All offers / Terms that contradict themselves
Five companies whose own pages disagree about their own offer.
Nexo’s referral page starts your 45-day clock at registration. Its binding terms start it at KYC approval. Across the 118 offers on this site, five companies contradict themselves about their own program in ways that change what you are owed, when the clock starts, or whether a discount exists at all. Every quote below was read on July 27, 2026 from the company’s own live pages, with the URL beside it.
The five, and what each pair disagrees about
| Nexo | Referral page says the 45-day clock starts at registration. Binding terms say it starts at KYC approval. |
|---|---|
| Crypto.com | One article gives three ceilings for one referral: $120, $75 and $100. |
| TaxAct | Help centre caps you at 20 referrals a season. Terms cap you at $599 a calendar year. |
| SoFi | The homepage carries two promotion windows at once, one of which expired in January. |
| Kinsta | One page says it runs no promotions, announces a promotion has ended, and lists a discount. |
Nexo: two answers to when your clock starts
The most expensive contradiction here, because it moves a deadline. Nexo’s referral page answers the question three times, most explicitly under its own FAQ heading "When does my friend’s 45-day window start?".
Quoted from Nexo
“The window starts when your friend registers their account using your referral link.”
The Nexo Promoter Program Terms and Conditions, carrying an Effective Date of June 11, 2026, define it differently.
Quoted from Nexo
“The Qualification Period begins on the date the Referred Client successfully completes KYC.”
It is not a clean case of advertising against contract, either. The Terms say the Program Rules published on the platform are "incorporated herein by reference and form part of these Terms", so the referral page is arguably part of the agreement too, and either way you carry the risk. The rest is in the Nexo guide; the missing-payout diagnosis is in Nexo bonus not paid.
Crypto.com: three ceilings, one article
Here the contradiction does not need a second page. Crypto.com’s App Referral Programme article lists the milestones for a Country Tier 1 market, which includes the United States: "$100 in trading volume: $5 USD each", "$500 in trading volume: $15 USD each", "$1,000 in trading volume: $25 USD each", "$5,000 in trading volume: $75 USD each". Immediately below them, the same table states "Maximum per referral: $75 USD each".
Further down, the same article says milestones stack: "Milestones are tiered, meaning rewards are earned when each milestone is reached. For example, reaching $500 in trading volume earns you both the $100 milestone reward and the $500 milestone reward." Apply that to the Tier 1 ladder and a referee who trades $5,000 triggers all four rewards, which is $120. Then the reward cap paragraph offers a third figure: "The maximum amount each referrer can earn from referral rewards across all referrals is $10,000 USD (100 referrals × $100 maximum per referral for T1 countries)."
| What the stacking rule implies for one Tier 1 referral | $120 |
|---|---|
| What the milestone table states as the maximum | $75 |
| What the reward cap arithmetic assumes | $100 |
Our Crypto.com guide publishes the smallest, up to $75, because it is the only one written as a limit. The article also carries no dated revision, only "Updated over 3 weeks ago", so there is no telling which figure is newest.
TaxAct: 20 referrals, or $599, or neither
TaxAct’s help centre article is direct.
Quoted from TaxAct
“You can earn rewards for up to 20 referrals per tax season”
The binding supplemental terms, headed "Last Updated December 23, 2025", set a different limit.
Quoted from TaxAct
“The total maximum reward payout per calendar year you may receive is $599.”
- What the help centre allows: 20 referrals at the stated $20 floor$400
- What the binding terms cap you at, per calendar year$599
One limit counts a tax season, the other a calendar year, and both are published by TaxAct.
The same help page then contradicts itself on timing, two bullets apart: "Rewards are sent within 30 days after your friend completes their paid return using your referral code", and "No Guaranteed Delivery: Rewards are not guaranteed to be delivered within a specific timeframe." The TaxAct guide has the rest.
SoFi: one page, two promotion windows
SoFi’s homepage carries both of these footnotes at once. Read live on July 27, 2026: "Direct Deposit Promotion begins on 12/7/2023 and will be available through 1/31/2026." And, elsewhere on the same homepage: "This promotion is available between 5/15/2026 at 12:01AM ET and 12/31/2026 at 11:59PM ET."
The first window closed months ago. The second matches the dedicated offer page, which also states "SoFi must receive it on or before 12/31/26" and whose published modification timestamp is May 14, 2026. That page governs; the homepage footnote is an old campaign nobody deleted.
This is the commonest shape of the problem: a footnote is attached to a campaign, the campaign ends, the footnote stays. Take the window from the offer page, never from a homepage footnote. The tiers and the direct-deposit trap are in the SoFi guide.
Kinsta: no promotions, except the one that ended
Kinsta’s article about coupons, marked "Updated December 3, 2025", exists to tell searchers there is no code: "If you got here from Google, this is exactly why we don’t currently support coupons or discount codes." Under its own heading: "Does Kinsta Offer Promo Codes? No. While we don’t run promo codes or other promotions, we do offer the same great services at the same prices all year round."
Further down the same page sits a notice reading "Our 2025 Black Friday deal has ended", and a heading answering "Does Kinsta Offer Discounts? Yes. You can enjoy 2 months free by choosing Kinsta’s annual plans." One page, saying the company runs no promotions, announcing that a promotion ended, and listing a discount.
In fairness a real distinction is buried in it: Kinsta separates a price everyone gets from a code somebody unlocks for you, and it genuinely issues no codes. The Kinsta guide works through what is actually available.
Why a company’s own pages end up disagreeing
Almost none of this is deception. A referral landing page belongs to marketing and is rewritten whenever the campaign changes. The terms belong to legal and are rewritten when a lawyer is asked to, which is rarely. Help centre articles belong to support. Three teams, three clocks, and nobody whose job is to read all three side by side. The marketing page is the freshest and the least binding; the terms are the stalest and the most binding; the help centre sits between them and binds nothing. A stale date on a company page is usually not a sign of a scam either. It is a sign nobody owns that page any more, which matters for a different reason: an unmaintained page is an unreliable one, whatever it says.
Do this, in this order
- Open both documents before you commit anything. The offer page and the terms it links to, in two tabs, about four minutes.
- Read the date on each one. Terms usually carry an effective or last-updated date; a marketing page usually does not. When one is dated and the other is not, the dated one is the only one you can reason about.
- When they disagree about what you are owed, believe the terms. That is what you accepted and what a support agent escalates to. A screenshot of the marketing page is evidence of a mistake, not proof of an entitlement.
- When they disagree about a deadline, act on whichever date comes first. The one place where believing the terms can still lose you money, because the system that pays you was built from one of the two dates and you cannot see which. Finishing early costs nothing.
- When one document gives several numbers, assume the smallest. Crypto.com’s article supports $120, $100 and $75 for the same referral. A company defends the sentence that reads as a limit, not the arithmetic that reads as a promise.
- Never quote a homepage footnote, and save both pages the day you sign up. Footnotes outlive their campaigns. Print both to PDF with the dates visible.
Is it worth your time?
Reading two documents instead of one is worth it whenever money or a deadline turns on the difference, which covers most sign-up offers and almost no shopping discounts. The habit is small. Open the terms, search it for the number you were promised and the date you were given, and if either comes back different, plan for the less generous version.
Second opinions
What we found across every offer
Every one of these is read from the company’s own document and dated. See all 59 questions we have answered.