I got an e-mail yesterday from Content Paradise ofefering me a free 6 month passport if I sign up with an offer from TrialPay. One of the offers was to sign up for a 30 day trial at Real Arcade, but when I clicked on teh link, it couldn't connect with the server. I tried again today, but they pulled the offer. So I tried to sign up with anotheer offer on a 14 day trail with RealPlayer. Same thing.

Anyone else get this offer and have problems with it, or did I just hand over my e-mail address to a data mining company in hopes of getting free 3d?

I don't know if the offer is real or not but it is never good to just click links in emails unless you are absolute certain of the sender.  The links could take you to porn or phishing logins, try to send malicious code, install adware, or any number of viciously nasty things.  Whenever I receive a suspicious offer like this by email, I go directly to the (supposed) originator's website via the browser and look for it mentioned there - it always is if real.  Or you could ask support or in the forums.

To sum up here: go to Content Paradise or SmithMicro and verify that TrialPay, RealArcade, and RealPlayer are working with them on some deal.   If this were e-Frontier, I'd immediately say 'scam' but since SmithMicro is a general software-eating company which like to market it is hard to be sure.

I got it too and it was legit. I wanted to actually use the offer but unfortunately was the german company Otto only offering this deal for new customers and since I'm already a customer with them for nearly 20 years no deal for me ... but no deal for SM either :P

Why CP would affiliate with something not directly related to graphics sounds phishy to me. ;)

-CG

Well, I can understand the why and how. CP would get money from Trial Pay, who would get money from their sponsors. It's kinda a cross promotion thing, getting one company's customers interested in another company's product.

Quote - Why CP would affiliate with something not directly related to graphics sounds phishy to me. ;)

-CG

...maybe Smith Micro (Poser/CP's new owners) were doing a cross-promotion (or just bought/built the TrialPay thingy?)

Either way, any solicitation that comes out-of-the-blue via email is usually something I studiously avoid.

/P

But this did come from the usual CP e-mail newsletter thingy.

I had very confincing and real looking e-bay mails in the opast.
All using e-bay graphics, e-bay adresses and so fort.

I had a account breach and had to fill in my details again etc.

Only one thing was not that acurate.

I dont have a e-bay account :blink:

I aproach evey e-mail with care if they are not from friends I know.

Attached Link: http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=80124

Intially that software package seemed OK, but was actually a pile of steaming doo doo, but I notice AVG and Winzip are also using Trialpay as well as CP.  

So would I use Trialpay again ?  
Was it a good system ? 50/50

Slow response time, I had to remind them, but at least they apologised for the delay.
Didn't ask for positive feedback either - more than some poser vendors can do :)  

I tried it and picked the Next catalog and I got the code for the CP sub a day later, so I don't think it's a fake.

So now they're just giving away memberships?

That's right it isn't fake.
I got the code for the CP membership as well.
Ordered some paper for a few euro's.
 

Looks like some offers have been withdrawn, there's only 7 up now. Of course, one of the ones to go would be one I was interested in. The Real Music one looks tempting, but what's up with the disappearing offers?

I'm more and more starting to loose interest in SmithMicro. It's not a good sign when companies start too use all kinds of gimmicks to get you interesting in what they have to offer.

I thankfully was never interested in Smith Micro. After buying Poser 7 and it not working very well or being patched very well, I've just spent my time and energy using Poser 6 and Carrara 6 Pro. The only thing I got out of Poser 7 that was halfway useful was the content and the faceroom data that I moved to Poser 6.

I got the mailer too, and frankly, I think the TrialPay thingie doesn't seem worth the trouble jumping through so many hoops.

Not that many hoops and I just opted for the Rhapsody 14 day trial that I was thinking of checking out anyway. Got the code in the mail within minutes.

Hey Guys & Gals!  I just caught this, and wanted to share that yes, it is a real offer from Smith Micro & Content Paradise.  Our emails are sent from noreply@contentparadise.com if you would like to verify real offers.    We're growing, and able to offer more opportunities to our users.  Smith & Trialpay have been partners on Stuffit stuff for a while, and it seemed natural that CP join in  This was our way of adding/getting Passport time for people for doing things they were already going to do - Send flowers to mom, sign up for some trial, etc.  If you have any issues with Trialpay, please contact support and they can assist you further!

Just one objection, spoken for security's sake:

Quote - Our emails are sent from noreply@contentparadise.com if you would like to verify real offers.

Frankly, people would be better off verifying the offer (and transacting it) on the SM website, and you (Smith Micro) should seriously avoid saying otherwise. You would be amazed at how drop-easy it is to fake a From: line in email (Google for "Joe Job" as a good parallel), as well as faking links within the message (a bit more complex to explain, but not hard at all to set up, esp. if the parodied website is susceptible to SQL injection attacks).

Don't believe me? Ask Bank of America - they see thousands of these attempts-via-spam each day... most of them amateur jobs, but at least one or two a week (on average) are very, very convincingly real-looking, right down to the real email reply addy in the "from" line.

So... unless everyone in here can competently read SMTP header files, I'd suggest that you (Smith Micro) avoid telling them that the "from" line is okay if it says such-and-such. Please, for the safety of folks who may not be conversant in IT matters, and for the sake of your own company's credibility... stop doing that.

Thx,
/P

All of our offers will also have a link to news.contentparadise.com at the top to "read as a webpage", even if they are a special offer not listed on the news site.

The TrialPay offer can be found here:
http://news.contentparadise.com/cptrialpay_05132008/

hmmm...there are 71 offers now...a bit more than 7.

Still seven here, where are you finding the rest?

Quote - Still seven here, where are you finding the rest?

I'm seing 36, so I suspect that the number you see is location dependant.

Quote - So now they're just giving away memberships?

Uhm they - like DAZ have given away memberships in special offers before as well.

Giving away membership with Poser Pro (as they did with P7) seems a much better choice to me. I already wondered why that wasn't done this time, maybe more people will make use of this offer then buying Poser Pro.....

Anyway, I'm not making use of this offer, I would have prefered a more poser related offer to entice me.

I seriously doubt they could make me an offer good enough to return to a passport membership at this point.

I've about 2 months left on mine, a really nice discount on Poser 7 might persuade me to renew.

Okay, I got my free Passport and teh offer is legit. Though I did have to go through several hoops and several e-mails to customer service before I got it.