Palama wrote:I signed up 4 years ago, didn't get the punch or even the business card holder.
Yep, but they still got your contact information for endless "retargeting" marketing efforts (a.k.a. spam) plus they can sell your contact info to other spammers, who can sell it to even more spammers, forever. And you got nothing out of it, and were essentially lied to. That sucks.
This is why I LOVE the free "spamgourmet" service (Google it). You make disposable email addresses that all forward messages to your real email address, and you only hand out the disposable ones to companies like this (you can make a different one for each company). Once you get your swag (or DON'T get it), and in other cases once you get the email with your "verification" or "activation" code (when signing up for stuff, etc.), you simply "turn off" that particular disposable email address, and it doesn't work anymore, ever again. For companies from which you WANT/NEED ongoing emails, you can limit their address to ONLY accept emails from their company domain, which excludes all third-party spam forever. GREAT way to fight back against spammers and get "free gifts" and other incentives WITHOUT actually giving away your real permanent email address. Get the goodies, then turn that address OFF! Hooray!
