If you’re interested in getting free stuff online or elsewhere, you’ve probably seen deals on free iPods. In the immediate aftermath of Apple Inc.’s announcement that it was going to produce the iPhone, websites began offering similar promotions for free iPhones to people once they were on sale. The problem with these two offers is that they are essentially scams.

Websites that claim to offer you a free iPhone generally require you to enter your email address or zip code to see if you qualify. The point is, everyone qualifies, assuming they meet certain minimum requirements. Then you must complete a combination of offers or refer a certain number of friends to get enough points to redeem your iPhone or another gift of your choice.

The most obvious problem is that the website you sign up to may be a scam. This is especially a problem for products like the iPhone that have yet to be released. The website can have many people sign up and complete sponsor deals, only to close immediately after the official iPhone launch. While this is the most common concern of people who are thinking of signing up for these offers, it is not actually the biggest.

In fact, most websites that claim to be giving away free iPods actually give them away. They just make it extremely profitable to do so. Therefore, there is no need to scam people. Since many of the websites offering free iPhones today are part of these same companies, they are probably as legitimate as they can be in this industry. The main thing to know about these companies is that they make a lot of money from you before they send you an iPod, iPhone, or any other gift.

You might think this sounds strange but I’ll explain it to you. These companies get you to sign up for certain offers from certain advertisers, which they earn money from. Then they force you to refer to your friends, who also have to complete these offers so you can get your iPhone. The company makes sure that its share of the completed deals more than make up for the cost of the phone itself. This may not seem so bad, after all, you knew you couldn’t get the iPhone for nothing.

However, the even bigger problem is that as more people join, it becomes increasingly difficult to refer friends who are interested and have not yet signed up for the offer. Essentially, these schemes are just a variation on a pyramid scheme. While there may be no upfront upfront cost, it’s still mathematically impossible for the people at the bottom to recommend enough people to get an iPhone.

So most people end up completing a few offers and referring a few friends (but not enough to qualify), but they get nothing. Meanwhile, the company that originally offered the iPhone for free has gotten rich off these folks. Sure the company had to give away some iPhones, but it has more than made up for the cost through these other kinds of shady tactics.

If you really want an iPhone, my recommendation is to wait until they are released and buy it then. Better yet, if you don’t mind waiting a few months, you can buy a few used ones at a discount. As I’ve shown, free iPhone deals are scam at worst, and extremely difficult, if not impossible, to complete at best. Save yourself the stress and worry and pay for it once it’s published. I know it’s not free, but products like iPhones never are.