4 people have accepted and downloaded Dropbox from my invite but the referrals are ineligible

Hey @Ranim Al-shakifi, thanks for joining the discussion here and happy Monday!

I just wanted to mention that when the recipient is ineligible for the referral program, there are two possible reasons:

One is that the recipient has already registered an account with Dropbox with that email address, or that the recipient is attempting to register using the same computer as you.

If you feel this status is inaccurate double-check the email address of your recipient to try again.

Hi @Queen22, let's see what I can do to help!

I just sent you an email, in order for us to have a closer look into this. Respond back to me, and we'll take it from there.

Cheers!

@J23 wrote:
The laptop has previously had dropbox as it's a shared device.

That would make it ineligible as each referral must install Dropbox on a unique computer (one never having Dropbox before).

Nekojin wrote:
After completing this, I log back into my account to check the referral status, and it says "inelegible"

Its inelegibe because of the fact you havent met the requirements of the promotion - which is that it is installed on to a unique computer. As you have uninstalled your own Dropbox and installed theres and then uninstalled again it doesnt meet that requirement. This has been in for a long long time to prevent abuse.

Hey @renatomichel, I just sent you an email.

I'll be happy to look into this with you. Reply back, and we'll take it from there.

Thanks!

Hey @K0n63n - thanks for using Dropbox and sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

I've just sent you an email to have a further look internally, so please take a glance at your inbox and we'll take it from there.

Thanks!

Hi there, @Richard36, let's jump right into this!

I'm happy to investigate further. I went ahead and opened a ticket on my end for you.

You should be able to check your Community-linked email address for my email. Reply back, and we'll take it from there.

Thanks a bunch!

Hey @SnailMango!

I just sent you an email, in order for us to have a closer look into this. Reply back to me, and I'll be more than happy to investigate.

Thanks a bunch!

All comments

Is there nothing that Dropbox can do to honour the referral? I had no idea.

Здравко

No - as far as I know. 😕 Will be glad somebody to refute me.

I emailed them last night and hopefully they can help. I will keep you posted.

BethemBrown

Hello Steven424

I had the exact same problem a few days ago, and posted here. Some Dropbox staff member saw it and handled the problem for me. @Hannah helped me, so either wait for a staff member to notice or open up a new discussion.

PS - maybe it helps that I tagged her idk 🙂

Hey there, @Steven424!

It definitely helped that @BethemBrown tagged us. I was able to locate your ticket number, and replied back.

I'll see you there!

Hi @Megan!

I replied back to your email. Thank you for looking into this for me.

Steven

It helped!! Megan from Dropbox reached out to me. I so appreciate your help 😊

Здравко

Congratulations @Steven424 🙂

Glad they helped to you at least (as seems others too). Either it's something changed recently or there are different criteria for different users. Anyway...

Good luck.

Hi.

I've invited friend with an invitation link from my account.
My friend used that link, logged in in website, and then logged in on computer.
And yet, her account is listed on my invitation lists as "ineligible".
What is wrong?
She didn't have an account connected to that e-mail address.
She had one older Dropbox account (with different email) and decided to make a new one from my invitation link.

From website help:

Ineligible: The recipient is ineligible for the referral program.
- This may mean that the recipient already has an account with Dropbox, or that the recipient is attempting to register with the same computer as you.
- If you feel this status is inaccurate, double-check the email address of your recipient to try again.

But none of those conditions are met...

What are exact requirements for an email not to be ineligible?

Tomajev wrote:
She had one older Dropbox account (with different email) and decided to make a new one from my invitation link.

This is almost certainly why - especially if she's had Dropbox on that computer before.

Referrals are for new users only, not, new users who delete an account and rejoin.

Tomajev wrote:
What are exact requirements for an email not to be ineligible?

In addition to what Mark stated, the computer you install Dropbox on needs to be one that has never had Dropbox installed on it before, by anyone.

Even if the old account gets "unlinked" from that PC?

The story is short:
She asked me about free cloud-like space to archive some files in the internet and I recommended Dropbox. I've sent her invitation so she would get some additional space. (Because why not. That's what invitations links are for).
The link doesn't work (i.e. creation of new account worked, but she didn't get bonus space) and when she tried to install Dropbox client system told her that Dropbox was already installed.
She created Dropbox account years ago and basically never used it. The account was slowly rotting, forgotten years ago, linked to some old, non-used email address.

Is it possible to unlink the old account from her PC and link the new account so she get the bonus space, or is her PC forever blocked from that utility?

Tomajev wrote:
Even if the old account gets "unlinked" from that PC?

Yes. Once Dropbox has been installed on a computer, that computer can not be used for another referral.

Tomajev wrote:
She created Dropbox account years ago and basically never used it. ... Is it possible to unlink the old account from her PC and link the new account so she get the bonus space, or is her PC forever blocked from that utility?

No, that won't work. That computer will no longer be eligible for a referral because it previously had Dropbox installed. The idea behind referral programs is that they bring in new users that have never used the service before.

Ok, one last question: If she will use a new pc to register, will it work, or is her email address (that received invitation) also cooked forever?
Because it's her email marked at my invitations list as "ineligible".

Btw, that also means that when someone buy a used second-hand notebook (that someone else used for Dropbox), and try to install Dropbox on it, invitation won't work too? What king of logic is that?
Is this verified by MAC address?

Hey @Tomajev - sorry to jump in here, but may we reach out via email to have a further look internally with account specific information at this point?

Also, as Rich mentioned once Dropbox has been installed on a computer, that computer can't be used for another referral (even for an account associated with a different email address).

Sure, you can reach me, I can explain entire situation. (At this point I'm asking rather out of curiosity how that system works, than for that one referral bonus)

Hannah

Thanks, @Tomajev!

I just reached out to you, so we'll continue investigating there.

GregP1

Sorry to have to raise a similar issue again.

As promised, I am continuing to recommend Dropbox to my students and their parents, and now sending the referrals via my Referrals page.

Today I recommended Dropbox to one of my students, while he was here with his laptop, so I could see and make sure that everything was done right.

He had never installed or used Dropbox before. He clicked on my referral link and successfully installed the App.

He tried to verify his account, but received an error message, saying that ''Something went wrong."

My Referrals page shows his status as "Ineligible."

I would be grateful if you could track down what went wrong this time and let me know?

I am happy to forward a capture of the emails and error message...

Thank you.

GregP1 wrote:
Today I recommended Dropbox to one of my students, while he was here with his laptop, so I could see and make sure that everything was done right.

It could be that it was marked as ineligible because he was on the same network as you. Only way to possibly know what the issue is would be to contact Support directly.

GregP1

Thank you, Rich

You may well be correct.

As noted in one of my previous posts, I have found it extremely difficult to earn any referral bonuses, even though scores of my students/parents have started using Dropbox as a result of clicking on the referral link that I have emailed directly.

So this time, I asked a student to bring his laptop along and sent the referral from my Referrals Page. I share revision folders with my students, hoping that when at least some of them sign up, it would release space to share folders with further students - until I have reached the referral space limit. I understand that at that point I would need to move up to a higher Plan. But in the meantime, I would like to build confidence that the referral scheme is honoured.

It seems that when I can't see what's happening at the other end, no space is released. If your theory is correct, then I won't be able to earn space when I can see what is going on either. I hope that referring people to Dropbox doesn't become ineligible just because they sign up in my presence.

(I must say that recently Dropbox have overridden the system and manually released referral space in two instances. However, I would like to be assured that there is a straight-forward way for Dropbox customers to earn promised space successfully.)

I will try and contact Support directly, as you suggest...

Thank you, Greg

Let us know if you find any troubles along the way and we'll reach out from our end via the email address that's linked to your profile here, on our Community, Greg.

GregP1

Yes - please do contact me by email. I have another student visiting tomorrow morning and would like to invite him to start using Dropbox whilst he is here. But I don't want go down another blind alley.

Jay

Hi @GregP1, I've sent you an email, please could you reply to it when you get a chance?

STUD69

I have the same issue, but my comments keep getting deleted. Why??

STUD69 wrote:
... my comments keep getting deleted. Why??

No one is deleting your comments. They're being automatically flagged by the spam system.

Nekojin

I've given referrals to the other members of the family to get some extra storage space on my basic account, and there was a truckload of problems with it.

Firstly, when trying to install the desktop app, which is necessary to complete the referral, it would only open MY dropbox, and automatically log them out of their web accound and override a login of my account.

To circumvent this, we had to uninstall the desktop app from the computer, log out of my account, log back in on their account, and then reinstall the desktop app, (which took a while of tinkering, because logging back in on my account before the app was fully installed just reset the whole thing, so it took 3 tries to do this).

After completing this, I log back into my account to check the referral status, and it says "inelegible"

Another unrelated issue is that when I look at my account settings, it says under timezones that I am in GMT+2, which is wrong, I live in Norway, which is GMT+1.

I checked a bit back and forth with this, tried setting it to UK which is GMT+0, and it thinks that is GMT+1.

In conclusion, the account settings believe that timezones are 1 higher than they are.

Nekojin wrote:
After completing this, I log back into my account to check the referral status, and it says "inelegible"

Nekojin

We are 5 people in the household, while some have their own computers, not everyone does. This was done on the family pc.
We are multiple people using it.

What alternatives are in place to ensure that all family members can use dropbox on the same computer, AND that the referral bonus can be used from the referrals on it?