Freebie Site Instructions: Doing Freebie Offers on the A4F Forum

Relax. I was very tense about signing up for things that I thought would be a pain to deal with later. Turns out that as long as you keep good records of each offer, you will know what to do and when to do it. It’s all about being organized and following up. I have a freeware program called CutePDF Writer that once installed becomes available as a printer choice. You can Google to find a download site with the latest version. Every web page I come across while doing offers I print to a pdf file and put in a folder named for the offer. I also make sure that I find the Terms of Service (TOS) and print that to pdf or text. Never do an offer without any information on the terms and how to end it if you so choose. If you can’t find any info on the TOS, skip that offer.

Another tool that I have found to be absolutely essential is RoboForm (Google to find). This is a program that will save forms of information so that it is usually only one click to fill out a full webpage of information. It is really useful and a time saver. It also keeps track and will fill in passwords for you, and works VERY well. There may be other comparable tools out there, but I have not seen them. I believe the Google toolbar also has some of these features but I have not tried it yet. RoboForm has a freeware version with limited capability but you can get a fully functional version for 30 days for free. I ended up paying to keep the fully functional version as I can’t live without it.

Sometimes you get screwed and don’t get credit for an offer. For example, I once selected an offer that redirected me to some other offer. I completed it but did not get credit. When I complained they told me that they don’t pay for redirected offers. Beware that the offer that you do is the same as the one you selected at the freebie site. There are also rare times when you just never get credited. So far that has only happened to me twice. When any of these happen, you can either do replacement offers or cancel the trade. I have never done the latter. Usually you can find another offer that will get you the credit. If you find that you cannot find any offers that you are willing to do, you can just leave the trade hanging until some time in the future. The freebie sites are always adding or removing offers so you may be able to finish it sometime down the road. Why give up the potential green. There is no penalty for doing it later.

When trying to decide which offers to do, I always look for free ones followed by very low cost ones and then by ones that I may not mind paying for as I might want the product anyway. There are times, especially after you have completed many offers, that you will find it difficult to complete the site without choosing a more expensive offer to finish the green. I look at it this way, any money I can make is better than not finishing the site. I have at times paid out more than I got paid for the site. I did receive goods that had value but it doesn’t seem like a good way to make money. These are the tough decisions that you have to make. I usually will do whatever I can to get the green. If I don’t want the goods that are sent, I can sell them on eBay and recover my costs. As long as the buyer pays shipping, everything bid on the items is profit to you. The bottom line is that I want the green so I can raise my TR rating and be able to pay others to do offers for me (the ultimate goal here). The higher the TR the more likely you will get people to do offers for you. Also, each site you complete adds another link that you can trade to others and build up you choices.

Try to have fun with this. I really enjoy getting the goods that are given for free or low cost (e.g., coffee, jewelry, books, DVD’s). Its fun when the stuff arrives in the mail. Some of the stuff I have given away as gifts (children’s books, jewelry, etc.) which you would have to pay for anyway, so it saves you money.

Lastly, I can’t emphasize enough to do the cookie clearing routine with each order. You will hear about various methods of doing this on the A4F forum but this is what has worked for me:

Before doing anything, run Cleaner (freeware, Google to find). It will really clean your system of all the spam cookies and other junk. I also run it every night before shutting down the PC so I know that I always have a clean boot up. This may not be necessary, but is reassuring to me.

I always use Internet Explorer (IE). I understand that FireFox will also work, but have heard that it can cause problems. Others swear by it. I have had good luck with IE and am sticking with it.

When you are ready to do an offer, for IE, go to the Tools menu and select “Delete Browsing History”.

Click the link for the freebie site. I always put the link in my Favorites Bar until I’m done working with that site. Then I will move it to a favorites folder for later reference. Login to the freebie site if it is not already logged in. Closing the browser window does not usually log you out.

Select the offers page and if necessary the page where your offer is located The page and location of each offer are on my spreadsheet for this site. Complete the offer, printing to pdf all the web pages that come up, especially the last ones that states you completed the process and will usually provide you with some sort of reference code or number.

LEAVE THE OFFER WEBSITE OPEN FOR AT LEAST 10-15 MIN AFTER YOU ARE DONE WHILE CHECKING THE FREEBIE SITE (REFRESH) PERIODICALLY TO SEE IF YOU WERE CREDITED. This is crucial to getting credit. Don’t just close the window and start another offer. Wait until you get credit. Sometimes you will get it in a minute or two. Sometimes it takes the full time. Other times you have to wait days or weeks (not very often). If after 15 minutes, you don’t see the credit, go ahead and work on the next offer.

Clear cookies and close the Freebie site browser window and start over for the next offer. Always be patient and move slowly. Don’t rush. Make sure that the browser pages fully load before moving to the next step.

Freebie Site Instructions