EricaJoy

The "Free" ride is over…

You remember back a couple years ago, Free iPod mania swept the nation? Okay maybe thats going a smidge overboard. You can’t deny that there was a lot of buzz on the internets about it. I managed to nab a few free things myself during that time period and on. Back then, little known company Gratis Internet won the hearts of many cash strapped college students. However, today, after a name change, a policy change, and some unsettling information, I have to wonder, if the free ride is over?

On March 1st, I got a nice email from Freepay (what Gratis changed their name to) stating that I now had 90 days to complete my free offers and get however many signups that I needed. What’s this? A policy change? So I head on over to the Freepay website and find…nothing. No explanation, no quick blurb about a major policy change, no “Click here to find out more about our recent changes.” Just nothing. So I click to their “News Blog” and again nothing. That struck me as odd so I head over to a forum that has been around since the beginning of the free site fun. What I’ve read there has is what led me to my conclusion about the end of the ride.

First, Jake, the resident Gratis/Freepay representative, has no real answers about the change of policy. Not a bit of insight into why, exactly, it is required for people to complete their accounts in 90 days. Later, a half-hearted explanation about the policy change “from the top” of Gratis/Freepay states they made the policy change for accurate financial planning and statistics showing that 93% of people finish their accounts in less than 90 days. I find that number hard to believe as so many people sign up and NEVER do anything with their accounts (trust me, I have accounts full of them).

Second, Gratis/Freepay instructed Jake to lie about what was first called a “glitch” that was causing peoples accounts to stay in Pending Approval status but turned out to be an offer that Gratis/Freepay was having a problem with. This does not bode well for any business, let alone one that has to battle to be believed to begin with.

Third, and most alarming, is the revelation that Gratis/Freepay, who promised never to share users information, has in fact, sold millions of users information to a company named Datran, who had to cough up this information in an investigation. As a result, Gratis/Freepay is now under investigation by Eliot Spitzer.

All this makes one wonder how Gratis/Freepay will fare in the next few months. Is the investigation the REAL reason for the policy change? Are they trying to scale back just in case Spitzer smacks them with billions of dollars in fines? I guess we’ll have to watch and see. Meanwhile, let me get back to hustling to get my last four signups for a free computer before they go under.