How About a Free (cough! cough!) iPhone?

Here's what we found from our research:

• Question Marks Galore
• Just Another Trick Question?
• World's Record For Least
• Cheap Is Easy For Pages 1 & 2
• Premium Page Climax
• The Bottom Line

17 Total Offers Over the 3 Pages…Why Bother?

Here’s an offer that appears to be a combined effort between freephonedelivery.com (who is supplying the incentive iPhone) and the offer-page layout from Product Test Panel whose offer sites we’ve reviewed on a couple of previous occasions. To their credit, PTP doesn’t call this a “free” giveaway because, frankly, they know better. Unfortunately, freephonedelivery.com uses that term because they may not know any better.

School Days Retro Trick Question

You remember that crafty old teacher you had that handed out a test with instructions to read through all the questions before starting with the first one? Remember? And, remember how you dove in and began answering all the questions until you noticed the entire class was already done and they were looking at you with smirks on their faces? Then you read the second-to last question which said, "Write your name at the top of the page and turn in the test immediately." Remember that?

Well, that’s exactly the same thing you’ve got to do with this Free Offer. Before making any selections, you need to skip through all the offer pages before you make any single choice of any ad offer. This is because, when you get to the last page, you may NOT want to participate any further in this offer.

Record Setting Dearth of Offers

Somewhere in the hallowed, ivy-covered halls of this website, we made mention of the fact that if you ever come across an FO site that requires only a few selections to be made from a proportionally few number of ad/banners, that this was likely because some of the later offers were going to be real doozies pocketbook-wise. Well, may we present to you the dreaded "Free" iPhone offer having a required 2-2-2 selection process that must be made from 17 total offers available over the three pages. Our researchers are certain that’s a record low in both selection requirements and available ad offers. Talk about “exclusive funneling”!

Another Record-Setting Performance

Furthermore, on the very last offer page, the two selections must be made from only three ad offers shown. By some quick ciphering, we make that out to be just about…carry the one…just about 66.667% of the available offers on that page. We can’t recall any requirements having that steep a percentage before. And the best is yet to come.

Cheap Is Easy…Through The First Two Pages

We’d be more than happy to tell you how cheaply you can get through the first two pages which, by the way, carry the non-conformist labels of Top and Prime. The final offer page is called the Premium page. (Why no, we’re not aware of any law that says these pages must only be labeled with the names of precious metals. Why do you ask?) But, back to the task at hand: we could tell you that it would only cost you an initial amount of $4.74 to complete the Silver…uh…I mean, Top page. (That would be accomplished by selecting the government grant CDs for $1.87 S&H and the Instant eBay Kit for $2.87.) And we’d just be ecstatic to tell you that, on the Prime page, if you selected the Free Credit Report offer for $0 to start, and then the Acai x3 trial offer, you could be finished for just a mere $2.79.

“Read Through The Entire Test Before Beginning”

But, when you reached the Premium page, you would immediately see that your penny pinching on the first two pages has come to naught. Because to remain eligible for the iPhone, you must choose either a wedding dress (minimum order $2000), a bed-and-breakfast stay for a week (minimum order $1600) or two tickets for a Fall getaway on Rail Europe (minimum order $1798).

It’s a truly amazing FO site. We can certainly understand why we haven’t seen a lot of these types of offers before, but we wonder why it’s even here at all. Initially, we were certain there was going to be an alternative way to qualify for the iPhone rather than having to shell out $3500 or more IN TWO OFFERS. We looked for a refer-a-friend option that would perhaps substitute a number of referrals, each required to complete another round of offer pages in lieu of the large outlay for the items on the last page. But, we found no such alternative in any of the rules or the fine print. But, we did find something else in the Terms and Conditions: the time limit on this entire free offer is 90 days, start to finish. And that sort of made a Pyrrhic victory out of the fact that we were able to reach the last page for a little under $8. Truly unusual.

Is It Worth The Hassle For What You Gain?

The Proverbial Bottom Line: All of this cash outflow for an iPhone?! To see what kind of a trade-off this “bargain” giveaway was, we looked over the AT&T web site and found that you could get a good refurbished 16GB iPhone 3G for $129. (The offer never said anything about the prize being the latest model iPhone, or that it would be a new one.) Anyway, to get that price, your refurbished iPhone would have to be packaged with a two-year contract.

The lowest contract we could find for the iPhone would be one with 450 rollover minutes for $40 per month. That would make a total value of $1089 if the offer had said anything about including the phone activation charges and a two-year plan…which it didn’t. Of course, if you live in a state that has a monthly usage fee and maybe a headset-mandatory-while-driving law, you’d need to add those also. You want texting? That’s an additional $15 a month.

Now, the term “free” here is almost laughable, even when you understand that the iPhone is coming from the web site owners to whom you pay nothing for it. It's the monetary trade-off (between what you receive for free and what you've paid into the selected ad/offers) that determines the value of this deal. And, what have you gained for receiving your free iPhone? Maybe you really need a wedding dress. Or, a lovely stay at a rustic bed-and-breakfast. (If you're looking for a wedding/honeymoon package, you're so there with this deal!) But, for an iPhone? Strictly your call. If you would like to check out this offer you can do so by clicking here.

As always, we welcome your blog comments about your thoughts on the articles there. Or if you'd rather email us, please do so here. Let us hear from you.

Here's wishing you the Best of Bargains,

Head FOD

From the menu at the left, select from our latest reviews of a number of FO sites. Or, learn the generic details about a typical FO site, and how to move around the various pages, by clicking here.

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