If you have a choice between doing one of these and having a finger chopped off, sacrifice the finger. Much less painful.

I do the regular shops for them all the time and they're great because they pay more than most car wash shops. I figured I'd give one of the audits a whirl when it got heavily bonused. Since it involves a reveal after the mystery shop part, my "strategy," or so I thought, was to do one I'm not likely to visit often, so as not to ruin my anonymous status in the locations near home. So I picked one in a town about 60 miles away where i had a few other things going on. Big mistake (more on that later).

It involves at least 60 photos, more like 80 really. The guidelines say you'll be on site about an hour, which is a joke, but I kind of expected that going in. (It ended up being close to two.) The problem is, the MSC wants you to do it on the Presto app, although there is an option to do it on the Sassie platform. In retrospect, I should have printed out the Sassie questionnaire, even though that would have meant about a gazillion pages, and used that as my checklist. Instead, like a dope, I tried to use Presto.

You probably have an idea what comes next. The app immediately started rejecting photos I took within the app. So I tried doing it with my camera app. That works fine with shops like Circle K where there's a finite number of photos you have to remember to take, you just take them and come back to the app later to load them. But with this one, being my first time and involving 80 photos, I needed to go photo by photo. That would have meant 80 times taking a photo, firing up the app again, and waiting while the site loads with that stupid "hi there" gopher and then leaves you nowhere near the question you're trying to answer, leaving you to scroll blindly for that needle in the Presto haystack. I might have withstood the inconvenience but a lot of these were in the wash tunnel, which I had to have them shut down while customers waited.

So I made my next mistake: I decided to work off a crude handwritten photo checklist I'd put together "just in case" of Presto screwups. And wouldn't you know it, my checklist was missing three required photos, which I didn't discover until later when i was loading it on the Satanic Gopher app. So I loaded some dummy photos just to get the report to file.

There was something mentioned in the instructions about going back to get missed photos, but I'm not sure if I want to drive 60 miles and ask to take 3 photos. I guess these are best done near home if you don't mind ruining your "mystery-ness" forever.

Looks like I'm out $30 for the car wash and all that mileage. Bit off more than I could chew. Lesson learned.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2024 05:15AM by KokoBWare.

Thanks for the heads up, Koko. Emails with bonuses are enticing, but I’ve suspected issues galore. Fortunately for me, Santa (husband) knows that I like clean cars and puts an unlimited membership in my stocking every year.

I could not help but chuckle as I read through your post. I was not laughing at you, but with you. I found myself in a similar situation to you, right down to going out of my way by 60 miles so I didn't screw up the one I normally mystery shop. My thought going into it was, if I don't like it, I never have to do it again. That's how I try to approach anything in life, but especially IC work.

First, I will say that the company and the scheduler for these shops are good people. I do not feel like they set you up for failure.

Like you, I did not print off the Sassie form. Better yet, I wish I would have made my own cheat sheet, like I do with gas audits. That would have made things much easier. Instead, I went head first with Presto. I, unlike others, do not have the technical issues that others do with that app, other than the occasional location verification glitch. I found the guidelines to not be as thorough, so I did not appreciate the number of elements to be evaluated and photos involved until I was on-site. Almost right out of the gate was the section on the location's records. Being my first time, I was not sure what I was looking for. Worse, nobody on-site knew what I needed, and they were not helpful. As awkward as it felt going through their paperwork, including what I think were copies of employee write-ups, I finally found the binder I needed. The problem? It lacked almost everything that was required for that section. Apparently, someone didn't come to training on recording-keeping day. There was no help from the guidelines as to what to do if records were missing, so I snapped random photos inside the office, used them as placeholders for the report, and explained in the comments.

The example photos in the app were generally (but not always) helpful, but the section on the building photos and angles was vague. Some shots that wanted were not even possible unless I wanted to go stand in the middle of a 6 lane highway. I have my safety vest on, but I still wasn't too keen on that. Again, I did the best I could and noted in the comments.

You are spot on, you cannot take the photos in the app for this one due to the resizing. And, because of the number of photos, you have to bounce between your camera app and the Presto app. I leave Presto open and just bounce between screens, this way Presto does not have to reload. So I did not have to deal with the gopher every other second. What I did find to be an issue was the overall ordering of the report. There would be a few questions about the windows inside the tunnel, then when I thought I was almost done and about to exit tunnel, there were more questions about the windows that required me to go back to the front of the tunnel. This happened several times, so I completely blew the 10-minute timeframe for the tunnel portion because I had to do so much walking from end to the other due to the questions being in a poor order. The guy who was walking with me even left me, and before I could finish, he told the other workers to start the tunnel up even though I was in it. I yelled at the other workers to leave it off, and I heard the guy in charge shout he didn't care, he had cars backed up. I snapped a few more pictures, hoping I could make them work, and bolted out of the tunnel.

I agree, it was about 2 hours for me. Much longer than I expected. That said, now that I've done it once, I know what my mistakes were and what to do differently that will cut that time down, significantly.

When I left, I knew it was not my best work and I was prepared for it to be rejected. It wasn't. I didn't even get any follow-ups. I was paid, no issues. So, I would do another one if there was good bonus pay involved. I've not been able to time my time on the route to match when that shop has a bonus, so that's why I've not done it again. Certainly, if you are looking at a time to money ratio, the car wash is better. As I think about it, that MSC has been very good to me, so if they were in a pinch, I would probably make a special trip even if the bonus wasn't good just to help them.

I did think about sending the scheduler some suggestions that would help implement the audit better on the ground. For example, if you have to evaluate different aspects of the same element, group those questions together.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2024 06:04AM by ServiceAward.

Thank you all for these posts! I saw the job listing, thought it was a theme park, which didn't interest me, and immediately discounted it. Now I have a different reason to ignore it. But I agree about the MSC being helpful, understanding and upright.

I have completed a few of these audits when they are decently bonused, and I agree that they are time-consuming and require dozens of photos. I also agree that the MSC is decent. My audits have always been reviewed promptly and accepted, even when I didn't capture everything perfectly, and I've been paid in full, on time. Staff at the sites have been friendly and helpful, too. My on-site time has averaged about 90 minutes, and yes, there's more time spent at home, but that's why I wait until the bonus is decent. On my last assignment I thought I'd give Presto a try, but I couldn't enter anything after I'd set the start time, so didn't fight it and returned to my previous method of just taking a gazillion photos. I've learned to take photos of everything, especially inside the tunnel. I then select the individual photos I want when I enter the actual report. I also take multiple photos of the various equipment rooms. And I take photos of every page in the open/closing checklist binder for the current month. My suggestion if the binder isn't filled out is to take photos of the binder itself and the pages not being filled out! So, all in all, I'm happy to take on this audit once it's bonused well.

Like Helena, I thought it was a water park with a wave pool. After reading this thread, I checked the company's job board. The washes are what is listed, with, what I consider, an attractive fee and reimbursement. Were there any nearer than 70 mls. for me, I would be a shopper. As to the described audit, I would pass.

Thank you for posting this! I have contemplated picking up a few of these (often with up to $130 shop pay) within an hour drive of my house. I felt like there was something amiss. I think I will go with the chopped off finger!

I have not done any Tidal Wave shops or audits but I did cut my finger washing a kitchen knife last week..

Ouch

Where are these Tidal Waves, and what do they look like? I want to make sure I never shop one if they ever come to this area.

I was curious also. I used Google and found that there are several chains with similar names. Assuming that this is referring to Tidal Wave Auto Spa car washes, you can check locations here: [www.tidalwaveautospa.com] They have locations in many states, but no locations near me.

@AZwolfman wrote:

Where are these Tidal Waves, and what do they look like? I want to make sure I never shop one if they ever come to this area.

In fact I went to my moms and dads today for lunch and my mom saw my band aid.. She asked me what happened and I said I cut my finger at home

Man, I have DEF had shops go like this for me before. It is SO frustrating!!