Ipod thread refferals

Amanda_P_3 · 3 November 2005 at 7:02PM

You have misunderstood how these work. I don't know about any of he above schemes at all, although I do know there are some schemes called "matrix" schemes which are illegal and scams. This may be number 3 you refer to, I haven't bothered to look into these.

The site I am a member of is exactly like the referals you do allow. You sign up and are then refered by the site to another service, just like the referals you allow. Indeed, these are often even the same sites I have seen here. They are commonly gambling sites such as Bingos or Virgin Casino (or whatever it's called), both of which I have seen in your referals board. They can also be things like Napster or online DVD rental services like Screenselect or Lovefilm. None of these spam you or add you to junk mailing lists. They are all reputable companies.

The iPod site is the referer, and of course you are doing their marketing for them as you also need to get a certain number of friends (3-6 usually) to sign up and also be referred to a service. That way they get 4-7 affiliate fees in total. When they buy you an iPod, they are giving you a cut of this. It's simply that they bank up your part of this until you reach a certain level. Of course, many people never bother to get the required number of friends to sign up and then the site keeps any fees gained from that user and their friends.

The sites differ from pyramid schemes in 2 major ways, although the main principle may seem similar. Firstly, they do not require a cash deposit from yourself (although many of the affiliate "offers" require a minimum payment of around £10). Secondly, in a pyramid scheme, you don't benefit directly from refering your friends, any input from them goes to someone a few levels above you, so you would then be relying of a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend to give you any benefit (as you suggest in your option 3 above).

I hope this gives you a clearer understanding of the schemes and makes you less hostile towards them. I would never take part in a scheme that was not proven to benefit all their members and would not try to con anybody into doing something for me that would leave them out of pocket.

To respond to an earlier post, the rules that I read were those specifically for the referalls board. These don't say anything about this type of referral, and if you don't want them posted there I would suggest making it explicit there. I am aware that there is a link in this thread that takes you to the rule, but if I hadn't read this thread I would never have found it.

2ax · 3 November 2005 at 8:45PM

I don't know if you're replying to me at all with these comments, or the site policy in general.

One that I looked at was a hybrid of my types 2 and 3. Buy a SIM card for over price, and get 6 others to join who were supposed to do the same - but you still had to buy 6 items yourself. There was a published waiting list of about 6000 people; the 11th had just received the iPod after the scheme had been running for over a year - quicker for most to save up for one at £1 a week.

Given that many of these schemes have been naked abuse, one does not have to wonder for very long how much time Martin wishes to devote to analysing them.