If you've visited the freebie trading page recently, you my have noticed I moved my affiliate link for Calistyle to the bottom of the page.  I am also going to be upfront and honest and tell you that I no longer have a silver membership there.  There are few reasons for this.

1) The basic membership is free.  I DO NOT recommend that you upgrade to silver.  I have broken exactly even the last three months, which is a waste of time, in my opinion.  I can spend my time doing other things that actually make money.

2) The silver membership is $9.95 every single month.  And there are ridiculous rules on contacting new people.  Not to mention rules on which links you can post in your threads. 

3) There are a few traders who seem to get all of the business- they spend hours each day on the site responding to topic threads and other things.  If you want to put that much time into it, feel free.  I will not recommend it, however. 

4) This is not Calistyle's fault, but nevertheless, it is a fact of the community.  There are a few very rude, active people, who I get tired of.  You can't post in the huddle box without someone making a rude comment.  My mentor warned me about this person.  I'm not going to waste my time dealing with rude people. 

5) There is another site in which I also have a good rating.  Referral Swapper.  Basic membership to this site is also free.  But if you do want to upgrade, it is a flat one-time free of $10.  And you can offer trades to other members instead of having to wait for someone to come asking you if you want to trade. 
Link for that site: http://www.referralswapper.com/?r=20402

OF COURSE, YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A MEMBER OF EITHER OF THESE SITES TO DO A TRADE WITH ME.  I WILL PAY THE AMOUNT LISTED ON THE "CASH TODAY!" THREAD IF YOU SIGN UP USING MY REFERRAL LINK AND COMPLETE THE OFFER TERMS.  Notice the writing in red, I can't pay you if you are outside the allowed area to sign up for the site.  I can't pay you if you don't complete the offer.  I used to give advances, but not a single person I've given an advance to has ever completed the offers, so I no longer do that. 

When you first start out with freebie trading, you will probably hear people say they have "gone green" or ask you if you have "gone green on site XXX".

But what is going green?  As stated in "What is Freebie Trading," you make an agreement with another person: they will pay you, for example, $25 for completing the offer(s) on a certain site.  What this means, is that when you have completed the offer(s), you have now gone green.

Here is an example of a site with offers (DO NOT JOIN VIA THIS LINK...YOU WILL NOT GET PAID IF YOU COMPLETE OFFER(S) VIA THIS LINK).  http://videogames.git-r-free.com/view_offers.php

As you can see, there are some offers that are 100% of the credit needed, and others that are 50%, 34%, or even 10% credit.  To "go green" you must complete a total of 100% of offers.  When you've completed 100%, you have now "gone green" and will be paid by the person you made the agreement with!
Congrats!  You're on your way to being a freebie trader!

There are a few rules to keep in mind when completing offers:

READ THE FINE PRINT...most offers are a great chance to try a new product for a small price.  But some offers have re-stocking fees, extremely short trials that you need to keep track of, or other fees.  These will all be listed in the fine print.

Do not sign up for an offer and immediately cancel it without trying it first.  THIS IS OFFER FRAUD.  You will not be paid, will have to pay back any money you were paid, and might be banned from one or more sites.

Generally, try something you were already planning on buying or trying out.  For example, I spend a ton at book stores.  I found some great book clubs online where books are cheaper than at the bookstore...plus I got paid for signing up via freebie trading!  If a product looks interesting and you want to give it a try, feel free to sign up.  You didn't have to be planning on buying...just give it a fair try.

Method 1 is where all freebie traders should start.  DO NOT TRY TO START ON METHOD 2!!  You will not understand what is going on, be able to properly help people, and will, and probably won't make much money.  Method 1 is also a way of making money.  Trust me on this, I've been there and done it, you can make money doing method 1. 

So, what is method 1?  Look at the chart again:

Obviously, in method one, you're the person in the red circle.  The person in the blue circle is going to pay you a certain amount of money (ranging from $15 to even $50, depending on the site) for completing offer(s) on the freebie trading site.

Find a good mentor (of course, I'm always available and willing to help with absolutely any questions you have!) who will walk you through the process.

Method 1 is simply the process of getting paid to try offers.  That's it.  No flash, no gimmicks, nothing really confusing.
You try offers, get credited on the site, and get paid by the person in the blue circle.

Q: What IS Freebie Trading?

Freebie trading is when someone (such as myself) pays you to go to a site and complete an offer, such as ordering pet meds, doing a trial offer of a credit monitoring service, buying ASOTV products, or trying one of thousand other trial offers- such as game sites, movie rental companies, video game rental companies, etc. 

Q: Am I Going to Lose Money Trying This Offer?

NO!  Never do a site that is going to cause you to lose money.  For example, I am paying $30 to complete Git-R-Free Garage Sale.  If you see a product on the site selling for $40, DON'T BUY IT.  You just lost $10 out of the deal.  But if you see two trial offers that will total $10, then go for it!  You will have made $20! 

Q: Okay, this sounds cool.  What Do I Do Next?

Click on the "Cash Today!" button on the directory list at the top.  There is a list of sites and what I am paying.  Use the "check offer" link to see if you can find a site you like.  Then contact me!  Either via AIM (Jenlandsberger), Yahoo!Messanger (jenniferlandsberger) or e-mail (jenniferlandsberger@yahoo.com). 
We can either privately agree on a trade  -or-  you can sign up for Calistyle (it's free) to have an outsider monitor our trade for additional protection!

If you have a question that isn't answered below, e-mail me: jenniferlandsberger@yahoo.com.  I will reply to you directly and probably add it to my list!  

Q: Do I get paid the same for all sites?
A: NO!  Some sites will only pay $10 and there are others that pay up to $100 or more.  Of course, you have to do a lot of offers to qualify for the $100 sites.  Start small! 

Q:  Do I have to use Firefox?
A: No, but it is recommended.  It works much like Explorer (but better) and is free.  I HIGHLY suggest Firefox.

Q: Do I have to have a Paypal account?
A: YES!  And it has to be verified.  Which means that you have to have a bank or credit account linked with Paypal.  Paypal does the process of verifying.  It has nothing to do with any freebie trading site. 

Q: Do I have to have a credit card?
A: No.  There are a few sites that don't required a credit card.  However, they pay low and it is often hard to get them to credit.

Okay, you've heard of "freebie trading" and you're wondering exactly what it is.  It's actually very simple, despite the complexity some sites seem to have.

First of all, companies want people to try and buy their products.  To help get the word out and to encourage people to sign up for trial periods, they pay an outside website to promote their products.  For the sake of understanding, let's call this outside site "Get Green for Trials".

So, the outside company selling their product pays "Get Green for Trials", the freebie trading site.

"Get Green for Trails" is going to pay the person who refers you to the site.

You go to the site and sign up for a trial offer(s).  As soon as you get credited, the person referring you to the site pays YOU.  They usually give you about half of what they earned.

If you decide to buy the product (which is an option!), then you'll end up paying the outside company selling their product.  If you decide not to buy it, you can cancel and are only charged for the trial period or shipping and handling or whatever. 

That is a basic description of freebie trading is.  Be sure to check out the other posts in the contents link for further information!!

First of all, a few notes for my readers.  Please feel free to either sign up for e-mail updates and/or become a "follower!"  I love all of the reader comments I have gotten thus far.  To answer a few questions:

Yes, the information is currently a bit sparse.  I will be adding one new thing every other day, and introduce it with a blog post. 

Yes, in the "cash today" section, I will pay you the amount of money stated via Paypal as soon as you complete the offers for any of the links.  No tricks, no joking.  If you want to know how the whole system works and why I can pay you, check out the freebie trading page. 

Yes, I WILL PAY YOU $5 IN ADVANCE IF YOU COMMIT TO COMPLETING AN OFFER SITE.  Before you even sign up, if you promise to complete a site, I will send you $5 via paypal, just so you know I'm honest (if the link to my positive ratings isn't enough).  Contact me @ jenniferlandsberger@yahoo.com- give me your paypal address so I can send payment and tell me what site you are going to complete.  I will continue with this policy as long as no one cheats me!  So don't ruin it for others, please.

And now back to business.  One of the best survey companies out there is Lightspeed.  Surveys arrive fairly often, screening is usually only a few questions, and payment is fast.  The minimum payout for cash is $10.00. 

The bad part is that they are not currently recruiting members, though they do say that if you see a banner you can join that way.  I am going to put this on the survey page, though, for future reference.  I would check fairly often, because this is a very good site!

http://us.lightspeedpanel.com/US/public/index.us