No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Everyone knows that there's no such thing as a free lunch, but there are some things advertised as being "free" that one might reasonably expect to come with fewer strings attached than is the case. Take the humble "free" CD given away by newspapers.

A few years ago it seemed that barely a weekend passed without most of the newspapers giving away a free CD, tucked inside the paper itself. There were compilation CDs, Christmas CDs, full length albums by artists like Blondie, Roxy Music, Pet Shop Boys and Spandau Ballet. There were special compilations of artists like Queen and Genesis, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, and I collected loads of them. Some weekends I would buy four or five newspapers, just for the CDs. Most of the newspapers went straight into the recycling, unread. Nowadays it is rare to see a CD attached to a newspaper, but the "free" CD offers remain, it is just that to get your "free" CD you have to jump through a number of hoops.

Free CDs from the newspapers: some are really quite good.

Last weekend the Daily Mail, which I justify buying because I like the supplement with the TV guide, offered a "free" CD. Since there was no physical CD with the paper, I looked at how one actually got it. To obtain your CD you have to create an account with the paper, login, enter a code from the paper and order the disc. Apart from the expense of buying the paper, this CD is therefore actually free in the sense that no money has to exchange hands, but there is still a price to be paid because you have to create an account, and with that you are providing the newspaper's publishers with certain information about yourself, and that information has value because it can be used for marketing. I didn't bother. It's slightly different from the "collect ten tokens from different editions of the newspaper to claim your free CD" offers that mean you may pay £5 for newspapers you would not otherwise have bought in order to obtain your "free" CD, but you pay a price of sorts anyway.

Similarly those loyalty cards that clutter your wallet or purse, from Tesco and Sainsbury, Waterstones and Boots. It is nice when the postman delivers some money off vouchers, or you redeem some points in store in exchange for your purchases, but you get nothing for nothing and in exchange for your benefits you pay one way or another, if only by providing information about yourself and your shopping habits that supermarkets and other retailers find invaluable.

That sort of thing is relatively harmless, even if it does have the effect of  sometimes making you spend money in one shop as opposed to another and occasionally to spend more than you intended, but more insidious is the "free" offer that is nothing of the sort, or the prize that you have allegedly won that comes with more strings than a Thunderbirds puppet.

A few years ago we entered a free competition at the Dagenham Town Show to win a holiday. A few weeks later we received a phone call. We had won a free holiday to the Canary Islands and all we had to do to claim our prize was attend a presentation somewhere near Tottenham Court Road where free drinks and nibbles would be available. For presentation read hard sell timeshare sales pitch. We declined. Even if they don't inveigle you into signing up for a timeshare, the "free" holiday turns out to be the accommodation only and require that you pay extortionate prices for flights, transfers and insurance, to the point where you could have got the whole holiday cheaper if you booked it all independently and separately. Strangely, even though it must be five years since we entered the competition, we "won" again last year. Again, we didn't take them up on their offer. If you are interested, the company anxious for us to claim our prize are called CLC World; Google them, adding a few words of your own choosing (I'm sure I don't have to spell them out) to see what the rest of the world thinks of them.

Sometimes you can get something for nothing though. In 2008 we went to Hawaii and stayed at The Hilton on Waikiki Beach and one day were approached by a salesman offering $100 in exchange for us taking a tour of some timeshare apartments that the hotel were developing. The fact that Waikiki is over 7,000 miles and the best part of 24 hours from home meant that we were never seriously going to consider buying a timeshare and in truth, the salesman knew that because his sales pitch was pretty half-hearted. As good as his word though he handed over the $100 (it was in vouchers to spend in the hotel, so not as good as cash, but we did spend them on meals and souvenirs and considered it to be a good enough deal).

The Hilton, Waikiki

Anyone who has any type of social media account will have seen the posts claiming to offer free Tesco or Asda or Primark vouchers, I'm sure you've seen the sort of thing I mean. These subtle, but dangerous posts claim that if you share them and comment, "Thanks!" you will get a voucher; amounts of up to £500 are bandied about. Of course they have nothing to do with the stores they purport to be associated with, as Tesco especially are at pains to point out. Following the instructions just drives traffic to dubious online surveys, the key purpose of which is to gather information from you. Information that will result in you being bombarded with spam emails and texts, the latter which can result in your mobile phone being signed up to premium rate services. Oh, and there are no vouchers either. These schemes continue to be successful however because enough people believe in them, for whatever reason people still believe that something that seems to be too good to be true actually is true; after all how likely is it that Tesco are giving away £500? Have you ever heard of anyone actually getting any sort of voucher? No, of course you haven't.

Yes, this IS too good to be true.

Free is defined as "without cost or payment" and while some of the "free" offers may not require payment of cold, hard cash, they are not necessarily without cost. Even if it purports to be free, the old maxim caveat emptor  still applies.