How to Find Free Stuff Online Without Getting Spammed

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Many people don’t believe in freebie hunting – they say if something is giving away for free, it’s most likely to be worthless. However experienced freebie hunters will tell you that by taking advantage of free offers you can get a hold of very useful staff and besides you become a smarter shopper because you keep an eye on new products, test their quality and compare pricing.

There’s only one huge problem with freebie hunting: there’s a lot of scam that can get you into trouble: you risk being added to some spam lists or (which is even worse) losing your money.

So if you ever consider freebie hunting, here are some essential tips to help you do it right:

Rely On Your First Impression

Just once you are at the site, give it a quick look and answer the following questions:

1. How did you learn about the offer? (If it came to your email box as unsolicited mail, this is scam. Spammers have nothing of value to offer!)
2. Does the overall design look professional? (“Yes” should be a good sign of a trustworthy website)
3. Is there any poor spelling or grammar used on the page / in the email message (A trusted resource will make sure to get rid of all mistakes before making an offer public)
4. Is the site stuffed with ads? (If there are many of them, this must be a scam)
5. Is there any irritating pop-ups? (A pop-up is a new window that opens on itself while you browse the site. It is a huge no-no for reliable sites)
6. Is there any valid contact information? (Be sure to check if the site has an address and a phone number)
7. Is there any valid privacy policy? (Especially if the site requires a login)
8. Which info do they require to send a freebie (If a website requires that you enter your credit card number to get your freebie, think twice!)

Use Online Forums That Discuss and Archive Scams

• 419eater is a popular forum discussing recent scams as sharing well as essential tips on avoiding them.
• FraudWatchers aggregate scam-related news and articles throughout the web as well as have a good forum for people to share their experience.
• Scam.com is an active discussion board for people to join and share scam news and tips.

Use Trusted Freebie Aggregators

There are plenty of websites reporting on daily freebies, you can pick those that best fit your needs and interests. Here I am sharing the one I personally prefer:

ListFreeSamples.com is a neat online freebie aggregator that is organized in multiple categories including drinks, pet samples, food samples, make-up, etc.

You don’t have to spend the whole day searching on the internet looking for free samples of your favorite brand. Get to try all kinds of products before purchasing them! All offers are obtained from legitimate websites. We will never post anything that is suspicious or spam-alike.

Buxr is another trusted source of freebies. All deals are added by real shoppers there, to make it even more reliable, each deal is verified, voted and commented by the administrators and other members, so you can rest assured that the offer is valid and legit.

Freebies are marked as “FREE” in the overall stream:

Track Freebies on Twitter

If people talk about something on Twitter, they may have first-hand experience in that, so you can try to connect to those people and ask about the details. Seesmic is my personal favorite when it comes to tracking anything on Twitter:

First, use the tool to search Twitter for [freebie];

Now, do whatever you want: Seesmic will be updating you of new search results with handy little pop-ups:

Check the Freebie Provider Reputation in Google

Search Google for the [freebie provider name] or the [freebie provider domain name]. Be sure to try the following:

• Look through at least 5 pages of the search results (top ten results may be manipulated but they cannot fake all the search results);
• Try to use some additional phrases: [freebie provider name] + [scam], [freebie provider name] + [experience], etc;
• Try using Google’s advanced search to view most recent mentions (found behind “Show options” link in Google):

Rules of Thumb

No matter how careful you are, if you start hunting for freebies, spammers will sooner or later get a hold of your email address. So it is usually advised to create a separate email address on any free services (Gmail and Yahoo! are two obvious choices);

If the offer seems to be to good to be true, chances are it is really not. Treat such offers with even more caution.

Any more security tips for newbie freebie hunters? Share them in the comments!

The guest post is by Ann Smarty, a search geek, social media enthusiast and experienced online shopper. Ann has recently started the community of guest bloggers which aims at connecting guest bloggers to blog owners who seek high-quality content and fresh perspective. I definitely recommend using this community if you’re looking for guest bloggers, or if you are looking to do some guest posting yourself.

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