I have found many great freebies thanks to your site but was wondering, isn’t it considered risky to provide your name and home address to different companies? Doesn’t this run the risk of identify thieves? Do you have suggestions of how a person can protect themselves while still signing up for freebies? -Chrissy
I do my best to thoroughly check out all the deals posted here to verify that they are legitimate, so I personally don’t think there’s a risk in giving out your name and mailing address when signing up for freebies on this site.
Unless you’ve gone to great lengths to make your contact information unavailable for specific circumstances where you need to have that information private, I don’t think there’s usually a risk involved. In fact, in most people’s cases, you can pretty easily find someone’s home address in the phone book or through search engines online.
In same cases, you will receive more junk mail (though I’ve not seen much of an increase at all and I sign up for a lot of freebies!) but I’ve not heard of anyone having any other ill effects as a result of signing up for freebies.
That said, NEVER give out your Social Security Number or other information which is not available to the general public when signing up for anything unless you are 100% sure it is legitimate and a secure website. Also, only give the bare minimum information necessary. Most sign-up forms have extra spots which aren’t required. Just leave ’em blank! You can also use your initials or middle name, if you feel more comfortable with that.
What about the rest of you all? Do you think it’s safe to provide your name and mailing address to companies when signing up for freebies? Why or why not?