No Scam Here – I Got the iBook!

Apple iBook

The Hook

I was incredibly skeptical, but now I’m a believer! For months I’ve wanted to get a laptop. Sure, it was not needed for work, but I thought it would be beneficial for a variety of reasons. First, I am a technophile, but I felt I could really use the laptop for grad school and I argued that I could spend more time with my wife (instead of being locked away in the home office, I could still do computer work in the convenience of the family room while my wife watched television). Unfortunately, my wife was not too keen on us spending >$1000 for my dream of having an Apple Computer laptop. She insisted that we could just get an inexpensive pc laptop like a Dell. Noooooo!

Then I stumbled across an “internet marketing” promotion. You may be familiar with them – “get a free iPod by getting 6 of your friends to sign up and register for X.” This promotion, offered by the Internet Opinion Group, used a different business model that I agreed with. Instead of bugging friends and family to complete stupid tasks like signing up for a credit card, I took sole responsibility for being the sucker. Depending on the value of the desired gift, registrants are required to participate in purchasing up to 6 products and/or services in order to complete the business transaction. Think of it as an alternate method for consumer advertising.

I was skeptical about whether or not the iBook would be new or used, but they promoted a 14″ iBook (or similar product) with the following specifications: iBook G4, 1 GHz processor, 256 MB RAM, OSX. I started my adventure by signing up on March 6, 2005.

The Purchases

So, since I wanted this Apple iBook, I had to fulfill 6 purchases. It is important that you read the pop-up instructions for each product choice to determine what you must do in order to fulfill the purchase. There are a number of options available, but here are the products/services that I chose, including the estimated costs of each:

  1. USA Today – I purchased a 6 month subscription to the newspaper – cost: $62.40
  2. Printer Ink – I had to purchase at least $35 on ink – I plan to be a return cutomer to this site – ink is very affordable – cost: $41.91
  3. Trimlife – I purchased this diet pill product, although I never used it and only purchased it to fulfill the requirement (be sure to cancel yourself from receiving automatic monthly shipments) – cost: roughly $45
  4. My Daily Dose – This is a site offering vitamins and other nutritional products. I was only required to purchase a 7-day trial (be sure to cancel yourself from receiving automatic monthly shipments) – cost: $5.95
  5. Blockbuster – I had previously signed up with Blockbuster Online, but cancelled my service and registered again through the Internet Opinion Group’s click-through link. Blockbuster Online offers a few plans – cost: roughly $15 per month (and I could cancel my membership if I wanted to once they notified the Internet Opinion Group of my registration)
  6. Columbia House – For this standard promotion, I had to purchase 5 dvds at regular price – cost: estimated at $100 for product fulfillment

Getting His Apple iBook

The Good

Okay, so when all is said and done, I really only needed to spend between $250 and $300 to fulfill this promotion. Considering the diet pills and the vitamins (and to a lesser degree, the USA Today subscription) were of little to no value or use to me, I would consider $200 to be used for items I might have purchased for myself anyway.

Here’s the other kicker – I did not receive the advertised iBook. Instead, I received a newer model. I received a 12″ instead of the 14″ (I preferred the smaller laptop anyway) with a 1.2 GHz processor instead of the advertised 1 GHz. Also, since OS 10.4 (Tiger) was included, along with Quicken 2005 and iLife ’05, I figure I received a few hundred dollars of software that I wanted to get anyway.

The Bad

My only criticisms of this experience include the following:

  • The InternetOpinionGroup site is not particularly user-friendly. The help instructions appeared to have confusing instructions regarding the steps one must go through to receive the gift. Also, the site still shows a copyright of 2004! In addition the “Gift Status” screen was confusing, despite the listing of 5 status types:

    1. Pending – If your Offer Status shows “Pending,” it means that we are awaiting a response from our offer partners (i.e. the credit card companies). This also applies when your Gift Status shows pending too.
    2. In Progress – A response has been received from the offer partner. We are now awaiting an approval notice from them. Please allow 6-8 weeks for an “In Progress” offer to be reported as “Approved”.
    3. Approved – This means your free gift card is ready to be ordered! You can click on the “Approved” link and have an Approval Email sent to you! Please refer to our Help Section for more information.
    4. Confirmed – When you have entered your email address and generated a Free Gift Card Certificate, your Gift Status is flagged as “Confirmed.”
    5. Shipped – Your gift card [no card - the gift itself!] has been ordered and is on its way! Please allow 6-8 weeks to receive your gift card.
  • You must be patient. I started the process on March 6, 2005 and received my gift on July 21, 2005. That’s a long time!
  • Customer service sucks – the only way to contact this company is through their online contact form. I rarely received responses to my inquiries.
  • The site promises free FedEx shipping, yet my product came free via UPS – weird!
  • Register with an email address you do not mind getting spammed! I used a Yahoo account, so fortunately most of the spam email promotions now get automatically routed to my spam folder

Conclusion

So, overall I am very happy and really excited to get the laptop. It already has an 802.11G wi-fi card so I can connect to the Internet wirelessly! Now I simply must purchase a wi-fi router. Any suggestions?

Update July 27, 2005

Bummer! As a result of recent news on the iBook line, had I waited a month or two more to receive my iBook, I would have received much more, including:

  • 1.42 GHz processor base(1.2 now)
  • 512 RAM included standard (256 now)
  • Bluetooth standard (nope)
  • scrolling trackpad (nope)
  • Sudden motion sensor (nope)

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