impossible for Gratis to take legal action against everyone who has more than one account. As of that the date of that FreeiPod clip from the NBC station in Boston, they said that they have over 50 million users on FIP, alone. I'm sure it has grown much more since them....[/quote7c33142a9d]

50M users would be 20% of the country...I doubt that number is accurate.

[quote1b83c4413c="doylnea"][quote1b83c4413c="Admin"]The idea is that people try offers they are legitimately interested in, not ones that have a cancellation number available. If at the end of the trial they don't like the offer, they're free to cancel, but they should do that entirely on their own.[/quote1b83c4413c]

There's no way gratis has a leg to stand on if they think they can pursue legal action for posting phone numbers or time-frames...[/quote1b83c4413c]

What do you define as legal action? Maybe you're right.

But they CAN put associated accounts on hold, and that's usually enough to compel site owners to comply...

considering it's not illegal to do that and it's freedom of speech and information, they can't take legal action (talked to a lawyer friend of mine) the most they could do is put your account on hold, even though it wouldn't be fair unless you actually scammed them, they do say they can put anyone on hold at any time (which is by far the easiest way for them to throw peoples legit accounts away)

oh also, wouldn't that mean a lot of people on these forums and in the chatrooms would get their account put on hold. hell, right now there's posts about how ebay is easy because you can use a dummy email and don't need a credit card. plus there's been phone #'s and everything. admin, since you have ties to gratis... you should tell them that they should scan ebay.com and search "free ipod" and see all the scamming people recommend on it.

[quote21999dafb9="Admin"][quote21999dafb9="doylnea"][quote21999dafb9="Admin"]The idea is that people try offers they are legitimately interested in, not ones that have a cancellation number available. If at the end of the trial they don't like the offer, they're free to cancel, but they should do that entirely on their own.[/quote21999dafb9]

There's no way gratis has a leg to stand on if they think they can pursue legal action for posting phone numbers or time-frames...[/quote21999dafb9]

What do you define as legal action? Maybe you're right.

But they CAN put associated accounts on hold, and that's usually enough to compel site owners to comply...[/quote21999dafb9]

Legal action was mentioned in the transcript of Harry's conversation the other day; I might have inferred that into their new T&C. However if gratis implies that they're going to sue people for canceling a trial offer, they'll get laughed out of any attorney's office before they'd even make it to court.

[quote21999dafb9]Posting information on a website, forum, or auction that has to do with "canceling the offers" included, but not limited to, cancellation phone numbers, cancellation time frames, and any encouragement or direction to cancel the offers after signing up with them. [/quote21999dafb9]

Gratis putting accounts on hold for offering information on how to cancel offers is asinine. I totally understand the idea that Gratis's advertisers are upset with people signing up for an offer and then canceling 4 days later, or 4 hours later for that matter. But, Gratis has to understand that for the most part, the offers that they promote are [b21999dafb9]Trial Offers[/b21999dafb9] and the users who cancel (after trying the product) are just exercising their right to cancel the trial.

I've been participating in Gratis websites (FGP, etc) since late December of 2003. I have tried many offers and canceled most of them (knowing full well that I was never going to use the service for which I signed up). I have however kept a few ongoing subscriptions - the NY Times and Infone being two. I was however respectful and courteous when canceling my trial offers.

The fact that a website, or post on a website offers information on how to cancel or even suggests that a user cancel their trial on the 13th day of a 14 day trial is not encouraging behavior with which Gratis should be concerned. I can however see the concern of Gratis when someone posts "Tell Encestry.org to lick your balls and that you only signed up for the credit at freegratisgear.com." But I think that by and large, that is not the case.

Most concerning to me, is the opportunity for abuse and screwing over of legitimate users by someone reporting some guy they're mad at, when the guy they're mad at hasn't done anything "wrong." (I'm on a network that doesn't allow me to actually view the reporting link). And more to the point, what you're also beginning to see is Gratis becoming more and more restrictive on paying out, going so far as to place legitimate accounts on hold.

Of course, Gratis is legally allowed to do this because it says they can do almost anything in their T&C and we've all agreed to their T&C by signing up for an account; whether this is an ethical thing for them to do it a question for another day. But Gratis is a business aiming to be profitable, and they are being self-protective (which any good business can and should be) by protecting their advertisers, since it's the advertisers who pay Gratis. In the end, I think that Gratis is likely looking for a better way to regulate how much they pay out in product, especially after the reports of people having multiple accounts and "earning" more than one Ipod or FS.

Yeah. Thats really what it comes down to. The more people that fake multiple accounts and fraud them out of thousands in product, the tighter the laces have to be pulled. If people simply acted honestly I sincerely doubt that there would be so many accounts on hold.

That said, a single report is almost never enough to get someone put on hold. It's not automatic; it just means they're going to take a closer look.

And for those accounts that are legitimate and do get put on hold, we have the kind Harry in the Account Issues area to get it all straightened out.