Bye Bye Offer Walls, Hello New Features!

Good Morning Swagfriends!

Happy Saturday! Happy Thanksgiving Week! (It feels like it really starts today for me anyway.)

This Saturday before Thanksgiving, I am thankful that no one in the house is sick today. I'm thankful that my toddler let me catnap very well this morning- I sure needed it! And I'm thankful that I am THROUGH with the special offer posts for a while. Frankly, between Gambit and TapJoy, it was pretty depressing.

I do have one more note and then On To Better Things!

I was pretty frustrated this morning over TapJoy. Looking at the offer status screen, I noticed more of October's unanswered inquiries had moved down off the list. Case Closed, No Response. My most recent inquiry is for 162, and of course, has received no response yet. It bugs the snot outta me that I can't view an open inquiry. All I see is "Processing your feedback" (yah RIGHT) and Contact TapJoy. Which opens another "ticket" instead of tacking on to the old one.

So I took my own advice and wrote to Swag Bucks from the Contact Us link on the homepage. I chose Special Offers from the drop down, gave the company name, offer name, offer value. In the body of the message I explained about the offer in question, included a list of other offers that have received no response, and mentioned that there are several more that are no longer accessible to me from as far back as October 8th. (I am not even going to try to pursue anything before that, but it's been going on a while.)

I'm just asking Swag Bucks to make TapJoy contact and communicate with their users first and foremost. And if possible, to honor their agreement, and pay out the swagbucks owed. From a business perspective, it's in Swag Bucks best interest to make sure the companies they have agreements with are honoring them. I wouldn't want my users slowing (or stopping) their use of my product (Swagbucks.com et al) because they feel ripped off. 

When I get a response I'll let you know. Other than that, it would take something Pretty Positive for me to do a special offers post anytime soon :P Besides, I've got Much More Fun things to post about right now!

Swag Bucks has rolled out a whole Slew of new features this week. Some of them are pretty cool, can't really find fault with any of it yet! :) Oh! Before that though, just a quick screenshot of a search workaround for newer swaggernauts.

This was my biggest win yesterday. On Mega Swag Bucks Day. Pitiful. But not really the point :P  I've seen a lot of new swaggernauts ask why you can't do a .com type search without being taken straight to the URL instead of to search results. I don't know why but there is a work around. You just put a space between the word and the .whatever. See above? I didn't search grants.gov, because I wanted to try to get a win off the search THEN go to the website. I did grants .gov and achieved both of my goals.

Alright Already! On to some of these new features!

Now you can add your 2 cents to the item listings at the SwagStore. You can also add an item to the new WishList feature.

Look, Im on TV *AGAIN* !

To add a review, you simply click in the review box and start typing. Rate the product when you are done (You can only rate once. I added those rate stars after I'd reviewed so you could see what it looks like, but the option to rate is gone once you've rated it.) Once you click Post Comment, you're done! Sort by Most Recent to see your review. The default is Oldest First.

If you click Add to Wishlist, You get a pop up confirming it's been added.

You can view your wishlist from this pop up, or from the toolbar at the top of the Swagbucks pages. Just hover your mouse over your swagtotal.

You can snag anything on your wishlist from that page, as long as you have enough swagbucks to buy it. There are also three filter options for email alerts that you can set for each item.

You can be alerted when there is a price change, (good for those of us hoping for a Cyber Monday type sale,) if the item availability changes, (for instance the Ultimate Game Cards run out of stock, see when they come back in,) or when you've saved enough regular swagbucks (non partner) to snag your item.

I give both of these new features....

Two Thumbs Up!!

 There's several more awesome new features to blog about, but I'm going to have to pick ONE and leave the rest for tomorrows post. I'm gonna go with the one I'm most excited about.

SWAGBUCKS GAMES!!

According to yesterdays blog post, sometime early Thanksgiving week Swag Bucks will be opening a private beta test of the Games function. 10,000 lucky swaggernauts will get the chance to be the first to use, try out, test the new Games! After the closed beta period, they will start adding new users slowly, continuing to tweak and fix the issues that arise. By the end of December, all users should be able to play!


I think this is a FANTASTIC idea. This new feature could be a lot of fun, but it could also present a lot of bugs and unforeseen issues on launch. I sincerely hope the 10,000 that get to try it out first are the types who understand that there WILL be issues. I hope they do their part by giving swagbucks the constructive, detailed information about their experiences needed to make Games work for everyone when it's fully launched. I hope they are patient, and of the mind to volunteer to make Swag Bucks better by treating it less like a sneak peek and more like a service. In the end, the effort you put into the beta will reward you with a more enjoyable, reliable experience at launch. 


I really, REALLY hope I'm one of the 10,000! I'm just the type they need! I have no idea if they will be picking by lottery, or if they have a number of swaggernauts they would like to see involved, plus a lottery for the remainder. *shrug* I'm not begging but..

 PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LET ME IN!

hahahahah  I got 2 wins, for 8 and 10, searching for a good begging picture LOL. Gotta love it. Won more today before noon than I did all day on Mega Swag Bucks Day! Good times :)

Ok That wraps up today's SwagMelt! Come back tomorrow for Daily Deals, Coupons, and Book Swap! GOOD STUFF!

If anyone reading this is not yet a member of Swagbucks, but wants to get on the swagtrain and start earning the free loot, there's no time like the present! Just go to the swidget , up top on the right there, press the Sign Up button on the bottom right. Fill out a short form, confirm your email, and get 30 swagbucks to get you rolling! Then come back here and start with October's second blog post, "Beginner Tips for Swagsurfing!", for tips on how to get started!

Until Tomorrow Swag Friends...


HAPPY SWAGSURFING!!

Special Offers Breakdown part 7 - TapJoy! (OMG I'm Back!)

Good Afternoon Swaggernauts!

I bet you thought I'd abandoned you :P  No, No, I've thought of you guys every day! I've just been dealing with a lot of health issues this past week. Myself, my husbands, I've been in no shape to post.

However! I'm back, and I'm going to wrap up the special offers segment. Because Tomorrow! I have to show off some of the awesome new features SwagBucks had rolled out this week!

Ok.. *shuffles around papers in her head* where was i... *mutters and pushes her glasses up her nose until - * Oh yes! TapJoy. YAAAYY  *laughs with a slight edge of irony*

Ok I really tried to come up with something positive about TapJoy. Really, I did. I kind of have some mediocre feedback about some features but basically, it still boils down to- I can't get TapJoy to credit or to respond to inquiries. This is just.. it's gotten ridiculous. They won't respond, there's no way to view an open ticket, only to submit another request which also gets ignored, then the inquiry gets closed out because of no activity. And you lose your swagbucks.

But let's just, push through this shall we, and shine rose colored lights on the spots that we can!

This is the TapJoy wall. It has All, Free, Survey of the Day, Shopping, Daily Deals, and More tabs. The green Missing Swagbucks button on the right is where you go to see your inquiry list *chuckle*. More on that later.

I guess we can start with Survey of the Day.

Right off the bat I've got a glitch to point out. It says the surveys are for 76, but we are only getting credited 68. Boo. Also, the surveys are very hard to qualify for.

On this one I gt disqualified for being a 34 year old female LOL. At least it was quick. I've only qualified for one so far. Sometimes if you DQ (disqualify) and refresh the offer page, try again. Sometimes it will be a different survey. If it's not, when you start the survey, you will be instantly DQ'd.

 I did manage to qualify for one survey last week. As I said though, it only credited for 68. I was happy for it though! Getting swagbucks from TapJoy is RARE!

This is the Shopping tab. I didn't do any of the offers because without a regular income, I can't spend money to earn swagbucks. :)

Here you see the Daily Deals tab. Good things to jump on if you have disposable income. I didn't try any shopping or daily deals though, sorry.

I wanted to show you a successful offer. I have tried, and tried, and I am not going to post a whole list of fails. It's too depressing *chuckle*.I did screenshot an offer with a virus though. I knew it would have a virus, relied on my Zone Alarm Extreme Security to do it's job- and it did!

TapJoy has several offers for around the same amount of swagbucks that all require you to download the PicMorph toolbar. They all have a virus. So I did what I normally do, and reported it in inquiry. Other walls would respond and possibly give me some small swagbucks for screenshotting and warning them of a virus but not TapJoy. TapJoy just doesn't bother responding at all. YAY!

When you press the green "Missing Swagbucks?" button it takes you to a list of offers. It looks like you complete them all! However it's just that they list the completed offers first, and the open offers / ones with inquiries last. Above shows a typical fail. 6 offers, none credited. Well, the next day 3 credited, 3 did not. All the same type of offer- click through to a sponsored link. Really, 50% credit is GOOD for TapJoy - Bad in the real world!

Check these out. 3 open inquiries from October that have yet to get a response. There are three or four more that just went POOF, despite me having to open multiple tickets to attempt to get them to respond. No Response, and POOF. No more action I can take. YAY!

Anyway, find the offer you are looking to get credited, and click the Contact TapJoy link on the right.

Here I gave them screenshots proving the offer has a malicious virus and needs to be removed. No response.. and the offers are still there. YAY!

I got so frustrated by TapJoy last week that I did something I've never done before. I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. If I count just the offers they haven't made vanish, they owe me serveral hundred swagbucks that I *seriously* doubt I will ever see. One offer is for 162. That one I will be reporting to SwagBucks in a few days if I still get no response.

Hmm! Well, that's all the screenshots I have for TapJoy. Not much rose colored light there huh? Sorry!

I also managed to pluck up and do a Gambit task for you. I'm just going to post a list of screenshots. In the task I had to go through 10 pages with 4 items on each page. You have to get an 80 accuracy to be credited. I made it all the way to 50% with 100% accuracy, then I started tanking. The answers they wanted became more specific, though the links / videos they were telling you to look at had more than one possible answer, depending on the observer. So, needless to say, I failed. I felt tricked, hoodwinked. Fished lol. So I wrote them feedback saying the task was not fair because after 50% completion the questions became too subjective for a single objective correct answer, therefore impossible to finish with 80% accuracy.

In the end they emailed me back, saying they reset my accuracy to 100%, and I could try the task again. Well, yay. I can start all over and still not get through. PASS. For now. Maybe tomorrow ... :P

In this task you click a link and it takes you to a search page. You also click the video link. Compare the search results with the video it's chosen for you, and tell Gambit what level of relevance the search terms had to do with the actual video watched, and what the quality of the video was. 

That's pretty much it. Most tasks are far more detailed and involved than this, from my experience. I will admit- this is the first one I ever completed. I have a problem with earning 30-60 cents an hour :P That's how the math works out for me, time spent, swagbucks potentially earned, and what those swagbucks add up to when converted to Amazon Gift Card currency rates :P

Let me leave you with an upbeat, positive note.

I ordered my stepsons Christmas presents YAY! And it was all FREE, with my free trial of Amazon Prime giving me free shipping on most items through Christmas, and my swagbucks AGC balance! I also bought a piece of his present at eBay last night, using PayPal money earned from- you guessed it - Swag Bucks! Love! Swoon! Joy!

If anyone reading this is not yet a member of Swagbucks, but wants to get on the swagtrain and start earning the free loot, there's no time like the present! Just go to the swidget , up top on the right there, press the Sign Up button on the bottom right. Fill out a short form, confirm your email, and get 30 swagbucks to get you rolling! Then come back here and start with October's second blog post, "Beginner Tips for Swagsurfing!", for tips on how to get started!

Well this was short and not so sweet. I'll be getting back into the swing of things tomorrow with some great news about New Swag Bucks Features!  HUZZAH!!

Until then Swagfriends,


HAPPY SWAGSURFING!

Late Edition

I apologize readers, yesterday I did not finish the TapJoy post as promised.

Let me tell ya,when it rains around here, it really pours.

You know I was just sick with the flu. Then my husband got it. As if a sick husband isn't bad enough (poor men are like little boys when they don't feel well!) yesterday he had not one, but TWO seizures. One in the afternoon, and one in the evening as he was stubbornly trying to get ready for work. In the shower, one of my worst fears.

He's ok but had to go to the hospital for stitches and concussion check. He's got a lot of testing scheduled for December.

I have the material ready for the TapJoy post, and did a Gambit task this morning too, but I won't be able to post until a bit later. Sorry for the missing SwagMelt again, but family comes first. See you in a bit.

SwagMelt is On Air with Gambit part 2 and TapJoy

Hello there, Swagfriends! 

I'm sorry SwagMelt has been off the air for 4 days. I've been too sick to do much of anything but search until yesterday. I just haven't been up to typing. I've also been trying here and there to find something positive to screenshot and post about TapJoy, but I have to accept that it is what it is, and the post isn't gonna end with rainbow cookies leading to pots of swagbucks.

Before I start baggin' on Tapjoy, I gotta return to the Gambit post. Might as well get two negatives out of the way at once, right? *laugh*  It ended with a resolution similar in ways to my answers to most geometry questions back in high school, which got me a 50% average grade most of the time.  I would get the answer correct, in the end, but the way I got there was "wrong" and didn't ever address the "heart" of the geometry problem. My teacher would look at me mystified that I even got the right answer in the end, so "illogical" was my route.

That's how I feel about the process on this offer with Gambit. In the end, I got my 38 swagbucks. But the mountainous route they made me climb made no sense, because, in the end, they never addressed the heart of the problem. They had ample proof that they needed to either honor the requirements for all users - simply submitting your email -

Or they needed to correct the offer requirements and move the offer from the free wall. They said they would let the advertiser know, which I assume means that it's up to the advertisers discretion whether they list it as free or not. That didn't tell me if they would start paying for the offer. Most people who do this offer don't get paid for it - or any of the offers like it. A lucky few slip through, but their "method" doesn't work for everyone. *sigh*

After they told me they would contact the advertiser, they still didn't credit me right away. I mean, I'd already submitted proof that I'd completed the requirements- submitting my email. I'd explained the problem with the offer. Instead of crediting me, they asked me...

What have I done to complete this? I'd already submitted screenshots and an explanation *laugh*. That kinda got my goat so I sent them a longer message with a link to the Gambit blog . That didn't work however, they said the link would not open, it showed nothing. Which made me wonder what kind of firewalls their customer service reps are behind. So I sent them, link by link, almost all of the screenshots from the blog.

I explained that after the screenshots showing the offer requirements, the submit my email screen, and the screen immediately thereafter, I had proven enough, by the offer requirements, to get the 38 swagbucks they owe me.

Then I noted everything that followed was my attempt to complete the offer the way the advertiser stated it- FREE. It was proof that it was impossible to complete the offer for Free, if submitting ones email was not enough.

Well, they credited me, but it felt kinda like a door being slammed in my face. *laugh*

Anyway, that draws this episode of "Gambit Theatre" to a close. I'll leave you with one last thought to ponder.

From http://getgambit.com/faqp

I'm going to go ahead and publish but this is not the end of today's blog. I have to plug in the computer and get lunch for the boy, nurse my now sick-as-a-dog husband back to health. I just want to get something out there after being gone so long! Ugh! Felt like forever

I will be back with the rest of the Special Offers Breakdown, part 7 - TapJoy! This afternoon.

Until Then...


HAPPY SWAGSURFIN!!