You know those free TV or free laptop offers you get in your spam mail?

I tried one for the hell of it. It was for a free 32'' flat screen TV. I made up a disposable Yahoo email account and signed up for a bunch of trial offers like AOL 2 months free, Applied for a Discover card, Vonage 1 month free Etc.

Anyway the website said it could take up to 8 weeks to complete confirmation that I had signed up for 6 offers.

I was getting a little annoyed that it did indeed take 8 weeks for the last offer to be confirmed so I sent a nasty email to the company. Then on Friday (3 days before it would be the 8 week total) I got a check in the mail from the company with a letter saying...

"At this time we are unable to provide your gift through our normal process, enclosed is a check for the value of the gift. Please use it to purchase the gift you originally applied for"

The check was for $350 I cancelled all the free offers today, the only offer I kept was Vonage, it's actually pretty cool. So all in all the $350 check didnt cost me a cent other than the small shipping charge for Vonage.

I never needed the TV; I just wanted to see if these offers were for real or not. Now I have money to buy the new tires needed for my 17" wheels

 

One other thing, I do not recommend this to anyone unless you are good at keeping track of things, it is very important to write down all the offers you sign up for and keep track of usernames and passwords so that you can cancel them after you receive your gift.