Aux says:

Originally posted by Dorito

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i used it for about a week a game card for an mmo... i think it was $10?

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Sounds like seriously not worth anyone's time.

In 2009-2010, I received three times the same spam from PointShop.fi. Someone had "recommended" their site to me, and I received their autogenerated recommendation. I do not know who it was -- the e-mail address shown in the recommendation was not familiar to me. The message said I can earn "points" by participating in competitions, filling surveys and by recommending to friends; and that those "points" can be exchanged to goods in their shop. I promised to never ever load their webpage.

Today now that I search for information about that shop, I find countless stories by people who tell how difficult it was to actually get anything beyond something trivial like candies, how they lost their money due to return/cancel policies that were made nearly impossible to follow without extreme persistence, and how they had to give their information to advertisers fully knowing it will be used for direct marketing.

I stand by the opinion that I made the right choice to never even load their webpage.

Years ago, it happened that I received an offer from some magazine (by Bonnier AB) that if I subscribe to their magazine, I get a nice coat as a gift. The condition was that you must wait until you get the first magazine. I considered it a good deal if I subscribe for a month, and get a magazine and a coat, and cancel immediately thereafter. How they did was that it took a lot time for that first magazine (and the gift) to arrive, so that I had to actually pay for two months of subscription. When I finally did get my gift, I cancelled the subscription immediately. Afterwards, I found out that they added my information to their direct advertising lists. Year after year, the following happened once every few months: Their advertisements land in my mailbox that has a sticker on it that says "No advertising". I take my phone and call their customer service, and tell them to immediately remove my information from any database they have; from all marketing lists and such. They promise to do so. Repeat two or three months later. For several years straight. I don't know what finally stopped them. Maybe because I moved, or something.