So, I finally had enough Bing search credits to get my "reward". In the past, everything was so easy... get the credits, click confirm, click complete my order, done.
Now they added an extra step that I absolutely cannot stand. What did they add?
A confirmation code that can only be received on phones. I hate telephones (and want nothing to do with them). You can only get text messages to a mobile phone or an automated call (no VOIP) phones (which is where the non-mobile segment seems to be trending).
I know that something like 56% of residents of the US have a smartphone and 91% own some kind of mobile phone (mindboggling to me). What about those people who want nothing to do with cell phones? It is just another annoying trend - like Target in-store offers that you can only get if you have an Apple or Android phone (if I was going to get smart phone - which I don't plan on, I would go for Windows Phone 8)
http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/06/05/smartphone-ownership-2013/
So, I guess my Bing search credits are now absolutely useless to me. Why even bother to use Bing if I don't get incentivized to do so (though I like it better than Google)?
Update:
So a while ago (late July or so) i caved and got a mini tablet that is capable of sending and receiving texts - a Nokia Lumia 521 prepaid. It costs a little, but i can live with $10 every three months. Especially as i can get up to 10 Bing credits per day for searches on it.
Now a days there are so many bots being used to get bing rewards. These bots do auto search on bing and earn bing rewards points. I think to avoid spam microsoft add extra security in bing rewards program.
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