There’s a longrunning discussion at Flyertalk.com about a website offering free iPods. You sign up, complete one of their offers, and get five friends to complete offers as well. Then they send you an iPod.

Seems pretty generous, in fact my first reaction was that it was too good to be true. But now that tons of folks have already taken the plunge, and confirmed that iPods have been shipped, I’m sharing this offer.

The economics are pretty simple: this website gets paid for each offer you and your friends take advantage of. The commissions are enough to cover the cost of an iPod. And since many folks won’t complete all of the steps, they’ll keep commissions on some folks who they don’t ever have to pay out to.

So how should you approach the offer?

Go to the website and sign up. You’ll go through a bunch of offers on your screen, all of which you should say no to. Then you’ll have a chance to refer some friends to the website. Enter their email addresses now, or better yet just copy the link they give you at the bottom of the page. That’s the link you want your friends to use. You can direct them to this website for further instructions or just tell them which offers to sign up for themselves.

The next page is where you sign up for one of the offers they’re marketing. I recommend signing up for either AOL or Ancestry.com. Why? Because they’re both free trial offers. Sign up and then cancel before the regular fees kick in. You won’t be out any money, and you’ll be closer to your iPod.