Free Samples? Not!
Written: Sep 25 '00 (Updated Oct 09 '00)
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Where'd they go?
I signed up for FreeSamples.com over a month ago now. The concept is simple, you go to their web site to get free samples of products. You pick the products, fill out some forms, answer some survey questions about your spending habits / lifestyle, and they send you the products for free. You can only get a package once a day, and each package can only have 3-4 sample in it.
Problems
When I first signed up for their site, I went there three days straight to clean them out. I got two packages, never getting the third. I started going back for the next week or two and they didn't have much more in the sense of additional samples. Once something appeared again, I tried to add it to my 'shopping basket' but it never worked. It seemed they were having problems with the underlying web scripts as I was getting several server-related error messages. The problems happened several consecutive days, and happened repeatedly.
Products
The products you can get vary. One thing is for sure: sample sizes. Hey, they're free though. The samples I've gotten range from a pack of cheese crackers, to a 2-pack of minty gum, to a really small packet of spices, to cleaning wipes, to other various candies and what not.
Categories
The free samples are listed on site by category: pets, household, personal care, health, kids, entertainment, candy, beauty, and automotive. The problem is there is rarely anything listed. In order to find out if there are new samples available, you have to hit each category (some even have sub-categories). Why not just provide one or two pages with all the samples on them? Its not like they have ads and page views count/earn them money. While you can search, when there are no products, there is nothing to search for...
Privacy
In order to get the free samples you have to answer questions revealing your personal information like if you have a cell phone, cable tv, earnings, and lots more. Each free package seems to require 4 personal info questions. You also have 3-4 questions to answer for each product, like have you ever bought the product before, when would you use it, what other similar products do you use. Is it worth it? After seeing the products, in most cases not. I don't want to get any more spam or junk mail and FreeSamples.com is just going to sell it.
Conclusion
In the end, I'm staying away. It was nice to try, but why bother. You can get more just visiting BJ's on a weekend and don't have to give the person your life story to get a sample of the product they're pitching.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
jaz
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Member: John Zukowski
Location: Boston, MA
Reviews written: 18
Trusted by: 4 members
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