sweetcollect.co.uk
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Sweet Collect - For The Sweet Lover
sweetcollect.co.uk
Member Name: grown_up_girlie
Product:
sweetcollect.co.uk
Date: 21/07/05
Rating:
Advantages: A lot of free sweets!
Disadvantages: A lot of emails you don't always want!
**Introduction**
When I worked for a particular internet firm (A very popular one), I used to find that I had a lot of time to browse the internet at work. A particular colleague of mine told me about the world of affiliate schemes and introduced me to many freebie websites. She would tell me about how she had earned £25 of high street vouchers from simply doing online surveys.
Even though I was/am extremely experienced with the internet I hadn't actually come across this particular sector before. I didn't really know what to expect….
Not long after hearing about all this "free stuff" from my colleague, I was tapping away at the keyboard - signing myself up to at least 25 affiliate schemes/freebies sites and gawd knows how many others that offered free things if you simply sign up to company newsletters, free prize draws etc.
You name it, I signed up for it all in the coming weeks in the hope of earning absolutely anything. Anything at all! Free cash, free sim cards, free gadgets, free sweets, free books, free DVD's and CD's - absolutely anything and everything!
I still had reservations though, my first reservation was "would I actually 'really' get anything from this" I wanted to believe that it was true but didn't want to be "naive" in the process by signing up for a change of Phone Company just for the sake of a few points or credits! I decided to go slow and review everything…..
**Filtering the good from the bad**
I learnt over a period of time, what the difference was between a good and bad freebie site. I learnt which sites had a good return of remuneration, which sites had realistic goals and which sites I actually enjoyed interacting with….
-------------
Tip: You will get a lot of spam in you email inbox if you don't do your research first on particular schemes and sites. You need to check how reputable a site is by reading reviews first, DooYoo actually offers real consumer reviews on a lot of freebie sites.
-------------
I realise now how it was not the cleverest of ideas to go entering my email address into every site I saw! I get on average between 50-100 spam emails a day from various companies/websites I don't want so please go into this with some common sense!
This brings me to my review of www.sweetcollect.co.uk
**Sweet Collect**
The Principle:
Basically, "Sweet Collect" believes that every time you click on an advert banner, or website, someone somewhere, gets paid in some form for that click you've just made. They decided that enough was enough and they would actually offer fairness throughout the system. So that everyone would benefit.
-------------
Company Categories:
You get all sorts of small to large companies (Or merchants) advertising on the "Sweet Collect" network. Some of the more popular and well-known names are; Virgin.net, Lloyds TSB, Debenhams, Jamster, Tru Print and eBay. Each and every advertiser offers a different confectionary type and in different earning amounts.
There are so many categories to search through on this site that you will soon earn a lot of sweets.
-------------
How It Works…
…"Sweet Collect" advertise a 'company' on their website
…Consumers (You and me) are then drawn to the site by the offer of free sweets
…To earn free sweets you click on the 'company' advertisements
…The 'company' then signs more customers and sells more products
…The 'company' pays "Sweet Collect" for the advertising
…"Sweet Collect" then remunerate the consumer with sweets
Obviously this results in everyone getting 'something' from it.
-------------
Types of Sweets:
With "Sweet Collect", you earn sweets of all kinds. You can earn Sherbet sticks (Pixie sticks), Deep Sea Jelly Monsters, Double Dips, Flying Saucers (My favourite), Cola Cubes, Chewits, Pez and lots of chocolate - the type of confectionary is endless as is the earning potential.
Every 'merchant' that advertises on/through "Sweet Collect" clearly agrees a contract with Sterling Rock (Owners of Sweet Collect). With every contract, comes the agreed earning potential that the consumer can earn in any 1 given transaction. Sweet Collect then clearly marks this on every advertisement on their site so that you know the earning potential for each and every merchant offer.
Typical earning examples:
Example 1: You will be awarded 1 x Fruit Salad Chew's for submitting a search on Kelkoo via the internet link provided on the Sweet Collect site. You would simply click the Kelkoo banner or link and you would be directed to the Kelkoo site where you would then perform your desired search.
Click any search result and you have earned yourself a Fruit Salad Chew! These offers have real potential to earn a lot of confectionary.
Example 2: You will earn 1 x Deep Sea Jelly Monster if you sign up to and bid on 1 auction on the eBay.co.uk website. You would again, have to click the banner/link on the "Sweet Collect" site to be diverted to the eBay registration page, you would sign up your new account, make your 1st bid and then eBay would confirm the completed transaction with Sweet Collect and your sweets would be approved.
Another good earning type. We all love eBay so why not earn some sweets in the process!
Example 3: You will earn 20 x Pixie Sticks if you use the link on the Sweet Collect site to order you're shopping with Iceland.co.uk. Again, the company would confirm with Sweet Collect that the transaction had been correctly completed then; the free sweets would be credited to your account.
The way I see this is that if you are going to do you're shopping online anyway then you may as well get something for free with it. I also enjoy the fact you can get special discounts off your shopping too.
There are other types of offers available - too many to list. These 3 mentioned are just the typical types you would come across very frequently.
New offers are being added all the time so you would want to regularly log-into your account. You would also be emailed special offers to your specified email address (Given at the time of registering). These offers include the earning potential of new offers, special discounts and freebies. New offers can also come through in the form of what is called a 'Voucher Code'.
These are special codes that are limited to the first 50/100 people who enter it into the 'Voucher Code' box on the left hand side of the site.
If you are like me, taking advantage of the 'Search Engine' offers (Example no.1) where you simply click on a search result to earn a Chewit or Fruit Salad chew, it earns you a lot of confectionary. I love doing this!
Obviously, Sweet Collect are aware of the huge earning potential of these offers so you needn't fear of 100's of chews turning up in the mail - the staff at the Sweet Collect HQ (in Corby, Northants) will substitute each chew for something bigger (At their own discretion), such as a big box of chocolates or sweets of higher value.
How Do You Get The Sweets?
After you have accumulated more than 10 sweets these will move to your 'approved' transactions page, ready to be processed for dispatch. Unfortunately this is where you get let down a little bit, by what is normally a very good site. Although you DO and I stress DO, get your sweets, they can take a while to come!
Several factors come into this. Firstly the advertising company has to approve your transaction with 'Sweet Collect'.
Sweet Collect will then mark your transaction as approved and it will move in to be processed. After sitting in processing for a while (My experience is anything up to 8 weeks) the status then changes to 'dispatched'.
Its then in the hands of Royal Mail to get to your sweets to your front door safely and in a timely manor.
All the packages I have received have been excellently packaged and nothing has ever been damaged but I know that this is not always the case. If you earn enough sweets on a regular basis you will actually find that you will get sweets through much more frequently. This is about the only downside to this scheme.
-------------
A Brief Overview of The Website:
This is a very simple website to navigate. Nice and clear so that you really cannot get confused. It's perfect for even the most in-experienced internet user. It loads very quickly even during peak periods of use.
The homepage has several links running along the top and right side of the page to access different features within the site. This also includes a login and search box on the bottom left.
It is a secure site so your information if more than safe. They also abide to laws of the 1998 Data Protection Act.
They do use 'cookies' when you browse the site. This is done automatically so that they can identify your log-in and can collect demographic information to identify your browsing patterns.
This really has no direct relevance to you unless you are using the site fraudulently.
-------------
How To Create An Account & Navigate It:
Creating Your Account: To do this, you simply go to the website's homepage - www.sweetcollect.co.uk and click on the 'Join' link. You enter your personal details and Sweet Collect will ask you to confirm you registration by clicking on a link in an email they send you to your specified email address (At time of registration). Once you have done this you will have the chance to earn lots of free sweets.
Navigating Through Your Account: This is so simple, "Sweet Collect" has again, kept this easy for everyone. With the user panel link you can click through all your pending, approved and items dispatched transactions. Each transaction displayed has details of every sweet sent out and the date. This way you can keep a tab on your earnings.
On the left hand side of your account, there is a vertical list of all the available companies/offers that are advertised on the site. These are listed in several categories so it makes it easy for you to find what you want, by advertiser type. You can perform a general search, browse by category, view all new advertisements and view all previous advertisements.
There is also an advert on the homepage advertising 'Sweet Collect Island'.
From my sources, I have heard this is going to be where you can play games to earn even more free sweets and ones of greater value. Stirling Rock is keeping it a secret for the moment, so nobody really knows exactly what this new site is going to be like….. It will definitely be big though whatever it is!
If you click the link - it simply says 'Sweet Collect Island will be coming soon!' So watch this space.
-------------
Terms & Conditions:
Of course, like any freebies website there are terms and conditions to abide by. These are:
• You must provide genuine details when joining Sweet Collect and validate your email address. If any details are entered incorrectly your account will be closed and any sweets in it will be lost. If a transaction is authorised but then the merchants advises Sweet Collect that the details entered were fraudulent then you may be asked to pay for the earned sweets (If they have been dispatched).
• They can suspend your account for any reason at any time and can withhold your sweets, however apparently this is only done to accounts suspected of fraud.
• If they are out of stock of a particular sweet then they may send a replacement of equal or greater value.
• Sweets are only sent out when you have accumulated at least 10 sweets. However with some advertisers you can earn 10 sweets or more in one go so it shouldn't be hard.
• There is only 1 account per a household allowed.
• All members must be over 18.
-------------
Pro's And Con's:
Pros:
I would highly recommend this site. It really does offer you great deals and you get paid by earning loads of sweets.
You save loads of money on special offers and it's a great way to stay on top of the current offers available to the consuming world. Earning potential is virtually limitless and is a really nice surprise when you get you post in the morning.
The staff at 'Sterling Rock' are very helpful so if you have a query or problem you can simply contact them via one of the email address's listed under the 'contact us' link (At the bottom of the homepage). You can also email the general 'Stirling Rock' email which is: danielle.cook@sterlingrock.net or ring 01536 461498 if you have any queries re: signing up, offers or remuneration.
Consistently good 'special offers' straight to your email inbox.
You will save a small fortune! I know I have.
Cons:
A downside of signing to 'Sweet Collect' is that you will get some unwanted emails, offers that you are not interested in. You do have to sign up to newsletters and competitions/surveys to earn your sweets - it not all like this though!
If you really are one of those people who really detests ALL advertising emails, then I would strongly advise joining against this site.
Unfortunately, as the merchant has 30 days to approve your 'advert click' it can take a while for your sweets to get to you.
-------------
Partner Sites:
There are few partner sites linked to 'Sweet Collect' as well such as:
www.talkfreebies.com - (Find the best freebies sites with this one) Talkfreebies has a great community forum and competitions; you can talk about 'Sweet Collect' and get advice from other members. I actually won £300 cash in a referral competition - so it is certainly worth signing to this forum based site.
www.alcopoints.com - Instead of earning sweets, you earn credits that amount towards a 'Threshers' gift voucher. You can pop down to your local shop and treat yourself to a bottle of plonk! All for free! Again, over 18's only please.
www.swearch.com - this is a search engine primarily dedicated to all community members that are a part of any 'Stirling Rock' site. Search for anything, you could like me, even make this your default homepage!
-------------
**My Overall Opinion**
A great site to spend your valuable time on.
Brilliant community spirit in the 'Talk Freebies' forum. A must for any 'freebie' lover!
Simple/straight forward tasks for yummy rewards.
Excellent special offers straight to your email inbox.
Lastly, I hope to see some of you about in the forums. I love this site and will give you a warning - it's highly addictive!
When I worked for a particular internet firm (A very popular one), I used to find that I had a lot of time to browse the internet at work. A particular colleague of mine told me about the world of affiliate schemes and introduced me to many freebie websites. She would tell me about how she had earned £25 of high street vouchers from simply doing online surveys.
Even though I was/am extremely experienced with the internet I hadn't actually come across this particular sector before. I didn't really know what to expect….
Not long after hearing about all this "free stuff" from my colleague, I was tapping away at the keyboard - signing myself up to at least 25 affiliate schemes/freebies sites and gawd knows how many others that offered free things if you simply sign up to company newsletters, free prize draws etc.
You name it, I signed up for it all in the coming weeks in the hope of earning absolutely anything. Anything at all! Free cash, free sim cards, free gadgets, free sweets, free books, free DVD's and CD's - absolutely anything and everything!
I still had reservations though, my first reservation was "would I actually 'really' get anything from this" I wanted to believe that it was true but didn't want to be "naive" in the process by signing up for a change of Phone Company just for the sake of a few points or credits! I decided to go slow and review everything…..
**Filtering the good from the bad**
I learnt over a period of time, what the difference was between a good and bad freebie site. I learnt which sites had a good return of remuneration, which sites had realistic goals and which sites I actually enjoyed interacting with….
-------------
Tip: You will get a lot of spam in you email inbox if you don't do your research first on particular schemes and sites. You need to check how reputable a site is by reading reviews first, DooYoo actually offers real consumer reviews on a lot of freebie sites.
-------------
I realise now how it was not the cleverest of ideas to go entering my email address into every site I saw! I get on average between 50-100 spam emails a day from various companies/websites I don't want so please go into this with some common sense!
This brings me to my review of www.sweetcollect.co.uk
**Sweet Collect**
The Principle:
Basically, "Sweet Collect" believes that every time you click on an advert banner, or website, someone somewhere, gets paid in some form for that click you've just made. They decided that enough was enough and they would actually offer fairness throughout the system. So that everyone would benefit.
-------------
Company Categories:
You get all sorts of small to large companies (Or merchants) advertising on the "Sweet Collect" network. Some of the more popular and well-known names are; Virgin.net, Lloyds TSB, Debenhams, Jamster, Tru Print and eBay. Each and every advertiser offers a different confectionary type and in different earning amounts.
There are so many categories to search through on this site that you will soon earn a lot of sweets.
-------------
How It Works…
…"Sweet Collect" advertise a 'company' on their website
…Consumers (You and me) are then drawn to the site by the offer of free sweets
…To earn free sweets you click on the 'company' advertisements
…The 'company' then signs more customers and sells more products
…The 'company' pays "Sweet Collect" for the advertising
…"Sweet Collect" then remunerate the consumer with sweets
Obviously this results in everyone getting 'something' from it.
-------------
Types of Sweets:
With "Sweet Collect", you earn sweets of all kinds. You can earn Sherbet sticks (Pixie sticks), Deep Sea Jelly Monsters, Double Dips, Flying Saucers (My favourite), Cola Cubes, Chewits, Pez and lots of chocolate - the type of confectionary is endless as is the earning potential.
Every 'merchant' that advertises on/through "Sweet Collect" clearly agrees a contract with Sterling Rock (Owners of Sweet Collect). With every contract, comes the agreed earning potential that the consumer can earn in any 1 given transaction. Sweet Collect then clearly marks this on every advertisement on their site so that you know the earning potential for each and every merchant offer.
Typical earning examples:
Example 1: You will be awarded 1 x Fruit Salad Chew's for submitting a search on Kelkoo via the internet link provided on the Sweet Collect site. You would simply click the Kelkoo banner or link and you would be directed to the Kelkoo site where you would then perform your desired search.
Click any search result and you have earned yourself a Fruit Salad Chew! These offers have real potential to earn a lot of confectionary.
Example 2: You will earn 1 x Deep Sea Jelly Monster if you sign up to and bid on 1 auction on the eBay.co.uk website. You would again, have to click the banner/link on the "Sweet Collect" site to be diverted to the eBay registration page, you would sign up your new account, make your 1st bid and then eBay would confirm the completed transaction with Sweet Collect and your sweets would be approved.
Another good earning type. We all love eBay so why not earn some sweets in the process!
Example 3: You will earn 20 x Pixie Sticks if you use the link on the Sweet Collect site to order you're shopping with Iceland.co.uk. Again, the company would confirm with Sweet Collect that the transaction had been correctly completed then; the free sweets would be credited to your account.
The way I see this is that if you are going to do you're shopping online anyway then you may as well get something for free with it. I also enjoy the fact you can get special discounts off your shopping too.
There are other types of offers available - too many to list. These 3 mentioned are just the typical types you would come across very frequently.
New offers are being added all the time so you would want to regularly log-into your account. You would also be emailed special offers to your specified email address (Given at the time of registering). These offers include the earning potential of new offers, special discounts and freebies. New offers can also come through in the form of what is called a 'Voucher Code'.
These are special codes that are limited to the first 50/100 people who enter it into the 'Voucher Code' box on the left hand side of the site.
If you are like me, taking advantage of the 'Search Engine' offers (Example no.1) where you simply click on a search result to earn a Chewit or Fruit Salad chew, it earns you a lot of confectionary. I love doing this!
Obviously, Sweet Collect are aware of the huge earning potential of these offers so you needn't fear of 100's of chews turning up in the mail - the staff at the Sweet Collect HQ (in Corby, Northants) will substitute each chew for something bigger (At their own discretion), such as a big box of chocolates or sweets of higher value.
How Do You Get The Sweets?
After you have accumulated more than 10 sweets these will move to your 'approved' transactions page, ready to be processed for dispatch. Unfortunately this is where you get let down a little bit, by what is normally a very good site. Although you DO and I stress DO, get your sweets, they can take a while to come!
Several factors come into this. Firstly the advertising company has to approve your transaction with 'Sweet Collect'.
Sweet Collect will then mark your transaction as approved and it will move in to be processed. After sitting in processing for a while (My experience is anything up to 8 weeks) the status then changes to 'dispatched'.
Its then in the hands of Royal Mail to get to your sweets to your front door safely and in a timely manor.
All the packages I have received have been excellently packaged and nothing has ever been damaged but I know that this is not always the case. If you earn enough sweets on a regular basis you will actually find that you will get sweets through much more frequently. This is about the only downside to this scheme.
-------------
A Brief Overview of The Website:
This is a very simple website to navigate. Nice and clear so that you really cannot get confused. It's perfect for even the most in-experienced internet user. It loads very quickly even during peak periods of use.
The homepage has several links running along the top and right side of the page to access different features within the site. This also includes a login and search box on the bottom left.
It is a secure site so your information if more than safe. They also abide to laws of the 1998 Data Protection Act.
They do use 'cookies' when you browse the site. This is done automatically so that they can identify your log-in and can collect demographic information to identify your browsing patterns.
This really has no direct relevance to you unless you are using the site fraudulently.
-------------
How To Create An Account & Navigate It:
Creating Your Account: To do this, you simply go to the website's homepage - www.sweetcollect.co.uk and click on the 'Join' link. You enter your personal details and Sweet Collect will ask you to confirm you registration by clicking on a link in an email they send you to your specified email address (At time of registration). Once you have done this you will have the chance to earn lots of free sweets.
Navigating Through Your Account: This is so simple, "Sweet Collect" has again, kept this easy for everyone. With the user panel link you can click through all your pending, approved and items dispatched transactions. Each transaction displayed has details of every sweet sent out and the date. This way you can keep a tab on your earnings.
On the left hand side of your account, there is a vertical list of all the available companies/offers that are advertised on the site. These are listed in several categories so it makes it easy for you to find what you want, by advertiser type. You can perform a general search, browse by category, view all new advertisements and view all previous advertisements.
There is also an advert on the homepage advertising 'Sweet Collect Island'.
From my sources, I have heard this is going to be where you can play games to earn even more free sweets and ones of greater value. Stirling Rock is keeping it a secret for the moment, so nobody really knows exactly what this new site is going to be like….. It will definitely be big though whatever it is!
If you click the link - it simply says 'Sweet Collect Island will be coming soon!' So watch this space.
-------------
Terms & Conditions:
Of course, like any freebies website there are terms and conditions to abide by. These are:
• You must provide genuine details when joining Sweet Collect and validate your email address. If any details are entered incorrectly your account will be closed and any sweets in it will be lost. If a transaction is authorised but then the merchants advises Sweet Collect that the details entered were fraudulent then you may be asked to pay for the earned sweets (If they have been dispatched).
• They can suspend your account for any reason at any time and can withhold your sweets, however apparently this is only done to accounts suspected of fraud.
• If they are out of stock of a particular sweet then they may send a replacement of equal or greater value.
• Sweets are only sent out when you have accumulated at least 10 sweets. However with some advertisers you can earn 10 sweets or more in one go so it shouldn't be hard.
• There is only 1 account per a household allowed.
• All members must be over 18.
-------------
Pro's And Con's:
Pros:
I would highly recommend this site. It really does offer you great deals and you get paid by earning loads of sweets.
You save loads of money on special offers and it's a great way to stay on top of the current offers available to the consuming world. Earning potential is virtually limitless and is a really nice surprise when you get you post in the morning.
The staff at 'Sterling Rock' are very helpful so if you have a query or problem you can simply contact them via one of the email address's listed under the 'contact us' link (At the bottom of the homepage). You can also email the general 'Stirling Rock' email which is: danielle.cook@sterlingrock.net or ring 01536 461498 if you have any queries re: signing up, offers or remuneration.
Consistently good 'special offers' straight to your email inbox.
You will save a small fortune! I know I have.
Cons:
A downside of signing to 'Sweet Collect' is that you will get some unwanted emails, offers that you are not interested in. You do have to sign up to newsletters and competitions/surveys to earn your sweets - it not all like this though!
If you really are one of those people who really detests ALL advertising emails, then I would strongly advise joining against this site.
Unfortunately, as the merchant has 30 days to approve your 'advert click' it can take a while for your sweets to get to you.
-------------
Partner Sites:
There are few partner sites linked to 'Sweet Collect' as well such as:
www.talkfreebies.com - (Find the best freebies sites with this one) Talkfreebies has a great community forum and competitions; you can talk about 'Sweet Collect' and get advice from other members. I actually won £300 cash in a referral competition - so it is certainly worth signing to this forum based site.
www.alcopoints.com - Instead of earning sweets, you earn credits that amount towards a 'Threshers' gift voucher. You can pop down to your local shop and treat yourself to a bottle of plonk! All for free! Again, over 18's only please.
www.swearch.com - this is a search engine primarily dedicated to all community members that are a part of any 'Stirling Rock' site. Search for anything, you could like me, even make this your default homepage!
-------------
**My Overall Opinion**
A great site to spend your valuable time on.
Brilliant community spirit in the 'Talk Freebies' forum. A must for any 'freebie' lover!
Simple/straight forward tasks for yummy rewards.
Excellent special offers straight to your email inbox.
Lastly, I hope to see some of you about in the forums. I love this site and will give you a warning - it's highly addictive!
Summary: A lot of earning potential, yummy sweets but can take a while to ariive.
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