Almost suckered
I nearly got suckered into biting on a recent Facebook ad. The pitch: sign up for 6 services of your choice among dozens, ranging from Netflix to credit cards to specialty coffee, and in return you’ll get a $1000 digital SLR camera.
I reviewed the “sample” offers. They sounded like stuff I could manage (did you scroll through the whole list? I thought I did). Most of them allowed cancellation without more than $10 out-of-pocket. I figured using my Google calendar as a reminder and a spreadsheet to track the transactions, I could have a really sweet camera for less than $100 and 2 hours of time in about 8 weeks. Too good to be true?
I was toward the end of their terms and conditions, when I got to the Tax Liability section.
DCD requires that anyone receiving gifts valued at $600.00 and above in any calendar year complete and submit a W-9 form
Yeah. Right. The W-9 form requires a social security number. And by ‘submit’ they mean I need to give it to them (not the IRS). I guess I understand the legal requirement. And the camera they enticed me with is worth more than $600. But I gotta give them my social? Nah, no thanks.
So next I decided to give them some bogus information to see what the real offers looked like. The first batch looked innocuous enough. Not that I care, but I could pay shipping on Acai and teeth whitening. The second set was equally easy: Tea + Netflix. Then I got to the third set. The kicker. Are you kidding me?
So, my estimate of $100 was off by a distinct lack of comprehension that I would need to commit to a minimum of $1600 in WTF. Yes. To be fair, the “representative sample” does have some high-end crap on it, but I didn’t realize I’d failed to scroll to the very end. To get your $1000 camera you’ll need to spend $1600 on a hotel room for 5 nights (which normally is only $1000 from their website directly!) plus all the other shady, worthless crapola.
Ah, that was a great scam. I’m so glad I learned of Dodgeit.com years ago to provide crap e-mail addresses to scummy dealers like this.
There are, in fact, legitimate and non-malicious sites like that, but they are few and far between, and you’ve got to know what you’re looking for in order to find them. Years ago I did one for a portable DVD player (back when they cost $200+), but I haven’t tried since then, and I’ve forgotten the site and closed the email account I used for it. One way to find them might be to look for sites where people have set up “conga lines” for referral points — most of them switched over from the single user doing a lot of offers to needing several users to do a few offers.