How do I find what is available in my area and get started?

Almost everything in your area is available! If you get signed up with a dozen of the right mystery shopping companies you will be able to mystery shop every other business on the street. The problem is they do not condone giving out the names of these companies in here.There are people in this forum that will come here and tell you that they are here to help you but they cant tell you any mystery shopping company names because that is against their contracts they have signed with the mystery shopping companies. They will tell you that you must look at the list of mystery shopping companies on the bottom of this page and sign up with all of them. Yes I said all of them. These people will tell you that you must sign up with a hundred or more of these companies. These people will tell you dont listen to all those warnings you have heard about giving personal information out over the internet. These people will tell you that they have given out their social security numbers and bank information to a hundred mystery shopping companies and they have never had no problems. I'm not going to tell you any of that! I am going to tell you to not give out your personal information to 100 companies you found listed on the internet. Thats a recipe for trouble. The kind of trouble you asked for and thats the worst kind. Do not go into this with any grand ideas of making a bunch of money. Read this forum over and sign up with the dozen or so companies you see people are talking about all the time. Feel free to ask more. First thing you should do before you sign up with any company is get a checking account just for the mystery shopping. These companies seem to like to pay by direct deposit into your checking account and you dont want them fooling around with your real checking account.

Hello and welcome to the forum. The only way I've been able to find work is by signing up with companies who have the jobs. The more companies I sign up with, the more jobs I see. Some companies will have work in your area and some won't, but that doesn't mean the situation will stay the same. Companies pick up new clients and lose the old ones with regularity, so it's a good idea to sign up with everyone. If a company picks up new work in your area, you'll be ready to go.

Regarding financial security, I haven't run into any problems with the companies I've worked with. Some of them pay by company check, some deposit into my personal bank account, and some deposit into my PayPal account. It all seems to work. You can set up a separate account for your business but you may not be able to get a free account. Lots of banks offer free personal accounts now.

I don't know of any source that will list work from all companies in a geographic area. There are many, many companies who have work in certain areas but not nationwide. There are other companies who may have work in your area because they are so large. Some of those are Market Force, Corporate Research International (Cori or CRI), Maritz, and Bare. If you are in my area, which is DFW and North Central Texas, all four of those companies offer a considerable amount of work but you will have to share with a large number of shoppers. There is a link at the bottom of the page to a list of mystery shopping companies. That's a good place to start.

Since you are new, I want to caution you that no reputable company will pay you in advance. You will be paid and reimbursed as set out in the guidelines after your report is accepted. The average shop will be between $7 and $15.
Best of luck to you with your new business.

I have signed up with 73 companies, but I actually worked for 29. Part of the reason is that the other 44 companies either had no jobs in my area, or the jobs that they had just did not interest me, or the jobs that they had paid too little to make it worth my time. Out of the 29 companies that I have worked for 65% of the jobs have been with only 5 companies. Those are Maritz, Market Force, ath Power, Intellishop, and Informa Research. In my area informa Research and ath Power are mostly banking shops. Maritz is mostly banking and gas stations. Market Force is mostly FF and retail. Intellishop has a mixture but I mostly do car dealerships. Remember, this is in my area so it might be different for you. You might also have different interests then me that would lead you to shop for different companies. My suggestion is to start applying to the various companies and see what they have in you're area. Also, continue to monitor this forum because you will continue to get ideas for what companies have what types of shops. As for payment: not all companies use direct deposit. I have been paid by check, direct deposit, and paypal. Some companies only pay via paypal so it is good to setup a paypal account if you do not have one. BTW: I have use my personal checking account and have never had a problem. Also, at sign-up time the MSC will ask for your SS number. This cannot be avoided. They need this for tax reporting purposes if you make more than $599.

I found jobslinger.com to be a good source of information for what is in my area. I got started there, doing a search by my zip code, found jobs I thought I could do, and signed up with those companies. About a month later I found this place, so you're one up on me there since you found this place BEFORE you started, and now I sign up with new companies after seeing the discussions here about them. I have signed up with over 60 companies so far and have worked for more than 20. So if you only sign up for "a dozen" you are drastically limiting your opportunities. You won't know what's out there until you sign up with a lot of companies. (And nobody here has ever said you should sign up with "all" the companies listed. What is routinely suggested is "100 or more" to really give you access to enough opportunities to make this worthwhile.)

We CANNOT answer questions like, "I want to shop Burger King, who does them?" because it is against forum rules AND more importantly, the agreements we sign with the mystery shopping companies to connect the client (Burger King) with the mystery shopping company who offers the jobs. It's not because "we say it," it's because that's how it is. This is what the first poster was talking about, except he makes it sound like we're a bunch of meanies for not being willing to violate our contracts and give out this information. Please be aware that while the overwhelming majority of people on this board are helpful, there are a few who only come here to stir up trouble. But draw your own conclusions. When ONE person says "this" and all the others say "that" chances are it's the ONE person who is wrong, not all the others.

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your mystery shopping. It can be fun and lucrative, but it will be a lot of work to make it so.