Online Free Offers , are they scam ?!!

Online Free Offers , are they scam ?!!

One of the common questions that I usually receive is this question. So are they really scam or not? If yes how to know that? or how you can recognise them? And How to protect yourself from such activities?

Online free offer is a kind of service that used by providers (sites) in order to increase the number of their users or to any other similar reason, this kind of offers appears usually as an advertisement or a pop-up through the internet

Regarding to the legitimacy of online free offers, I cannot say that all or none of the free offers are scam or legitimate. Whereas, there are many free offers placed on the internet deem scam, however there are many others consider legitimate (are you confused? Do not be)

In order to recognise the legitimacy of any free offer I recommend you to consider these points and facts: (Basics)

1.      Legitimate free offers do not lead you - when you open or respond to them - to other site contains a list of other free offers or advertisements, instead they lead to the service page or to the provided free offer

2.      Scam free offers usually ask you to pay a sum of money or to present your credit card or personal data in advance in order to get that free offer

3.      Scam free offers do not have the legal rights to the provided offers, for example you may find a free antivirus in a website (provider) which is not the owner of that software and/or which is not permitted to use it publically

4.      Legitimate free offers are presented with a realistic description, while scam offers presented in a suspicious description (too good to be true)

5.      Legitimate free offers placed within protected sites or pages which contained legal information such as copyright, privacy, term of use...etc. This feature would not be provided by the provider of scam free offers

In order to protect yourself from such kind of scams please consider these tips:

1.      Do not pay any sum of money in advance to such kind of offers

2.      Do not give away your personal and financial data easily, whether via the web or through e-mails

3.      Be suspicious while dealing with such kind of online offers

4.      Consult a friend, lawyer, expert or anyone who gain a knowledge in such area before acting

5.      Read the agreement of use of the site that provided such offers

6.      Investigate about the provided offer and the provider (site)

7.      Report the person or the site that provided a scam free offers

Wish you all the best, safe online transactions and if you have any concern in any online activity I and my team willing to help online users to increase their online protection and to legalise their online activities, as this is our aim of establishing this blog

Mohammad Al-Thunibat

“E-Commerce Lawyer”