The Simple Pen

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Freebies: Protecting Your Personal Information

Freebies are fabulous! I love going to my mailbox and finding it stuffed full of shampoo samples, granola bars, and coupons for free stuff!

I was talking with my friend Teresa the other day, and she mentioned some strange phone calls she’d been getting. They started after she signed up for a freebie offer. This lead us down the path of how to safely request freebies, and I thought you might like to listen in on our conversation.

Here are a few ways that I protect my personal information when I’m requesting a freebie.

I use a different email address.
I have a separate email account set up just for freebies. I would prefer that any spam associated with registering for freebies head straight to my freebie email account. I don’t want it mixed in with emails from my friends and family. You can set up a free email account with Yahoo! or Gmail.

My phone number is a secret.
My friend Shannon just told me about Google Voice. You can get a free phone number from Google Voice. Use that number instead of your home or cell number. Your calls can go straight to voicemail, and you can block numbers.

I protect my daughter’s personal information.
I am picky about giving out my own information, but don’t even ask me for hers. You might want to make up a child who’s close in age to your own and consistently use that information.

I avoid jumping through hoops.
I don’t mind answering a few demographic-type questions, but I don’t want to spend much time requesting a freebie. I understand that companies want to gather some information about customers, so I’ll answer a few questions. However, my time is valuable, and I always weigh the time I’ll have to spend against the value of what I’m requesting. The freebies I request are quick and easy to register for.

Freebies should be FREE.
Sometimes you’ll request a freebie and then be hit with 17 more offers that you might be interested in. I usually close these immediately. It’s not worth the effort of clicking No Thanks on 25 pages just to get a free shampoo sample. You don’t usually have to participate in any of the trial offers that are attached tot he freebie. You should be able to request your freebie and run.

I’m trying to be picky about the types of freebies I post here. Hopefully you’re finding that they take you straight to the offers without a bunch of strings attached. If you ever find that one of them has lots of strings, hoops, or other annoying issues, feel free to let me know that I missed them.

If you want to practice safely registering for freebies, head over to see all of the freebies I’ve listed recently!

Your Turn: Do you have any tips or tricks that you use when you request freebies?

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Comments

  1. this is great information. i appreciate a freebie, but i’m not going to go through 20 pages of saying no to get one. that’s not free to me. that’s a hassle! i’ll have to check into google voice to avoid using my home phone and having a string of salespeople call me offering me things i only responded to in order to earn points or get a freebie.

    • Good idea, Alissa! You might try the Google Voice or another free online phone service if you want to have a number that isn’t connected to your personal phones.

    • Just think of it this way… You’ll know for the next time. The good news is that LEGO is pretty reputible. So you shouldn’t get a bunch of spam from them.

  5. I change my date of birth on the forms, using American date style not UK. So MM/DD/YYYY rather than DD/MM/YYYY, I suppose it only works if you are born in the first 12 days of the month? But it does mean that I can remember what I put. And a separate e-mail address is essential. I have another e-mail for mailing lists that I want to be on but which is not picked up by my blackberry too.