In an ideal world all would be as it seems, but alas since it's not, you will want to try to determine the legitimacy of free offers before signing up. I do my best to do this for you for offers on my site, but the final decision is always yours.
Difficulty Level: average Time Required: 5 minutes
Here's How:
- Look at who is making the offer, does it seem like a legitimate company?
- Look at the Web site. Is it professionally done or does it look like someone threw it together just to get something online?
- Check that the site have a privacy policy that tells your personal information is handled.
- Make sure the offer doesn't look good on the surface but appear much less attractive once you read the details.
- Determine whether the offer is free of excessive shipping and handling charges relative to its value.
- Judge whether more information is requested than seems appropriate for he value of the offer.
- Check dates to find out if the offer seems current and does not appear to be an old, abandoned offer that the company never bothered to remove.
- If you are still unsure about an offer but are really interested in it you can post a message on the forum. Check the link to the forum under related features below.
- If you don't feel comfortable with an offer just ignore it.
- Don't provide more information than you wish to. For example, I never give my phone number. (555 is a handy exchange)
- Use a disposable free email address if you are unsure about the company's privacy policy.
Related Features: