If you do a quick search on “free ps3” on Google you will absolutely be amazed at the number of results that are returned – pages and pages of them. Each one trying desperately to convince you that it is the “real deal” and that all of the others are scams. The pitch is virtually the same on all of them (well, all of them except this site!). They try to build some credibility with testimonials or their own “supposed” personal experience and assurance that this is the real deal. So what is the truth? Can you really get a $500 PS3 for free?
Well, I’m sure you know the old saying – nothing is for free. And sadly, it holds true here as well. Does that mean that all of these offers are definite scams though? Well, not necessarily, depending upon how you define the word “scam”. The concept of getting a free PS3 is very appealing to anyone, and that is the premise of this approach – it is highly desirable and thus many will fall for it just out of shear desire for it to be true (regardless of what their gut feeling tells them).
Definitions vary, but a scam is generally something that is a complete falsehood or complete ripoff. There are legitimate free PS3 offers out there – yes, there are a few. But, it is not nearly as free as they would like you to believe. For example, while doing research, I found one such person who received one of the free PS3 machines and he told his story of what he had to do to get it. First he had to participate in about 20 different signup offers and promotions. Many of them had small fees attached and almost all of them had a very limited trial offer at the low cost fee with an automatic rebilling after a certain number of days to a high priced service. Now this was all disclosed, so technically it’s not a scam, but clearly it is meant to trick you into making some unintended purchases via the confusion of all of the offers and the likelihood that you will forget to cancel some of them during the trial periods. Furthermore, he said that the costs involved in all of these offers exceeded $200 – so how free is that? Sometimes you just can’t afford a free PS3 when the free price might have hundreds of dollars of hidden backend fees. Beyond that he said that you will need plenty of time as it took him more than a month of constant work online to meet the requirements for the free PS3 offer and then another month of waiting for it to arrive. Lastly he cautioned that you will be forced to make dozens of referrals (involving all of your friends and family in your quest) in order to meet all of the requirements.
In the end, his advice was simply to spend the $400 to $500 and buy one yourself because you will likely save the time and hassles associated with these free PS3 offers – even if you stumble on to a legit one. And don’t forget, that many of them are not legit and may truly cause you a pain in the wallet or even identity theft issues. The risk and choice is yours.
