From the beginning of Prizebook’s Plasma TV promotion A4F has been anxious to find out more about this network and spread the word about this extraordinary company. The plasma promotion started around the first week of August and ended the 15th of September. During this window, users completed offers and got referrals so they could claim the plasma TV that was going to be awarded to the winner of their state. On the forums many users were skeptical from the beginning and continue to be skeptical about this huge giveaway of over $45,000 for just a promotion. I am happy to announce the first check for $1,000 in lieu of a plasma TV has been awarded to Egyptianruin as the first person to receive their gift. We have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to interview the CEO of Prizebook, Leo Shimizu, and ask him some questions we thought the community would like to know the answers to. So without further adieu, the interview:

1. First things first, how did Prizebook get started? What was your initial goal when starting Prizebook?

I’ve been involved with internet marketing since 2002 and last year, my colleagues and I decided to launch Prizebook. Our goal was to provide the best customer support among any incentivized rewards program. We also wanted to be the fastest paying and highest paying rewards program as well. Our initial goals from the birth of Prizebook still motivate and drive us today as we work towards becoming the number one rewards program on the internet.

2. What makes you different than the average freebie site?

We take enormous pride in our customer support. We always place ourselves in the customer’s shoes and try and see things from their perspective. We try to be the most courteous and respectful customer support team a customer can ask for. When we were trying to figure out how much of our resources we wanted to allocate for customer support, we signed up on many sites out there and bugged customer support to see what the responses would be. The results were horrendous. A lot of sites out there are rude, arrogant, and don’t understand that the users they are being rude to are the ones that drive their business. Bottom line, we take care of every single member as if they were our only member.

We’ve never directly banned a user on our site. We always flag users and listen to their story and figure out how we can work around the issue. There are too many sites that have primitive background monitoring and fraud monitoring technology that cause site owners to become ban-happy. They have to be zealously paranoid because they have to gamble on a suspicious user.

The reason why we don’t have to perform excessive bans is because we have excellent fraud monitoring technology to make sure each user is legitimate. The site was created from the ground up and we don’t rely on the popular template scripts. It gives our site a unique look and feel.

3. Second, the most obvious questions many users at A4F would probably ask in this situation, where do all the funds come from and do you lose money from the plasma promotion?

We have tremendous financial backing from our private investors and owners of Prizebook. We realized the kind of caliber capital investment we would need to make the site work and stand out from all the other sites.

4. What kind of plasma TV’s are you sending out and how much is the check?

We actually won’t be shipping out any TVs, just handing out checks. We originally estimated the check to be around $1300 but due to a lot of users prematurely cancelling some of the PrizePoint offers, we had to lower the amount to $1000. It’s still a great deal in my mind and I’m extremely happy and excited for our members that won.

5. How many people work at Prizebook?

We have four management staff including myself and we handle all of the day to day operations including the business and development aspect of the site. We have five support staff guys that rotate in and out throughout the day to make sure we have close to 24 hour support. I really take pride in our customer support and I would say we have one of the best support teams, if not the best. Our offices are located in Arizona and Indianapolis.

6. What is the difference between Prizebook 1.0 and the new and improved Prizebook 2.0 that was updated this past week?

The upgrade was really done more on the administrative side of the site. We improved our fraud monitoring program so we can eliminate bad leads and pay users out a higher amount and faster. We added a way to sort offers based on how much the pay out is, how much it costs, and how old the offer is. We also spiced up the front page of the site and simplified the signup process for new users.

7. How much has Prizebook paid out in total for both payments and plasma televisions?

Prizebook has paid out over $200,000 to date to thousands of members.

8. Does Prizebook plan to expand and open a site that is based on the referral system instead of a “do-it-yourself” system?

We have had some discussions about moving into that arena but we haven’t made any serious developmental moves.

9. What is coming in the future for Prizebook? Any big time promotions similar to the plasma TV promotion?

We have a lot of great promotions coming up and although I would love to reveal them now, everyone will just have to wait and see our next move! As for the future of Prizebook, we will continue to work just as hard to be the great rewards program we are today!

And there you have it folks! One check down and 45 to go for Leo and his team at Prizebook who will be travelling all across the United States to hand the lucky winners their checks. You can post your proof pictures or view proof pictures in the Prizebook section of payments or checks and exercise your bragging rights for receiving free cash from Prizebook! Also, if you have had experience with Prizebook, please check out the poll thread here and voice your opinion on what section you think they belong in. I’d like to say thanks to Prizebook and their team and all congratulate all the members who have been paid or have won the plasma promotion!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 23rd, 2006 at 8:06 pm and is filed under A4F News, Free Site Commentary, Free Site News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.