Disclaimer: Let me start by saying that this entire thing was an accident. I am not writing this, to tell you how to spam link/news aggregation sites, to earn Groupon or any other site credits. I’m just recapping a personal story. If you get all spammy and start submitting Groupon deals to these sites, you’re probably just gonna end up pissing of the moderators.
So it began…
On December 1, 2010 a coworker of mine sent me a link for a Groupon deal from Santa Cruz, CA:
$3 for a Hand-Drawn Cat from I Want to Draw a Cat for You ($10 Value). I didn’t even live anywhere near Santa Cruz, but realizing this was an online deal and it was crazy enough, I decided to purchase a couple of them. I mean for $3 a piece, I figured I’d see what I could get out of it. These are what I ended up getting:
This is clearly art at it’s finest!
So I asked myself, “Where would I find some more people who might also like a kitteh drawing?”
Being an avid fan and user of Drew Curtis’ FARK.com, I decided I wanted to share this awesome deal with some of the Fark community. For those unfamiliar with Fark, it is a link/news aggregation site for those with a sense of humor.
When I decided to share the Groupon deal on Fark, I didn’t submit the link for approval to the main site. I submitted it to the TotalFark Discussion portion of the website, which is only available to premium members who pay between $4 and $5 a month for an account. Usually links that get posted in there, are never seen by people from the outside world (and probably rightfully so). I wasn’t even trying to be funny or clever with the headline. My headline was: Anybody need a cat drawn for them? Subby bought 2. (LGT the best groupon ever).
So it came as a shock to me when I saw the link was given the greenlight.
So as people commented on the thread, I didn’t think much of it until I saw someone post this:
And if there’s a referral number in the link?… that means Subby gets a $10 groupon credit each time you buy one. Even if its only a $3 one..
While that’s slightly different than Groupon’s actual referral policy, it immediately prompted me to think “Oh crap! I didn’t even consider that.” I had never placed my referral code in the URL. I just assumed whatever referral code was in the URL was either from the link my coworker had sent me earlier or added by one of the Fark admins, as I have see Groupon ads on there from time to time.
Groupon’s actual referal policy: “If someone joins Groupon within 72 hours after clicking your link, we’ll notify you within 24 hours of their first purchase and automatically add $10 Groupon Bucks to your account. You can refer as many people as you like.”
Given that this was my first (and only time) ever buying anything on Groupon, I didn’t even bother checking my account to see. I normally do all my daily deal purchases from Deal Of The Day SA. So I had pretty much assumed that somebody else was gonna be surprised to find extra credit in their account and that it wouldn’t be me. I’m just guessing at some point, probably after making the purchase, Groupon automatically placed my referral code in the URL and which I then proceeded on Fark.
A little over a month later…
On January 6th, 2010, I found myself struggling to get out of bed for work. So I grabbed my phone and started looking through my email to try to help open my eyes. I saw 5 emails from Groupon stating “Someone you referred has just bought their first Groupon! That means you earned $10 in Groupon credits, which we’ve already deposited into your Groupon account.”. I found this to be a bit odd as I hadn’t referred anybody. So I finally got out of bed, got on my computer and discovered $410 credit in my account. For whatever reason I had never received any email notification about referrals from the previous month. Perhaps they got blocked by my spam filter. But whatever the reason, I was happy about discovering this.
Since Groupon deals are usually around 50% to 70% off original price to begin with, this has the potential of saving me between $800 and $1400 on future food and entertainment expenses. This is also assuming that there are no more people who created an account from my referral link, who will go on to buy a deal in the future.
In summary…
So my message to the guy who draws the cats, Drew Curtis and the Fark admin(s) who gave my link the greenlight: I think I owe you a beer.
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Hey, I just found this via a Google alert… hooray! Congrats on the $410. And thanks for posting the link on Fark, I’m sure it brought me a lot of traffic.
You can buy me a beer here:
http://www.bottletrek.com/
Best,
Steve
Steve,
As I am a man of my word, check your inbox. Hope you enjoy your beer!
Thanks,
David