“You want it. You got it … for a limited time.”

The enigmatic ad first appeared on this very page Sept. 27. It trumpeted “FREE FOOD,” such as a medium cheese pizza from Domino’s or a pepe sandwich from Jimmy John’s. All you had to do was give a few small pieces of personal information to a Web site by the name of campusfood.com and free food would be delivered to your door.

And like that … *poof* … the offer was gone, having expired Oct. 10.

Yet, the question remains: “How could any organization afford to give away hundreds of pizzas and sandwiches for free?” Why would they do it? Forty years from now, will we all owe our eternal souls to some dot-com devil? To paraphrase Charlton Heston, is campusfood.com people?

There had to be a catch … right?

The Sweeps action news team needed answers and jumped into action for this exclusive Page 7 investigation.

More than 1,500 area residents took campusfood.com up on its free-food promotion.

Jessica Winer, marketing associate for campusfood.com, said NIU’s promotion was one of the better responses for the company.

Mike Hillman, franchise owner of Domino’s, 901P Lucinda Ave, said he gave away a lot of free pizzas, but so far the giveaway has not translated into more business just yet.

“It’s too early to tell yet,” Hillman said. “But increasing business was the hope.”

Matt Allison, general manager of Jimmy John’s, 1011 W. Hillcrest Drive, said orders via campusfood.com have been minimal.

“We got under five [campusfood.com] orders altogether since [the free food promotion ended],” Allison said. “My owner said it took a couple of weeks to catch on at his other stores.”

Winer said the best response ever was 6,700 orders at Kansas State University during the free food promotion. Campusfood.com was founded by University of Pennsylvania student Michael Saunders in 1997 because he got a busy signal while attempting to order a hoagie over the phone.

To sign up for the service, the potential customer has to send the company their home and e-mail addresses.

“We do not sell or distribute e-mail addresses,” Winer said.

The question remains, though … was the free food a scam?

“I wondered the same thing,” Allison said.

To find out, Sweeps called back campusfood.com and asked the question on everyone’s mind.

“No, it is not a scam,” Winer said. “It’s a new technology for student convenience, but you do not have to be a student. Anyone from the area can use it.”

The company charges a monthly fee to the restaurants and receives a percentage of all the orders received through the system, Winer said.

Both Jimmy Johns and Domino’s received money for the cost of the food.

“They gave us the food cost of the items,” Hillman said. “We paid for everything else.”

Although the free food promotion is over, campusfood.com plans to offer daily specials from the restaurants and more ad campaigns are in the works, Winer said.

Editor’s note: No free food from campusfood.com was eaten by the reporter during the writing of this article.