Free stuff just by asking for it? Anyone tried this?

masterthief

I remember when I was in school, our music dept. was broken into and we were gonna have a fundraiser event (concert with raffle or summat) to raise money to replace the gear. As one of the people organising this, I contacted some local but famous bands asking for some stuff to use in the raffle and got a bunch of t-shirts, signed cds and signed photos. (lol, I still have those signed CD albums and they're great)

The event never happened in the end, so I was left with all this gear. :eek:

I was just wondering whether anyone has managed to get some free stuff just by contacting a company and asking for it? If so, was it genuinely for an event (like mine was), or did you 'create' an event/organisation you were asking on behalf of, or did you just ask and get?

I suspect it would be quite easy to get some free samples and stuff from many companies just by asking them and, while I don't want to encourage anyone to defraud companies by 'creating' a cause you're writing on behalf of, I wanna know if this has worked for anyone.

Edit: where possible, can you state how you 'applied' (e.g. phone, handwritten letter, printed letter, email) and how long it took for the free stuff to arrive. please also state you genuine the case you made to the company was. For the millionth time, I'm not encouraging ppl to lie to companies to get free stuff, I just think it would be instructive to see how many ppl get free stuff and how they got it. Limiting the type of answers will only skew what findings we might be able to draw from this.

Update: I've sent some emails to some companies and shall report back as and when I get responses.

SharkyGeorge

Funnily enough my friend was telling me yesterday about a book he'd read in which the author simply detailed how he asked companies for free stuff and they gave it to him.

It started with a pair of Oakley sunglasses which he sat on. He wrote a letter to Oakley and said that even though it was obviously his fault, he really loves the glasses and is there any chance they'd send him a new pair? Not only did they send him a new pair they sent one to his friend too.

This may just be an urban rumour but its worth a try, huh!

masterthief

lol, I'll update with how I get on.


lol, I'm serious, hahaha. any suggestions for good companies to try this with are more than welcome (and I'll update this thread with my results).

oakley have now deffo been added (I like their stuff anyway)

llol_slim

yup, i've done this.
i use brylcream wax in my hair, it says on the back of the pack they welcome all comments.
So I wrote to them explaining that I love their product but I dont like the price and also I hate the fact the only way I could wash it out of my hair was to use fairy liquid (this was true, its so gunky) I asked them if they could suggest something to use.

I completely forgot about it for a couple of weeks when I got this heavy package through the door. It was from a lady at brylcream who had apologised for the price but I should take this up with the shop I buy from but with regards to washing it out, she said a number of people had said the same and she had included a new test product called "Gunk Stripper". It was a 300ml bottle that kind of worked after a couple of washes.
I've never seen it in the shops though, but I was very impressed with the whole thing.

go for it!

djheath

Yep! I never asked though!! I used to love vimto!! Really love the stuff and when my aunt told me they had met the man who invented/managed Vimto I was excited! I emailed them and said "Hello, my aunt knows the vimto boss, I likes Vimto" or something along those lines!! I got an email back saying that the Vimto man knows lots of people and if I would like to supply my address they would send me some stuff. I basically got all the promotion gifts they had run over the years. The ones where you had to collect tokens and send off to receive your gift. I got a bag, a beanie hat, some stickers and Vimto Socks! All pretty cool! Was well chuffed.

Just reading all the above makes it sound like I was about 6 at the time. I was actually 21!!!

llol_slim

oh, I just rememered.
Also, there is a PC / xobx 360 game called Test Drive unlimited by Atari.
The PC version has/had LOADS of problems and the official forums were full of people slagging off atari and the game etc etc.
I emailed Atari and told them that personally, I had no problems with the game and totally loved it, hoping there were be a sequal.
They asked me to email them my address, I did and they sent me through an Atari T-shirt. I wear it with pride
*cough* GEEK *cough*

devild_2

"I was just wondering whether anyone has managed to get some free stuff just by contacting a company and asking for it? If so, was it genuinely for an event (like mine was), or did you 'create' an event/organisation you were asking on behalf of, or did you just ask and get?

I suspect it would be quite easy to get some free samples and stuff from many companies just by asking tem and, while I don't want to encourage anyone to defraud companies by 'creating' a cause you're writing on behalf of, I wanna know if this has worked for anyone."


All that will happen is companies will get inundated with begging letters for fake causes and will stop donating which will affect genuine charity events.

Fern_Merkin

I emailed St Ives cosmetics with a query regarding a product and asked if samples were available. After about a week or so I received a nice letter, cosmetic advice and £2 voucher. Their products are quite expensive so this kind act means I now regularly buy the stuff as it is so good.:rolleyes:

Happy_shopper

Simple are very good at sending out samples if you send them a nice request email.

vixarooni

I think its awful to write into a company to praise them or whatever to just see what you can get out of them. You'll end up stopping the freebies altogether by abusing their good nature so that everyone looses out.

Theres enough freebies and money to be made on this website without going down the decieving route to gain more. Its just making people greedy.

lyndseyann

you can phone dove up as well and they wil sent out about 4 or 5 samples.not sure of phone number but i will update when i have it