Received my Free iPod Shuffle from Hedge Street

Back in December, a new company called Hedge Street had a promotion where you could earn up to two iPod Shuffles and two $50 Amazon gift certificates (one reward for signing up for an account and completing a trade, and three rewards for referring friends). Unfortunately, I missed the deadline for referrals and only ended up with the one iPod, which I was pretty bummed about, but I really can't complain.

What was a pain is that the iPod was sent Fedex signature required to my home address. I understand why Hedge Street would require a signature on an expensive item, and I even understand why they might not ask if I had a different mailing address I would have preferred. Unfortunately, most people are not home during the day to sign for a package, meaning that I and who knows how many other people are making evening treks to out-of-the-way Fedex warehouses to pick up our prizes. I made my trip into an excursion involving a stop at a favorite restaurant, so it all worked out okay.

To be honest, I never managed to figure out how Hedge Street's trading program works, and I still don't understand futures trading, but thanks to Jonathan of My Money Blog I did manage to figure out how to execute a trade with minimal risk (I lost $3) so I could get my free shuffle.

Hedge Street sent me a 1099 for my $3 loss. I wonder if next year I'll get a 1099 for the value of the shuffle?

(By the way, in case it wasn't clear, this promotion has ended--but there are always new iPod Shuffle offers cropping up.)


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Stock photo courtesy of Amazon.com

Comments

Anonymous said…
I hope you enjoy it!

From my experience, most brokerages don't send 1099s for incentives, whereas banks usually do.
Anonymous said…
I started trading hedge street back
in 2005.They had real time quotes
then,Now they have removed them and
replaced them with delayed quotes.
It Is very hard to make an informed
trade on there now.I have spoke to
them about this,But they say It costs
money for real time prices.I said
Well why not charge your members.I
would not Recommend hedge street to
anyone.I have lost a lot of money
because of this.,Robert Totten

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