Patience is a virtue.

"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish."
-John Quicny Adams

Dramatic, I know. However, if there is one thing to keep about you while working for your free iPod (or whatever free item you may be dreaming about) it is your patience. Rome was not built in a day, and you will not get your iPod in a week. It might take several. For some folks (like myself) the journey takes months. If you're one who is easily frustrated, I suggest finding another method of aquiring your iPod.

People aren't going to jump onto the bandwagon as quickly as you'd hoped. They're going to be suspicious of you, and they're going to be suspicious of the program. Gathering referrals is especially difficult when asking family members to subject their beloved email address to the great unknown. They hate spam just as much as you do, and will wonder about you for exposing them to the 'spam disease'. My suggestion is to offer them assurance that you have not experienced an increase in spam due to your freebie campaign, and they will not either. Leave it at that. The last thing you want to do is upset the folks around you in pursuit of your ticket into the 'iPod club'.

Getting credited for offers happens much slower then you'd like it to. Get used to it. Sometimes offers that supposedly report 'Instantly' take five minutes. Sometimes they take five days. The best thing you can do is move on for a while, and check back later. Remember this : no matter how many times you refresh your web browser, this will NOT speed up the process.

Your free item will not ship the day your last refferal is approved. Personally, I've 'earned' one item at this point - a 20 Gig iPod from www.freeipods.com. 19 days passed between the day my last referral was approved to the day I opened up my iPod. I've heard of the process happening in 4. The bottom line is - if you're going to hold your breath and wait for people to sign up, credits to clear, or products to ship... well you're going to end up passed out on the floor... iPod-less.