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I am furious !! Confirmed shops removed from my shop log

March 07, 2023 08:50PM
I had been assigned and confirmed 3 shops over 2 weeks ago. Yesterday, I was contacted by a scheduler asking if I could work additional shops that were about 40 miles away for a $5 bonus. I confirmed four shops for a $5 bonus each.

This morning, I received an email canceling my 3 shops that had been assigned to me two weeks ago and were close where I live. This left me with 4 shops that were 40 miles and more from my location.

I have never canceled a shop in 20 years but if the company won't honor the shops that I was assigned, I am not going to drive 100 miles round trip to help them out.

I sent them an email as to why my shops had been canceled. They said that Presto had assigned the shops and someone had worked them. Therefore, they no longer needed me to work them. I have the highest rating with this company and always worked my assignments.

I have never heard that Presto could work locations that had already been assigned and confirmed for weeks.
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March 07, 2023 09:23PM
It's only natural that you are mad. Which MSC?

If the shops are truly gone and already performed by another shopper, the MSC won't have you shop them again. If I were in your shoes, I would ask to be unassigned from the far-away shops and tell the MSC why. If the MSC unassigns me without penalty or unpleasantness, that's fine. If not, I would consider terminating the working relationship.
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March 07, 2023 10:07PM
Seems they were just trying to get you to go to a far location. I would cancel. What reason would they have to give your scheduled shops to someone else???
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March 07, 2023 11:30PM
That is exactly what I did. I got three of them removed but one scheduler refuses to remove one of the faraway shops. I will not work it. This one is 45 miles away. That is 90 miles round trip.

The head office responded to my complaint about assigned shops being removed. They did schedule me to work one of my local shops that they had canceled and apologized. I still refuse to work the shop that is far away. I am going to contact the head office and get that shop removed.

The funny thing is they hurt themselves by canceling my local shops. The far away shops had been bonused and are in small rural towns here in Texas. Each shop is about 17 miles apart. They have been put back on the schedule and no one has picked them up. Good luck with that. I was about the only one who would work them. I will not any more. We all schedule most of our shops in advance. This has wreaked havoc with my schedule and cost me the loss of 5 shops.
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March 07, 2023 11:37PM
The shops that had been cancelled had been assigned by Presto and not the company that has the shops. I was assigned by the company whose name starts with a C. I dont know why companies give Presto access to their shops. A shopper worked the locations that had been assigned and confirmed for me weeks ago. Once a scheduler noticed that the locations had been worked yesterday by Presto, they canceled the shops that I should have worked.
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March 08, 2023 12:30AM
As long as the shops were removed before you completed them it sucks, but it isn't out of the norm for this industry.
Were the farther away ones only agreed to in exchange for the nearby ones?
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March 08, 2023 02:13AM
My situation occurred at least 10 yrs. ago. I applied for and was assigned two Chase banks and then added two more jobs since I would be in the area. The night before, though, the Chase shops disappeared. I contacted the MSC, and explained the situation. A few days later, I received the good news I would receive full pay. I am still contracted with the company and just last week completed three online shops at $30 each.

The above is the only such occurrence of which I have been involved in 20 yrs. shopping.
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March 08, 2023 01:19PM
No, this was not an exchange. I only agreed to work the faraway shops because they were off the same interstate highway. Then, they turn around and cancel all my confimed close shops.
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March 08, 2023 01:29PM
I agree. I have mystery shopped for over 20 years and have never had this happen. The head office did put one of the shops back on my schedule but there was no mention of restoring or getting paid for the other two.

This is going to be their loss. I am retired and live in an area 25 miles south of Dallas. These faraway shops that I had agreed to work were another 20 miles further south. That makes them 45 miles south of Dallas. They are in very small rural towns. I was about the only one who would work them. A lot of the time, I would work some of them without a bonus just to help them out. No more ! I won't even work them if they are bonused unless I get paid for the confirmed shops that they canceled.

I really don't know why companies do business with Presto. I think Presto causes more problems than it helps.
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March 08, 2023 02:35PM
@Texans wrote:

No, this was not an exchange. I only agreed to work the faraway shops because they were off the same interstate highway. Then, they turn around and cancel all my confimed close shops.

I think you should have received at least partial pay, and I'd have cancelled the other ones, too. It messed up your route, and you can be making that round trip for less than what you had planned.

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.
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March 08, 2023 02:52PM
I would consider if they increased the bonus/fee on the farther out shop, that I would do it. Otherwise, I do believe it is important to inform schedulers and companies that there is no longer profit for you without the shops that were cancelled.
I had a shop cancelled (the client cancelled the visits) at very short notice but I had actually done the shop about 30 mins prior to the cancellation notification, so I was paid, but there were many upset shoppers who had arranged routes around those shops. Very annoying when stuff like that happens.
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March 08, 2023 04:03PM
This is one of the reasons that I have never used presto.

"Evolve thyself and lose all hate...." Orphaned Land
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March 08, 2023 05:32PM
I had one of the MSCs cancel a handful of shops on me not long ago. They never gave me an explanation, and I also have excellent ratings on my shops with them. They just disappeared from my board, not one word from them, and when I asked, as I too was getting ready to get them done, they said that they had been canceled. For whatever their reason for their excuse, like blaming it on Presto, or whatever, I'm very wary of MSCs that behave that way. Although I do put them on schedule on occasion, I am very conservative in how much I depend on their scheduling. Professionalism goes both ways.

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?
"Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
-- Abraham Lincoln


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/09/2023 12:33AM by GinnyLynn.
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March 08, 2023 05:37PM
I didn't use Pesto. My shops were scheduled by Confero. They post their shops on Presto as many companies do. Presto posted shops that had already been assigned. Someone that worked through Presto worked my assigned locations before the day I was assigned to work them. Confero saw that the locations had been worked and then canceled my shops that had been assigned and confirmed.

This company needs some help with their management. I received an apology for one of the canceled shops yesterday. It was put back on my job log. This morning, I received another email canceling the same shop again. THIS IS CRAZY !!!!
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March 08, 2023 06:06PM
Not cool, but I'd definitely not cancel just because you're angry.

What if the client would have canceled some locations at the last minute? Would you still cancel the rest?

Since there was no 'I'll take these but only if you give me these too' then canceling is just as unprofessional as them canceling.
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March 08, 2023 09:01PM
@GinnyLynn wrote:

They just disappeared from my board, not one word from them, and when I asked, as I too was getting ready to get them done, they said that they had been canceled. For whatever their reason for their excuse, like blaming it on Presto, or whatever, I've very wary of MSCs that behave that way.

GinnyLynn, sometimes it's the client who cancels the shop--probably more often than not. It's not always at the whim of the MSC. I have had that happen to me a couple of times, including once while I was already in the town where the shop was, but luckily I had another shop in that area. Both times it was because the client cancelled the shops at the last minute. It's extremely frustrating, and one would hope that the end client would give the MSC a better heads-up.

But at least the MSCs gave me the reason the shops were cancelled. In the absence of that, I would wonder what the reasoning was.

As far as Presto goes, there definitely should be a better communication pipeline so that schedulers know the shop was done through Presto and can give the other shopper more notice. I don't use Presto; I accidentally assigned a job to myself when all I wanted to do was view it! I cancelled it right away, but I don't like the platform.

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2023 09:01PM by BirdyC.
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March 08, 2023 09:30PM
I didn’t cancel the other shops out of anger. If you had read my post, I cancelled the other shops because they were too far away with the nearer shops being cancelled. With the cancelled shops. I was only 17 miles between the next shop. Without these shops, my first shop was 37 miles away. That is one way. That is 74 miles. Please read before you judge me.
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March 09, 2023 12:29PM
Yesterday, they put one of my job locations back on my job list. This morning, it has again been removed.
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March 09, 2023 12:32PM
@Texans wrote:

I didn’t cancel the other shops out of anger. If you had read my post, I cancelled the other shops because they were too far away with the nearer shops being cancelled. With the cancelled shops. I was only 17 miles between the next shop. Without these shops, my first shop was 37 miles away. That is one way. That is 74 miles. Please read before you judge me.


1. You titled the thread 'I am furious'..... yeah, reading led me to believe you were angry.

2. What if those shops were all scheduled with different MSC & some were canceled? Would you still screw over a scheduler/ MSC just because the 'new' route was no longer profitable?

3. Like I said before, not cool of the MSC, but in my opinion your actions are no better than theirs. They canceled on you, but instead of keeping your agreement for the other shops (which by the way were separate from each other, these shops weren't a 'package' deal) you bailed on them.

Others here have had anchor shops canceled by a MSC (cough cough IPSOS) and still completed the route, even though it was no longer profitable, to uphold their other agreements.
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March 09, 2023 11:37PM
In my circumstance, the issue was not so much that the shops were canceled as the fact that the MSC didn't feel the need to notify me that they had been canceled. Life happens to us all sometimes. However, I didn't find out until the day of the first one when I logged in and was getting ready to get started. I work with a schedule calendar like most other mystery shoppers, and I had three days with a half day's work per day lined up with the project. If I had known they were canceled, I would have filled those slots with other assignments. No biggie it all. However, it became a biggie when they didn't tell me about the cancellations. Although I do still take assignments with them, I am wary of how much I rely on their shops, which is not a lot.

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?
"Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
-- Abraham Lincoln


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/09/2023 11:37PM by GinnyLynn.
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