Samba Mobile Broadband - Is it Really Free?

Blue_Max

larry_lurex wrote: »

I have been in front of a computer screen for most of the day since around 1980.

is this computer an IBM XT with a 10 MB hard disk?!

Ali_Baba

Decided to stop watching the Samba adverts now. I tried a little experiment where I watched an advert and then went to the MySamba stats to make sure they were crediting properly.

Watched 20 adverts in a row. Checked after each one whether it had registered on their system. 13 out of the 20 failed to register. In other words:

Should have received: 70 MB
Actually received: 24.5 MB

I'm not going to waste my time watching the adverts if there is a less than 50% chance they will actually credit my account for the effort.

Goodbye Samba. I have 3 GB sitting on your SIM. I will pull it out in emergencies only. So should easily last me a year.

prowla

Ali_Baba wrote: »

Decided to stop watching the Samba adverts now. I tried a little experiment where I watched an advert and then went to the MySamba stats to make sure they were crediting properly.

Watched 20 adverts in a row. Checked after each one whether it had registered on their system. 13 out of the 20 failed to register. In other words:

Should have received: 70 MB
Actually received: 24.5 MB

I'm not going to waste my time watching the adverts if there is a less than 50% chance they will actually credit my account for the effort.

Goodbye Samba. I have 3 GB sitting on your SIM. I will pull it out in emergencies only. So should easily last me a year.

I think you need to use it periodically to keep it alive.

(Me, I just have a splurge on the ads and don't check each one in detail.)

Ali_Baba

prowla wrote: »

I think you need to use it periodically to keep it alive.

(Me, I just have a splurge on the ads and don't check each one in detail.)

When you say "use" do you mean earning or burning? Or is either considered valid activity?

prowla

Ali_Baba wrote: »

When you say "use" do you mean earning or burning? Or is either considered valid activity?

I don't know, but I would guess burning, as the act of adding credit to the account would be on one IT system and may not register through to a separate IT system that gauges whether the SIM has been accessed or not.

I got it as a standby, but I try and connect once a month or so. If it uses up a few MB, then so be it.

patman99

Ali Baba have you contacted Samba about the failed adverts ?. They may not be aware that there is a problem.
One thing they can do and that is to compare your IP Adress against the those who viewed the adverts in question and apply any corrections.

larry_lurex

Ali_Baba wrote: »

Decided to stop watching the Samba adverts now. I tried a little experiment where I watched an advert and then went to the MySamba stats to make sure they were crediting properly.

Watched 20 adverts in a row. Checked after each one whether it had registered on their system. 13 out of the 20 failed to register. In other words:

Should have received: 70 MB
Actually received: 24.5 MB

I'm not going to waste my time watching the adverts if there is a less than 50% chance they will actually credit my account for the effort.

Goodbye Samba. I have 3 GB sitting on your SIM. I will pull it out in emergencies only. So should easily last me a year.

Samba is a total fraud. As I predicted, I was cut off for Christmas. I documented the choice of ads I have above. Nothing has changed. Always the same expired ones.

All they want is your cash top-ups because they are Three in disguise.

prowla

They only seem to have a few ads on at the moment; perhaps they're having a break over Christmas.

I've never given them a cash top-up, and have no intention of.

I think we've covered the Three thing - they run over the Three network, but that does not make them Three (any more than my Sky Broadband is BT because it runs over the phone line).

The trick for earning credit is to do it over broadband or wi-fi; it will be way quicker than over the mobile network, and there is no question of it using up your credit.

larry_lurex

Samba will give you a few Mbs a day and once you have become unprofitable every ad has expired and cash top-up is the only option.

Unless you are prowla, of course, who can get so much credit, he does not want any more.

Uplink

larry_lurex wrote: »

Samba will give you a few Mbs a day and once you have become unprofitable every ad has expired and cash top-up is the only option.

Unless you are prowla, of course, who can get so much credit, he does not want any more.

Unfortunately, you are in a minority of people having issues. I, like many others, am able to get credit just fine. I'm not racing prowla, but I keep my credit within the 100-200 MB range. When I or go over 200 MB, I stop, when I get below 100 MB then I watch ads to get myself back to 200 MB. Some ads claim they have expired instead of crediting me, and when this happens, that ad tends to expire continuously so I stop watching it, but it's an isolated thing, not a general one.

I've never bought Samba credit, and I don't plan to any time soon (there are other options at hand that are less costly before I consider paid-for Samba credit). The only money Samba got from me was for the SIM and the dongle (discounted with MSE code). I enjoy when advertisers pay for my time, because I have plenty of time, but not that much money, and no real world ideas - that are worth implementing - on how to convert my time into money at a decent rate right now.

I've been sitting in front of a computer monitor since 1994 (5th grade), but that was a Spectrum clone. I don't actually remember when the PC or the Internet hit my school, but I've been on these since, let's say 1997 (9600 baud modem, green text monochrome CRT on Linux 2.0 server and that). That's just to put my experience next to yours.

So I seriously don't understand why you can't get any ads or credit. Even more, you did say somebody else logged into your account and could get credit on your behalf, right? So I am really really confused. How can somebody else earn credit using your account, but not you?