Free Sample News Update: Backwoods Beard Oil Bottle, I Believe Stickers, Game of Thrones Freebies, Pork Rinds Sample Bags, Urban Decay Mascara, Gardenite Foldable Pruning Saw, SoPost Fragrances, Total Tea, Riversol Skincare, uBiome, Kylie Lipkit, Geburt Diaper Bag, ATS Tokens & The Beauty Studio Decleor + Sunscreen Lotion SPF 40 Sample

Hello fellow freebie hunters,

Welcome to another freebies news & mailbox update. Your source for information about freebies after the sign up.

Since the last update summer has come to an end. And that usually means more promotions and freebies are ahead which is excellent. My mailbox certainly had an uptick in freebies received, see below for what I got only in a month. And as usual I’m doing with the Clint Eastwood theme of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” for this update. Let’s start with the good news.

The Good:

Samples & Deals from Free Samples August 23rd 2017 Through September 20th 2017:

Psst.. you can click on the image above to open the image full-size in a new tab.

Advertisement

• Mailbox Highlights: Most of these are freebies. Some are Amazon deals which are usually 75-99% off that are posted mostly exclusively to the Facebook group due to how fast the deals expire. There are a few items missing, for example if a company didn’t want to be featured or it was just too big or I was using/and or consumed the freebie already. If you have any questions about a specific one feel free to ask in the private Facebook group post about this (need to be member) or just email/contact/tweet and I’ll answer you personally. Anyhow, here are a few highlights and how I got them.
  • Magical Magnet Set: This was from a refer-a-friend promotion posted in August. It came pretty fast considering most refer-a-friend promotions.

  • Weber Briquettes: This is awesome for grillers, it was posted last month and came pretty fast. They went out of stock fairly fast though. They did this promotion before as well so hopefully if you missed it they do another.

  • Water Flosser: This was $0.99 after a $1 no-rush credit. Pretty great deal but not a freebie. This was only posted in the Facebook group like most Amazon deals.

  • Pork Rinds: Despite it being removed by request, this was a great freebie. I’ve never tried Pork Rinds before and now I love them for snacks + cooking. Free samples work!

  • Earhoox: The t-shirt and headphone covers were from the Earhoox refer-a-friend. I had to pay a small shipping fee unfortunately though.

  • Dr. Pepper Shirt: This was from a promotion that required sharing bar codes from certain products. Awesome shirt.

  • Total Tea + Mug (not in photo): This was from a Facebook group deal exclusively. They also had a mug that arrived that I posted on the site that many readers got too.

  • TummyZen: This box was purchased and it has a 100% back rebate from this offer which is still active.

  • L’occtaine Gift: I had to buy a bar of soap to get, great quality gift box if you didn’t mind spending $8 (not cheap!) for a bar of soap. That being said, the quality of their products are absolutely excellent.

  • Vichy Mineral 89 Moisturizer: This sample was going on for a few months and when it ended the finally sent it out to everyone. Very cool package for the sample!

  • SoPost Fragrances: Most of the fragrances are shipped from a sampling fulfillment company called SoPost in the photo. This is another case where samples just work great. I’ve gotten 2 fragrances as gifts and one for myself thanks to these. If I had a growing fragrance company I’d be talking to SoPost stat.

  • Gardenite Foldable Pruning Hand Saw: This came fairly fast after I got that code, might be the best freebie of the month besides the Dr. Pepper shirt. Unfortunately, not everyone got codes or heard back to get theirs. I think the company ran out and just didn’t feel like communicating that.

  • Unilever Crowdtap Box: The full size Suave/hair care bottles were all from the Crowdtap Unilever box. And it’s still active if you want to try applying.

  • America Flask: This was from a RedSeal promotion where you had at buy a specially marked can. They sent out free codes before the promotion ended so got this 100% free luckily. There is similar promotion from Skoal going on where you need to buy a specially marked can to get a prize, hopefully they send out codes before the promotion ends too. That being said if anyone has a code to share on the site please email me and I’ll reward you!

  • Zippo: This was another free Zippo from Marlboro.

  • Urban Decay Mascara: This was a good one, haven’t seen a free mascara in awhile. Hope everyone who signed up got theirs by now!

  • StickerYou (not pictured): I got a bunch of customer stickers from StickerYou. I stuck them on things immediately though so they were not pictured.

  • Others: If you have any questions about other stuff in the photo and how I got feel free to contact me on Facebook, Twitter or email and happy to answer how I got it.

• uBiome Microbe Skin Sampling Kit: This is good news (email here), for those that missed it or don’t remember uBiome is a cool sounding company that had a free code to get a kit that you can test your skin microbe’s to learn about them. To sum up, the first 1,000 who signed up will go through with the testing kit, then they will open it up to the other 10,000+ who signed up as they refine the testing process. So we shall all get the skin testing kit someday. Good news.

• Blue Bottle Coffee: This company rocks and their coffee is right up there with the best of the bean roasters. Most of the readers I spoke with got their free 6 oz bag of coffee thanks to this free $10 Blue Bottle Coffee credit already. The best part was how promptly and gracefully Blue Bottle Coffee handled this out of stock issue. I got my coffee shortly after taking the freebie photo and I have to say, I might be Blue Bottle customer for life if they can keep up this quality. And I’m a bit of a coffee nerd.

The Bad:

• Authorship.com Free Tokens Promotion: A company called Authorship.com ran a free promotion that ended this month. They initially decided that it was too much work after raising $4M+ to go through all the entries and weed out the bad entries. Then after massive backlash, they decided to award everyone tokens. It appears plenty of people got their coins at this point (not myself though), but this is possibly the most damaging promotion I’ve ever seen for a company’s brand. Even if I ever get any coins, the sour taste of the management team’s mistakes will never be forgotten. This mistake just shows they are out of touch with all the stakeholders in their business. And let’s be serious, they have a really slim chance of competing against Amazon Kindle. I mean, come on there are problems in the e-book publishing world but they will need more than $4M to get any sort dent on Amazon Kindle’s marketplace. I’m predicting this turns into a blow out failure of a business from what I’ve seen so far but I’m just a blogger so what do I know.

• Backwoods Beard Oil Bottle: This coupon code that made this bottle free was only meant for 10-15 people on the website Tomoson which offers freebies. So don’t expect this one, they also sent an email out to confirm orders were cancelled if you ordered one. Bad news for the freebie, but you may want to try out Tomoson for freebies if you don’t mind sharing on social media.

• I Believe Stickers: This looks like it was a real offer at one point, but the non-profit tied to it stopped reporting in 2015 which means it likely went out of business or stopped operating. I predict this website will expire once their registration expires. If you signed up for it don’t expect it but also don’t worry as I doubt it’s malicious, it’s just old and will likely be off the internet someday. Thanks to fellow reader Kelli for sending this over to look at! URL to avoid: http://www.believeintheword.org/order-stickers–truth-statement

• Geburt Diaper Bag: I’m honestly still confused about this one. They sent out a confusing email and identical Facebook post. Then they sent me an email saying “We will eventually send put notofications to the eligible candidates. It will take some time. We ask for your patience.” and then they offered me Amazon discounts. I’m so very confused but I think it may come, maybe, someday?

• Pork Rinds Sample Bags: This offer had to be taken down by request. Some readers, specifically the ones talking about it in the Facebook group before I posted it already got sample bags, but after sharing the possible free offer it may not come for most of you now.

• Riversol Skincare: There was a free offer on the Riversol Canada website that worked for US folks and I confirmed with their Live Chat support that it was for the US as well because I was skeptical it would ship to the US being on the Canada site. After posting it a representative reached out and told me it was indeed just for Canada and they cancelled all the orders. Sorry for the mistake in posting that one, I should have trusted my gut that it wouldn’t arrive in the US.

• Arboone RE9 Skincare Kit From Vickie Hilton: Vickie Hilton sent out an email saying this won’t come for you unless it’s truly “legitimate” so if you really want it read the email she sent out and follow up. I found her approach refreshingly transparent at explaining why she can’t send all the samples. Although, I wouldn’t have demonized freebie hunters as much as ‘eBay sellers’ and such.

• TeaChef Sample: This came up on my radar looking for free samples but it looked old or fake. I can confirm it’s just an old free sample (it was real once!).

The Ugly:

• The Beauty Studio Decleor & Sunscreen Lotion SPF 40 Sample: Here is another “Can You Help Us?” fake freebie, see the animation below to see what I mean. These never come folks. And they make the owner of this page maybe $1-$2 which isn’t enough to even cover shipping. So to be a broken record, if you see these, don’t ever expect it to come. URLs to avoid them: https://www.facebook.com/thebeautystudiouk/app/208195102528120/ and https://www.facebook.com/thebeautystudiouk/app/190322544333196/

  If you see anything like this, avoid it:
  

• Kylie Lipkit: This was an interesting new fake, this Kylie Jenner “free” lipkit looks pretty legitimate. That is, until you click around more and make a choice of which lip color you want. Not to mention the lack of any real privacy policy, way to contact this business and other red flags. Anyways, once you pick a lip color it takes you to a website called verifycaptcha.com and you have to pick from a list of “offers” to claim your kit. Most of them take you to LifeScript, a known waste of time/not a real freebie as purchase/participation is required to get even close to a freebie. In short, this is lipstick on a pig, looks good, but it’s still a fake. I also asked Kylie Jenner on Twitter if this was real without any comment, let’s assume the silence is a strong “yes it’s fake”. And the URL is sketchy too, here is the URL so you avoid it: http://freekyliekit.us/

• WebSEO Fake Freebie Network: This was previously called the Russian Fake Freebie Network; now it’s going to be called the WebSEO fake freebie network. Which is actually good news, it shows their intentions are mostly to try to cheat Google to make a profit instead of stealing information and selling it or worse. To read more about why it’s called that now be sure to read this section about the the WebSEO fake freebie network if you are curious. The short version is that there is an author on each of their fake freebie websites by the name of “WebSEO” which ties all the sites together and a few more like the Greek Olive Oil sample mentioned in the post too.

  So, the WebSEO network keeps coming out fakes, since the last update they shared a fake F&D Upholstery Fabric Measuring Tape sample, a new Greek Olive Oil sample for soap this time and a fake Textile Sale Bracelet on a Russian website. Fun!

• Game Of Throne & Lighting Sneakers Freebies: There were some Game of Throne freebies going around on Reddit like this one where I aggressively commented to get them removed (Yay! @ Reddit for removing them + associated users!). Anyways, this one was pretty easy to spot as a fake. Why? If you sign up some of them sent you to a thank you page here, you know Game of Thrones then you see… a free trial for testosterone supplements. I tried to investigate this one deeper. It resulted in a sad yet funny conversation with their Live chat where they ended up changing their phone number on the website a few times when I pointed out 333-123-456 wasn’t a real number. I also tried calling all of them and they were just Google Voice numbers if they worked at all. In the end, I forgot how but I was looking at Facebook profiles in Nigera, UAE and Ghana. Not a good place to end up. All of the offers had what appears to be purchased accounts on Reddit to look “real” then they submitted these fake freebies a few months later. I’m marking this off as fake. URLs to avoid: teamgameofthornes.com, www.fangameofthrones.club, lightningsneakers.com, shredfx-offer.tarcar.pro, and anything from facebook.com/Madzign/ or with the phone number “(725) 696-4042”

Do you want freebies like the ones mentioned in this post? Sign up for our daily email newsletter. And keep in mind, I don’t ship samples, you need to sign up for each one yourself. The more you sign up for, the more you’ll get.

That is all I have for the sample update today! Do you have any updates to contribute, send me an email at [email protected] anytime.

– John ‘Samples’ Clark