Are free business cards online REALLY free?

Not including shipping, of course.

I see websites such as www.vistaprint.com offering 250 free business cards, free rubber stamps, and even a free custom t-shirt.

Has anyone used these sites? Are their products truely "free"? (excluding shipping for the items,) and are they legitimate? Or do they put in a lot of hidden fees after the fact? Do they send you a load of junkmail afterwards?

"Processing fees include the various costs associated with processing your product and your order, such as expenses and costs related to acquiring and processing your order, including costs and expenses payable to third parties for acquiring and processing of customer orders and transactions, internal processing charges incurred directly by VistaPrint, transaction fees charged by third party payment processing firms and other expenses incurred by VistaPrint with respect to customer orders. Processing does NOT include any charges for the product itself, including costs related to raw materials or manufacturing of the product."

Sounds suspicious.

Yes! They're legit, especially vistaprint.com and giggleprint.com. I just ordered from Vistaprint Monday because they had 21 day shipping for 99 CENTS. My order shipped out today. Their shipping estimates are really out there but that's just because they don't want you to be disappointed if they don't show up as soon as you expect.

About the costs, you will see your shipping and processing fees before you submit your order so if they're too expensive, you can just exit out and forget about it. Like I said earlier, I ordered free business cards, a free rubber stamp, free sticky notes, and a free t-shirt on Monday and it only cost me 99 CENTS total.

It is legitimate but you have to pay their schedule shipping which automatically pay for their printing services.

$30 for 21 days shipping. Obviously if it free, you basically pay this fee because they know that people like you like cheap business card especially if it gloss.

A word of warning, their gloss business card may contains scratchs but you can alway get more business card exchange.

Great website for saving money on printing cost.

Hi! I regularly order business cards from vistaprint.com. The cards are free...totally completely free. They do have a small ad for vistaprint on the back and they do try to coax you into getting things along with your order that are not free...ie letterheads, magnets, labels, etc. all in the design that you ordered for the business cards, to coordinate. As long as you don't order any of these "extra" products all you have to pay is shipping!

yepper, at least as far as vista print is concerned. we ordered from there and the cards were actually pretty nice...

I am familiar with Vistaprint and yes they do offer free product but you pay shipping. The free cards they offer are very plain with light weight paper. I have order some nice cards from them by upgrading my order to the type of card stock and finish I wanted. Yes, you pay for that but it is worth it to have a professional looking card. Even with the upgrades, they are cheaper than most printers.

Their on-line design toll is a real bonus as you can see what your cards will look like.

You will be inundated with emails from them after you register. I had to opt-out but still received them. The quality is good and I was not disappointed.

there isn't anything free in the U.S.