I’ll definitely look into that one, but like you, I am suspicious.  Most of the time gift cards and “free” stuff means you have to buy from advertisers that sponsor the “giveaway”.  I’m very much into surveys and market research online, but the only two I can say have put their money where their mouth is are Lightspeed Research and Pinecone Research.  It’s not a way to make really big bucks, but $25 here, $5 there and the occasional $60 survey do add up.  Actually, I’ve signed up for so many, including paid reading of e-mail, that I can’t even remember the names of the sites - and those pay around $2.00 and involve a survey as well.  My internet service is only $8.95 a month, so I expect all these alliances will at least pay for that.

I’m sorry to report that this is just another internet scam.  Read the company’s privacy policy(it’s at the bottom). When you take part in their program, you agree that the company can:

1.  Send you all the spam they want;
2.  Sell your info to other companies

That should raise a red flag, but
when you read their “Specific Terms and Conditions” on the same page, you’ll find that in order to be “eligible” for your prize, you have to acquire what they refer to as “action points” from three of their “Offer Groups,“ i.e. buy stuff from other companies. 

So, you have to submit your contact info for use by whomever Consumer Research Corporation chooses to sell it to, and then you have to jump through a bunch of hoops and complete at least 3 other “offers” before you get your “prize.“  I’d stay away from this one if I were you.

Being leery of something that sounds too good to be true is a good defense mechanism.Too bad some groups don’t apply this. Someone died for MY sins? . . . rose Lazarus from the dead? . . .rose himself from the dead on the third day? . . . HMMMMMM

It certainly does appear that you received a bogus offer.  They want to push their direct sales for an amount that will probably approach your $1000 gift card.  Which you may or may not receive before February.

While this one is a marketing gimmick there are some good ‘Secret Shopper’ programs out there.  I participate in one and have received free movie passes, meals and small gifts.  I suspect that a good rule of thumb is to be suspicious of any program offering a fortune for nothing.

We should have a Secret Bastard Christmas program.

I get an e-mail from them every couple of days and it sure looks like spam to me. My sister tried to use them but she wouldn’t buy in to their deal and she didn’t get the card.
Sorry to tell you.
PAX

You DO get the check, however, you also get tons of spam and you must complete two offers.  They have some decent offers that really aren’t painful, but after I went through just the sign-up my spam at gmail jumped from 1 a day to 60 a day.

Yeah, after doing some more digging I’ve come to the conclusion that these guys are technically legit, but not worth the hassle. I’ve gotten at least three more emails from three different sources that all pointed back to this same company.

Dammit, I hate it when my instincts are right sometimes. Just once it would be nice to come across something that’s too good to be true, but is anyway.

this may help.
http://www.badbusinessbureau.com/reports/ripoff117327.htm

Here’s a blog site that’s been tracking these people since summer 2004.  Its [url=http://www.netidiot.com]http://www.netidiot.com[/url].  Basically, the author “suspects” ProductTestPanel is a scam, but doesn’t outright accuse, in case they’re not…. He still leaves the logic to the reader to figure out…. why would you get a $2000 plasma TV for signing up for 4-6 offers, each worth maybe $20 apiece?  $120 for $2000?  Does the math make sense?

Just once it would be nice to come across something that’s too good to be true, but is anyway.

Purchase tax liens.  You get high interest, low risk. 

Regards,

etherian, did you or someone else receive the check?

I am a former employee of the company that owns “bonus bonez” - (jumpstart technologies, llc in san francisco)

block anything from “minfo@...“ or anything with an “X-Moxio” header if you want to whack the bonus bonez stuff.

all of your information is collected and sold to whatever marketer will pay for it - your email address, and postal address/phone number (which is required to sign up for some of the ‘partners’)

If you LOVE getting TONS of junk mail and also getting your friends pestered and spammed, good luck. note that some of the “offers” hit you with “just try this one last offer…“ before you actually get anything. Overall, you’re very unlikely to get *anything* out of these “deals.“

The company often just sends out the emails for its marketing partners, though.. so ‘bonus bonez’ might have nothing to do with the particular offer you’re going through.

Thanks for the info b0b. Further digging did reveal that this wasn’t the amazing deal it was being presented as. Cynicism once again saves my bacon.

these bastards are killing me with emails..ive unsubscribed 5 times and keep sending them emails but they wont stop..isnt there a law again this!!!

There are anti-spam laws.  The difficulty is tracking down a legitimate corporate entity that a judgment can be collected against.

Bonus Bonez is a weasel ‘company’...been receiving spam almost daily for a few weeks; Hotmail spam filter hasn’t adjusted yet.

The spam is sent from a mail server of Xo.com; they haven’t shut the source off yet.  Laziness? Incompetence?  In league with the spammer?  This is how spam continues to flow.

I’ve just started getting spam from this company.  The emails are very persuasive.  They’re saying that the email is a delivery confirmation for a PS2 and all I have to do is fill out a 3 minute survey. Then the weird thing was at the end, it was like someone forwarded the email but “accidentally” left an internal email at the bottom talking about the west door being locked or something.  They’ve also offered laptops and a “gift”.  But when you go to the root sites (listed above) they all point to bonusbonez.

On a side note I got a spam from extremesharing which went to moxio, which other then the names, looks exactly the same as bonusbonez.  Coincidence?  My cynical side says no…

[Edited to remove URLs so as not to give these jerks any more Google Page Rank than they already have.]

Heh, I found this site by searching for info on them. Apparently I signed up for something that linked back to this crazy company, but it must have been long ago. I just reactivated my old Hotmail account and immediately received something like 20 spammails from them. If anyone can give me a “sure-fire” way to kill them in my spam filer, I’d be grateful. I recall that I used to use my Hotmail account for “the stupid stuff”—stuff I’d never sign up for or do on my other e-mail accounts. Normally my wacky e-mail account name cuts out a LOT of spam, but it never slowed any down on Hotmail. How an algorithm comes up with my login name—and most of my spam appears quite random—I’ll never know. But at this rate I’m going to let my Hotmail account die again, because it’s going to be next to worthless in no time flat! In this case, I actually feel sorry for ol’ Microsuck—I mean, er, Microsoft.

PRODUCT TEST PANEL IS A FUCKING SCAM.

I signed up with them about a month ago, thinking that I had them figured out like you did.  Endure the heavy marketing through email and snail mail, buy a few cheap products, and receive a $500 gift certificate to Walmart.  It sounded like it was worth it.

There are SO MANY dishonest things about the setup of Product Test Panel that I won’t go into, because it would take up pages of explanations.  I got suckered into paying about $80 worth of shit, which would’ve ended up being nearly $1000 of shit if I hadn’t quit right away, and now I’m going through the hassle of getting a new bank account because I don’t want Product Test Panel to have my credit card info anymore.  Yeah, it’s THAT bad.

To make a long story short, Product Test Panel is owned by Consumer Research Corporation…who is owned by Subscriberbase.  Because I’m infuriated at spending $80 when I have better things to spend money on (weed, new speakers, etc), I did some research.  And here is what I found…

THE MASTERMIND OF THIS PRODUCTTESTPANEL SCAM IS BRIAN BENENHALEY.  I want all of you reading to know this.  Look up “Brian Benenhaley” on google and you’ll realize he’s a piece of shit human, and probably not coincidently, a chairman in the South Carolina Republican party.  He is the owner of Consumer Research Corporation and Subscriberbase.  I’m going to take my $80 worth fun and reveal his personal information that I found:

Brian Benenhaley
803.938.9037
803.469.9245 (I found two numbers, dunno if they work)
2685 Sandford
Sumter, SC 29150

I’m giving you his PERSONAL information because the email address and telephone number for his “companies” are utterly USELESS.

Have fun with that information

-Robert

What a scumbag; thanks for the further info.  I hate marketers and I think these scams are based partly on forcing people to buy stuff that no one would want to buy - so their pathetic “businesses” can succeed by creating customers for non-products.
/rant

I notice a URL was editted up there to the jerks in question.  I think they have some sort of cloning system setup of their sites.  Cached pages reveal links back to them with sites talking about them, but if you visit the URL itself, it just looks like a directory.  Odd!  I have no idea right now as to why they would be doing that.  Maybe they think that if they get branded by search engines as being a “seedy place” on the Internet, folks they have links to will be considered “bad company” by the Search engines as well. (shrug)

these bastards got me too…..if i was a lil more computer literate….id track them just to kick thier asses….so next time you see the big house on the hill and you think to yourself…“wow must be nice”.....well now we know alot of the elite rich ..are actually crooked bastards like (bonus bonez)owners so dont be so hard on yourself….try this next time you see someone rich and youre wondering how they got that why….just go up and SLAP THE SHIT OUT OF THEM!!!!!.........AND RUN LIKE HELL IN CASE THEY KNOW KARATE….lol

http://www.complaints.com/directory/2004/october/12/3.htm

how the hell can i get rid of the shitty emails they keep sendin? most of em hav a stupid message at the bottom

I received an offer for a free I-POD. I only had to check whether or not I wanted more information from about 50 advertised products. I checked NO on each. Then I got a list of another 50 products. Each of them wanted all my personal data, and most of them were for credit cards, insurance, mortgages, etc. The final page stated that I had to accept at least two offers or would be disqualified.  This was despite the claim that it was “absolutely free.“  Free, my rear end! It’s a scam.