The pop-up king

With his parents’ credit card in hand, Tyler Churchward took a risk and clicked a pop-up banner advertising a free iPod. After completing the requirements, an iPod arrived in the mail. Figuring it worked once, he tried again. And again. Five years later, Churchward, a senior accounting major now with his own credit card, has accumulated more than $22,000 in merchandise, gift cards, and checks from online offers. And he got it all — more or less — for free.

How did you get into this?

In 2005, I was just kind of browsing the Internet and found this article online that said freeipods.com actually works. You will actually get your iPod. I looked into it more and found some online messaging boards, which are basically communities that talk about this kind of stuff. They share links and different information on offers, like which ones are scams or legitimate. So I did my first offer, and I have been doing it pretty much ever since.

What are some of the most random offers you’ve had to sign up for to get a gift?

There was one called Latavi. It was a breast enhancement cream. There have been plenty of weight loss pills and wrinkle creams. There’s been some jewelry club where you get a ring or necklace every month, but it was just the biggest piece of crap. It’s like something you’d get out of a vending machine.

Tell us about some of the cool stuff you’ve gotten.

Toward the end of my senior year (in high school), I found this link on a message board that was for a 42-inch plasma TV. You needed to sign up for 12 offers plus get a referral to do 12 offers. I asked some of my friends if they wanted to get a line going. We all signed up as each other’s referrals and started rotating in. I think like seven or eight people from my high school got the TV. I got a MacBook in June right before my freshman year of college, which was pretty good because I needed a computer for college anyway. And I’ve only paid for one iPod, and I’ve had four or five.

Does the effort of signing up pay off?

I mean, this is pretty much my only job. I had a couple part-time jobs in high school, but it was never for more than six months. And I haven’t had a job in college just because I’ve been able to live off of this money.

But what about scams?

I’ve never been scammed. I mean, I’ve not met the requirements for a program before and lost the money I had spent on the offers. And I’ve gotten charged for offers that I’ve forgotten to cancel. But it’s perfectly legitimate. You even file a W-9 form, which is sent into the Internal Revenue Service with the reported amount of the gift.

So is it really free?

You have to pay when you sign up for offers that are required. I’ve probably spent about $3,000 to $4,000 on the offers, but that’s over the course of five years. You put in $40 or $60 now and in two to four months you get $500 plus. So it’s not really free, but the profit is huge. I pretty much view it like a business.

Do you still do these offers?

I did some last summer, but the last website that you could really do changed their terms around, so it doesn’t really make it worth it. And really in the last year or two, a lot of the offers just disappeared completely because of the recession.