Helpful Freebie Tips

[jeffrey]

If you are new to freebies, there are a number of tips that will make your life much easier while applying for them. These are our recommended tips:

1. Create A Freebie Mailbox: You want to be sure to set up a new email account (hotmail, yahoo or gmail) to use exclusively for freebie offers. This will enable you to sort through all the follow-up emails companies will send you (while some of these will be SPAM, others often contain other freebie or discount offers) without having your private email box overflow.

While in the past it was necessary to check your freebie email on a fairly regular basis so as not to go over your space limit, with the free email providers now offering a huge amount of space, this is no longer an issue. Still, you want to check every once in awhile as some emails will include other good freebie offers.

2. Get Form Filling Software: You'll find that filling out the required information for all the freebie offers you want will be extremely time consuming. Therefore you'll want to consider getting form filling software. One of the more popular free form fillers is Robo Form.

Gator is another form filler that works well, but some people have issues with it because it contains SpyWare (SpyWare is software within the program that records where you go on the Internet and then reports your activities back to the site that sponsors the software).

3. Giving Out Information:

ADDRESS: It's necessary to be realistic when going after freebies. If you don't give a valid address when signing up for a freebie, there is no way it can be delivered to your house.

PHONE NUMBER: Rarely is there a valid reason for a freebie offer to require a phone number. If a freebie offer requires a phone number, consider long and hard before giving that information to them.

CREDIT CARD NUMBER: Unless it is for a free trial of a service that you are 100% sure is legitimate, never give out your credit card number for a freebie offer.

OTHER SENSITIVE INFORMATION: When a freebie offer starts asking for sensitive information like your social security number or a bank account number, you want to leave that freebie site right away.

4. Realistic Expectations: While the members listing freebies try to provide links to legitimate offers, sometimes the freebies offered do not arrive. This can be for a number of reasons such as the company not having a large enough supply of the freebie offered. It can also be that a spammer has set up a site to gather email addresses (another important reason to set of a dedicated freebie email account) and never intended to send out the freebie in the first place. Be aware that cases like this do happen and it is a part of getting freebies on the Internet.

Along these lines, if you do receive a freebie, it is always a nice gesture to leave a short note that the freebie arrived so others know that it is legitimate.

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Copyright Jeffrey Strain and SavingAdvice.com 2003 - 2006, All Rights Reserved. If you find anything inaccurate in this article, please email us.

Also be sure to read our disclaimer.

Great Tips, I will be aware of all this things, and everyone who enters this site should check out this.

Thanks for the tips.

[more freedom]

Jeffrey,

Thank for these tips. You spent so much time to type all this up.

thank you

[crazyBMB]

Just found this, Thanks

[mmbugs]

Thanks for the roboform. My fingers were getting tired from all that typing.

[nancy58]

All the tips from Jeffrey are very valid and important. PLEASE consider long and hard before you give out a phone #...maybe give a cell phone # instead. And DEFINATELY do not give out very personal, financial information...why do they need it if its an honest company looking for future business.

Also, if you really like a sample you received, email the company. Sometime they respond by snail mailing you coupons for the product..another freebie!

[karenkennakyle]

THANKS FOR ALL OF THE GREAT HINTS. I WILL DEFINATELY BE USING THIS INFORMATION ON MY FREEBIE SEARCH.

[s.saver]

I think that these are wonderful tips. I have never used form filler software, does it really work?

[dcg22]

Thanks for the info about the freebies, I have ordered a few. I will be careful about them in the future. Not sure about RoboForm, is it really safe?

[nancy58]

dcg22, yes Roboform is safe. You can limit the amount of info you put in it and do not have to fill in all areas available to fill in. I have used Roboform for over 5 years now, gone thru a few updated versions and would not be with out it. Just know that the less info you put in many require you to input other areas on a request form that were not covered by the info in your Roboform. Great product. Try it , you can always delete the info and then the program if you don't like it. (PS: Do Not purchase the extended version, no need to if you preiodically "clean your info out").

[dcg22]

Thanks nancy58 for the prompt reply, I think I will try it then
dcg22

[pete1014]

Thanks for all the info. It is very useful.

[psaysofavril]

I love the roboform info. It takes so much time to re-enter all of your info. And it becomes redundant very fast.

[Blessedmomof2]

Thanks for all that info, I'll have to look into Roboform.

[edmundo]

Thanks for the tips. I'm glad these were helpful.

[leggzz66]

I use roboform also. I couldnt do all i do here w/o it. it saves so much time. I timed it one day, took 10 mins to do all of the 100 freebies, including time for stuff i intentionally left off the roboform. I do believe tho here, that, I would never give out my cell #. Id give a landline first. At least you can sign that number up at the do not call list.gov. Which i had done. I reccommend it, cause if you get tellemarketing calls alot, it will block them all. When they call me now and that s far and few between, i tell them, my number is on the do not call government list. They hang up and dont call again. Only reason i believe i get any at all now is they use a master list. A sheet, that has ur prefix, the 2 numbers on top, then 00-99 on the sheet, and they mark em off as they go. I think you can add cell numbers to the do not call list, but then mines on a minute limit per month, so i dont bother giving it out.

[toys]

I understand Roboform is the form-fllling-master, but who else is there?

I've done Google searches and found dozens, but I don't know which ones to trust. Further, I've downloaded a few and tried them. Most don't have as much info stored and don't transfer it as fully.



Anyone else have any recommendations for free form filling shareware that works with Firefox?

[leggzz66]

I only know 2 for sure, one is roboform, another i forget name of it, but its by gator publishing, and i wouldnt use anything of thiers, not the weather bug, nada! my friend in ohio did and she got a joke virus, which she said, when she took it in to be fixed, that its the most difficult to remove. They told her, they tracked it back to gator publishing. it has a weird name for that virus, an x word or z. it was weird tho. but it was a joke virus, that part i remember clearly.

[gagulis]

Oho ! Really interesting!