Has DialSimple jumped the shark? [Opinion]
| By Alok Saboo on June 8th, 2009 |
We had covered DialSimple earlier when it was offering 30 minutes of free international calls. Last week, I received an email from DialSimple with the subject “Make Absolutely FREE Unlimited Calls to India and Other Countries!” The email is reproduced below:
Dear Alok,
As part of our dedicated efforts to lower your international calls bill, we have introduced an exciting way to make absolutely FREE calls to India and other countries!
There is no limit on the number of FREE minutes and there is no marketing gimmick.
Please visit Get FREE Minutes page to start earning FREE calls now!
Please contact us for any questions.
Have a great day.
Sincerely,
DialSimple Customer Care
http://support.dialsimple.com
Needless to say, I was excited to see the email and immediately clicked the link. To say I was disappointed to see the page would be an understatement. The page looked strangely familiar. The page listed several offers that I could complete and get some points (calling credits) in return. Most of the offers were very similar to the scammy offers that you see on the internet promising you a free $500 gift card. If you haven’t seen such get-paid-to-websites in the past, head to CashCrate and also
Tying up advertisers to offer value to the customers is not a bad thing, but the kind of offers presented completely shaken my confidence about DialSimple. How can I trust such a company with my credit card information? For me, the company has already started on that route to oblivion, and I would not be surprised if they give out your details to some advertiser in the future. I would strongly advice you exercise caution while dealing with DialSimple and don’t be surprised if the company folds up in the times to come.
But if you do not mind filling up your inbox with a few (thousand) emails, you can try some of the offers to get free calls. Some of the offers are rather generous.
p.s. Jump the shark is a term to describe a moment when something that was once great has reached a point where it will now decline in quality and popularity.
Related posts:
Hi Alok,
the main reason for introducing this service offer is to help Indian Students in US make free calls. We have tied up with the partner company to provide the best offers. There is no user information shared with anyone, as it would be against our privacy policy.
And there is no obligation for anyone to use this, it is only if you like to. There can be sometime some offers which might not be very clear and we are working out with partner companies to make them very clear.
Sincerely,
DialSimple Representative
Nitin,
As I mentioned in my post, I really have no problems with you trying to help the consumers by providing free calls. In fact, I really like that. If you read my earlier post on DialSimple, I had rated it favorably. I am just not impressed with the quality of offers. The offers that are available are similar to those you get in your SPAM folder, wherein you have to complete a few things to be eligible. I would really like you to give a serious thought. See if consumers are really using these offers and then how is it affecting your paying customers.
To an outsider, it does not appear credible. If you look at traditional ad based models (I have covered some on the site like CallingAmerica) they do not have a paid model, so people using those services do not intend to use the same service if they were to pay for it.
If you want to have both ad-based and paid model, there should be some synergy between them. Currently it does not appear to be so…
Hi Alok,
the main reason for introducing this service offer is to help Indian Students in US make free calls. We have tied up with the partner company to provide the best offers. There is no user information shared with anyone, as it would be against our privacy policy.
And there is no obligation for anyone to use this, it is only if you like to. There can be sometime some offers which might not be very clear and we are working out with partner companies to make them very clear.
Sincerely,
DialSimple Representative
Nitin,
As I mentioned in my post, I really have no problems with you trying to help the consumers by providing free calls. In fact, I really like that. If you read my earlier post on DialSimple, I had rated it favorably. I am just not impressed with the quality of offers. The offers that are available are similar to those you get in your SPAM folder, wherein you have to complete a few things to be eligible. I would really like you to give a serious thought. See if consumers are really using these offers and then how is it affecting your paying customers.
To an outsider, it does not appear credible. If you look at traditional ad based models (I have covered some on the site like CallingAmerica) they do not have a paid model, so people using those services do not intend to use the same service if they were to pay for it.
If you want to have both ad-based and paid model, there should be some synergy between them. Currently it does not appear to be so…