Have you been given a chance to win a $750 or £750 gift card from Shein? Or maybe it’s from PayPal? The chances are, it’s come from a company called Flash Rewards. Well, it may sound too good to be true, but is it? Let’s take a look at what’s really involved and whether this is a scam or an easy way to make money.
Is Flash Rewards legit – quick summary
On the face of it, Flash Rewards appears to be a genuine site. However, as you will have to spend money, share quite a few personal details and there’s no comeback if something should go wrong, I would recommend against joining.
Flash Rewards
Sometimes, there are opportunities that just seem too good to turn down. And I’m sure that most people would find it hard to resist entering a competition for a high-value gift card. After all, what do you have to lose?
And one of the most tempting offers around is from a company called Flash Rewards, offering a free £750/$750 gift card for various companies including Shein and PayPal.
Who is Flash Rewards?
Flash Rewards is owned by MainSource Media, LLC, an American company registered in the State of Delaware with offices in New York. They are also represented in the UK by a company called GRCI Law Limited.
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Why would a company offer free gift cards?
Just because they’re feeling generous. Is the wrong answer.
Companies can make money from you in a couple of ways from these types of offers. They may sell your details to other companies for marketing purposes. Or, they make an affiliate income when you sign up for various services or products. For example, if you took out a trial with Amazon Music, Flash Rewards would receive a commission of around £4.50. They could make considerably more if you joined bingo or gambling sites.
What details do you need to share?
When you join Flash Rewards, you’ll need to share a few details. Well, quite a few actually.
- Name
- Date of birth
- Address
- Email address
- Phone number
Basically, all the details that anybody needs to get hold of you.
Once you’ve shared your personal details, you’ll need to answer some questions, such as whether you’re a homeowner, if you have life insurance, how many children you have and so on.
Once all that’s done, you can start on your way to earning your gift card.
How does it work?
Just to be clear, although most of the adverts I found were for a free $750/£750 gift card, on the Flash Rewards website it states that you could earn up to $1,000/£1,000.
To qualify for your gift card you need to complete offers. This could involve joining a TV streaming site, a meal delivery service or buying lottery tickets. The more offers you complete, the more you earn. You will need to provide evidence to Flash Rewards that you have gone through the whole process, so you will need to continually take screenshots of everything you do.
As you can see below, completing just 2 offers will earn you a £5 gift card. However, 25 offers will earn you £1,000.
| Gift card value | Number of offers to complete |
| £5 | 2 |
| £100 | 5 |
| £250 | 10 |
| £500 | 15 |
| £750 | 20 |
| £1,000 | 25 |
But it’s not quite as easy as completing 25 offers. To complicate matters a little further, you will need to complete offers from different levels. For example, some deals will be listed as level 1, others as level 2, all the way up to level 5.
To qualify for the £1,000 gift card, you will need to complete one Level 1, one Level 2, three Level 3, five Level 4 Deals, and fifteen Level 5 Deals.
Will completing offers cost you?
In most cases, you will need to spend money to complete an offer. Although some Level 1 offers are free, they can cost as much as £10. It’s not clear how much the offers from later levels will cost.
But my guess is if they’re offering you such generous gift cards, then the Level 5 Deals could be quite expensive.
Is it easy to do?
I have to level with you here. I’m usually willing to try almost anything to review money-making ideas. However, I never managed to get past Level 1 with Flash Rewards. Partly because I have completed some of the offers before and partly because I wasn’t 100% sure I could reach the top level.
Plus, I’m not keen to share too much in the way of my personal details (I used fake details when joining).
So, although Level 1 seemed pretty easy to get through, I’m not sure about Level 5. To earn the top-paying gift cards, you need to complete a lot of Level 5 offers and that could be easier said than done.
I have completed similar offers before through sites like OhMyDosh and Cashback UK. These operate in a very similar way… although they’re not as generous. I did find that some offers didn’t track properly and so I needed to chase them up, but overall, it wasn’t a particularly difficult process.
Is it worth trying?
Personally, this is not an offer for me. I love the idea of free money, but I think this offer could end up being much harder than it needs to be. Nobody is going to give you a gift card of £750 or more if it’s very simple to do.
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You could complete a few offers, spend quite a bit of your own money and then Flash Rewards could turn around and cancel your account and you couldn’t do anything about it.
So, Flash Rewards is a scam?
I’m not saying that, as I haven’t tried to complete all the levels. In fact, there are quite a lot of people that claim to have received payment.
I took a look at the reviews of the company on Trustpilot and it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Close to half of the reviewers gave Flash Rewards 5 out of 5 and received a gift card, although many seemed to have cashed out at £100 or £200.
But more users gave Flash Rewards a 1 out of 5, with many complaining that the company refused to verify their identity. Of course, it’s important for Flash Rewards to do this to protect themselves from scammers. But it’s not regulated and if this happens to you, there’s nothing you can do.
Final thoughts
As I said above, I don’t think is a scam, as there seem to be a lot of people who have made money. But there is a danger that you could end up out of pocket from this offer, which I’m just not keen on.
I would recommend that you look at other ways to make your money.