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Shopping Scams and Bad Deals: Brand Name Rewards (offering a Free Dell Laptop), www.brandnamerewards.com
Shopping "Deals": Offers You Should Refuse!
Brand Name Rewards (offering a "Free Dell Laptop"),
www.brandnamerewards.com
Brand Name Rewards (offering a "Free Dell Laptop"), website www.brandnamerewards.com, is yet another "free computer" deal. There is a fine line between marketing hype and outright lies, but some "deals" are are only good for the company pushing the product! In our opinion, this "deal" is, at very best, one that you will have little real chance of completing, if the lessons of previous such "deals", such as Shopper's Saving Centers and Pay Day Buddies hold true.
Brand Name Rewards offers a "Free Dell Laptop")
which sends you an email that implies that you won a free laptop computer. Their terms & conditions say (the misspellings are theirs):
"You agree to be bound by the relevant Official Gift Offer Rules for the offer giveaways. To receive a free gift, you must accumulatet indicated in the Official Gift Offer Rules."
See their Redemption Instructions & Gift Rules. Also note their Privacy Policy. Their gift rules state (abbreviated below, follow this link for complete text on their website):
"To qualify for and redeem your FREE* DELL XPS M5130, you must complete each of the following:"
- Registration Form.
- Survey. Complete all questions as indicated in the survey pages that follow the Registration Form.
- Sponsor Offers. You must participate in and satisfy a total of
6 Sponsor Offers as follows:
Page 1: 2 offers
Page 2: 2 offers
Page 3: 3 offers - Sponsor Offer Registration....you must meet all qualifications of the Sponsor offers you select, and you must elect to participate in them through the online registration form for the offer (not via telephone).
- Verification of Sponsor Offer Participation. Each Sponsor must provide written verification to brandnamerewards.com that you have successfully qualified for and completed that Sponsor's offer. ... The qualification time varies by Sponsor, but may take up to 30 days... a Sponsor ... may require you to use the credit card to make a purchase, take a cash advance, or transfer a balance, to satisfy the Sponsor's qualifications.
- Your gift should be shipped to you within 6 to 8 weeks after brandnamerewards.com receives confirmation of your delivery address.
Here is an example of the email they send, this one sent to us on February 2, 2008:
Technical Investigation:
Whois.org provides the following information about www.brandnamerewards.com:
Registration Service Provided By: Enom, Inc Contact: CustomerSupport@enom.com Visit: www.enom.com Domain name: brandnamerewards.com Registrant Contact: Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc. Whois Agent (qfhwtxnrt@whoisprivacyprotect.com) +1.4252740657 Fax: +1.4256960234 PMB 368, 14150 NE 20th St - F1 C/O brandnamerewards.com Bellevue, WA 98007 US Administrative Contact: Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc. Whois Agent (qfhwtxnrt@whoisprivacyprotect.com) +1.4252740657 Fax: +1.4256960234 PMB 368, 14150 NE 20th St - F1 C/O brandnamerewards.com Bellevue, WA 98007 US Technical Contact: Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc. Whois Agent (qfhwtxnrt@whoisprivacyprotect.com) +1.4252740657 Fax: +1.4256960234 PMB 368, 14150 NE 20th St - F1 C/O brandnamerewards.com Bellevue, WA 98007 US Status: Locked Name Servers: dns1.name-services.com dns2.name-services.com dns3.name-services.com dns4.name-services.com dns5.name-services.com Creation date: 06 Dec 2007 20:42:44 Expiration date: 06 Dec 2008 20:42:44
But notice that the url in the email actually takes you to this website:
Notice that this "business" is based in Romania, famous for being the home of many internet scams. Notice also the dates. Thanks to an alert visitor who sent the scam to us, we were able to post it within 2 days of its creation, to warn potential victims.
Registrant: SC Adiral Com SRL Calea Dorobantilor 134-138 Bucharest, Bucharest 7000 RO +40744433988 Domain Name: ARIDIRDOWN.COM Administrative Contact: Velea, Bogdan office@adiralhost.ro Calea Dorobantilor 134-138 Bucharest, Bucharest 7000 RO +40744433988 Technical Contact: Velea, Bogdan office@adiralhost.ro Calea Dorobantilor 134-138 Bucharest, Bucharest 7000 RO +40744433988 Record expires on 01-30-2009 Record created on 01-30-2008 Domain servers in listed order: NS0.DIRECTNIC.COM 69.46.233.245 NS1.DIRECTNIC.COM 69.46.234.245
Opt-out screen? Yeah, Sure...
CFR's Recommendation:
DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS! AVOID Brand Name Rewards (offering a "Free Dell Laptop")! Do NOT sign up for it!
If you simply do the math of having to agree to an additional 6 "offers" (at what total cost?) and wait as much as 30 days or more for each to qualify or verify, then it is easy to figure that it could take many months before you would even have a chance of receiving your "free" computer. And remember, the offers you sign up for will certainly have additional costs associated with them.
Considering that you can buy a new laptop for as little as $500 these days, we cannot imagine how this "offer" would benefit you.
How to file a complaint against Brand Name Rewards
(offering a "Free Dell
Laptop")
If you feel that you have been victimized by this company, file a complaint against them: go to the BetterBusinessBureau and click on "file a complaint". For the address of the business use the information below:
BrandNameRewards.com LLC (offering a "Free Dell Laptop")
740 West Palmetto Park Road
#4-664
Boca Raton, FL 33433
What are victims saying about Brand Name Rewards (offering a "Free Dell Laptop")?
See this page for emails and comments from victims! (coming soon)