• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, November 6, 2006

Ralph Kramden, a bus driver from Brooklyn, N. Y., has changed the customer reward tactics he chooses, focusing less on using the same $100 to open bank accounts that offer toasters and plastic NFL tumblers, and more online, where he says he is making money for looking at various types of advertising.

"I always heard there was no free lunch," Kramden told "Over the Line." "But baby, let me tell you, I can sit and do nothing but click my mouse and get frequent flier miles, mobile airtime and music downloads. I can get reward points for gift cards, meals in restaurants or hotel nights, just for taking surveys or reading e-mails. Some sites give me cash just to sign up. This is the easiest money I've made since I sold my dog food canapé recipe."

Asked if he ever actually purchased anything that he reviewed in exchange for a reward, Kramden laughed. "Are you kidding? I don't have time. In order to get the free stuff, you have to click on about a million ads, so I don't have time to actually read any of them. I am too busy moving from site to site." He added, "I keep five browser windows open on my screen all the time. As soon as the page loads and I know I have registered as a viewer, I close it and click on another ad. With e-mail questionnaires, I just have some standard catchphrases like 'I'd recommend it to my friends in a heartbeat.' that I cut and paste into the replies. Everybody's happy."

"I'm sure Mr. Kramden is a very nice person," a senior-level ad agency executive told us, "but I'd say that the quality of the audience in general that is attracted by, well, bribes is probably not a good fit for the clients we represent. Have you talked to Herbalife yet?"

Asked if he provided accurate personal and demographic information to survey sites and advertisers, Kramden replied, "Not on your life. I use a complete alias for everything because I know all these sites sell everything I submit to some sleazeball direct marketers--and pretty soon my inbox and mailbox would look like landfills.

Also, said Kramden, "I made up a guy named Ed Norton who works in the city sewer system. I gave him a household income of $1.7 million to make sure he gets all the best reward opportunities. He is a resident of Greenwich, Conn., has two children and a wife who earns $500,000 catering out of her kitchen. Sweet, huh?

"I was into click fraud for a while, getting paid to sit around all day and click on search ads so that it would cost the competitors of the sites that hired me lots of pay-per-click money, but I like the rewards game better. It's a little less boring," added Kramden.

Asked if he was aware that the reward sites positioned him as a valuable potential buyer since he was "self-selecting" to respond to ads and surveys, he told "Over the Line": "I'm self-selecting, alright. I am selecting to get free stuff for myself. It's a great country, isn't it?"