This is a spin-off on the other topic of shops you will never do again.

Are there any MS companies you will never shop for again?

I can name a couple:

Direct Scheduling Services....stiffed me on pay and will not respond to emails or phone calls. It's like they fell off the face of the earth.

Certified Field Associates: assigned me a shop and emailed me a notice that I was assigned, I printed out the paperwork from their website, went to do the shop and when I returned to do the report, the shop was no longer in my box. I called the company and the person I spoke to argued with me saying it WASN'T assigned me and that I should disregard their "automated" assignment emails. He questioned me as to HOW I got the paperwork. I told him I got it off their web site because it was ASSIGNED to me and he argued with me more, saying it was NOT assigned to me so I COULDN'T have gotten it from their web site, and questioned how I got ahold of their paperwork, insinuating that I did something underhanded to get ahold of the paperwork. Asked to speak to his supervisor and he would not transfer me.

Market Force: after doing many of their low-paying jobs they deleted me for no reason. I wasn't too sad about it because I was contemplating not working for them anymore anyway. Too much reporting for too little pay.

Marketforce never ever ever again in this or any other lifetime and Sentry for the same reason no matter who tries to sugar-coat it.

Bestmark, for reasons told in other posts....FF, gas,jobs under 8.00 and the list goes on. I did mention IKEA above. I don't work for Marketforce in L.A., but do in Vegas.

I'll never work for Consumer Connection or Premier Service. The first because I had to chase down my pay for way too long and was lied to about it. The second because they don't pay fair wages for the work they expect. Life's too short to write a 2000-word essay for a 3-minute sandwich shop!

I think I might be close to deactivating with Customer Service Experts. Their expectations are just too high for the pay. They expect EVERY tiny thing in the narrative, regardless of how trivial, and even if the answers are "yes". Just takes too much time, and I find it completely senseless to be so redundant.

Other than that, there are companies I don't THINK I'll shop for, on the basis of low or late pay, but I'm not ready to bail just yet. That said, there are definitely some companies I'm "on hiatus" from, like Goodwin, About Face and Mystique. If they ever get it together, perhaps I'll shop for them in the future.

Maritz is the only one I specifically told to terminate me.

While there are a whole lot of companies I will not currently work with for a variety of reasons (slow pay, lousey communication, failure to value my time and effort, general jerks), I anticipate that many of these companies in the future may revise/reform themselves and turn out to be companies worth working with.

Service Sleuth - not ever again, 3 months to be paid a whopping $10.

KSS AKA Kern Scheduling because of some illegal business practices.

MysteryShopSteve Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> KSS AKA Kern Scheduling because of some illegal
> business practices.

Explain please....

Intelli Shop, still waiting for pay since December!!

Service Trac They appear to have a dog that eats nothing but shopper invoices, and an outgoing mailbox that dissolves checks before the post office picks them up.

WOW!I am interested in becoming a secret shopper and I was going to ask if it's legitimate for a company to ask for your birthday and SS#, but after reading all the messages I am afraid to even try. What do you suggest?

shabbyshopper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WOW!I am interested in becoming a secret shopper
> and I was going to ask if it's legitimate for a
> company to ask for your birthday and SS#, but
> after reading all the messages I am afraid to even
> try. What do you suggest?


People here are posting their negative experiences. That's it. There are negative experiences with most any activity.

I am not too worried about my DOB, as MSCs use it to fit their demographics. I use my SSN with companies where I do enough business to require a 1099.

For some folks it is highly worthwhile and for others, they try a few shops and stop. Various folks have various experiences with the same company. That difference of opinion may be due to personal tastes, a shop incorrectly done, issues with a particular scheduler or just annoyance with how long some companies' pay cycles may be. I got a call today to do $12 shops that take about 90 days to pay. I said 'no thanks'. It is just not worth it to me to keep track of those outstanding payments until they are paid. For someone else, this might seem the perfect opportunity. Does this make the company a bad company? No, I just don't find their pay policies suit me.

I've been doing this for a bunch of years and it is a nice supplement to other income. I would not consider doing this as my full time income to pay the rent/mortgage or keep the electricity turned on. Yet I know that there are shoppers who do precisely that. They either have a whole lot more shops available in their area than I see or a whole lot of energy to go great distances.

I pretty much gave up on About Face's termite inspections after they emailed me with question after question that was not required in the initial report.

CheeChild Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Certified Field Associates: assigned me a shop
> and emailed me a notice that I was assigned, I
> printed out the paperwork from their website, went
> to do the shop and when I returned to do the
> report, the shop was no longer in my box. I
> called the company and the person I spoke to
> argued with me saying it WASN'T assigned me and
> that I should disregard their "automated"
> assignment emails. He questioned me as to HOW I
> got the paperwork. I told him I got it off their
> web site because it was ASSIGNED to me and he
> argued with me more, saying it was NOT assigned to
> me so I COULDN'T have gotten it from their web
> site, and questioned how I got ahold of their
> paperwork, insinuating that I did something
> underhanded to get ahold of the paperwork. Asked
> to speak to his supervisor and he would not
> transfer me.
>
> After working for Certified for many years, this happened to me. You can't get the paperwork if you are not assigned the shop. I will never work for this company again.

I am wary of Customer Service Experts for the same reasons as nicely. Direct Scheduling, of course, owes me $134 from as far back as last July, dropped off the planet for sure, after numerous false promises of pay, and Franchise Compliance for not paying for over 100 days and finally my threatening and contacting BBB got them to send a check, that had been dated (or shall we say postdated) more than 2 months earlier.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2011 04:02AM by 57carol.

krazekatt1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Intelli Shop, still waiting for pay since
> December!!

Just want to point out that they aren't late (at least not yet). February is when you would be paid for a December shop with IntelliShop. They're not a fast payer, but in my experience, they DO pay, and within the time frame they stipulate.

nicelytwicely Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> krazekatt1 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Intelli Shop, still waiting for pay since
> > December!!
>
> Just want to point out that they aren't late (at
> least not yet). February is when you would be
> paid for a December shop with IntelliShop. They're
> not a fast payer, but in my experience, they DO
> pay, and within the time frame they stipulate.


Yes, but when they tell you you "might" be charged for something and I call 11 different locations and am told they "always" charge for that service AND it takes them 11 weeks to pay, it makes them a slow pay AND dishonest. Those 2 shops were my only two and I won't work for them again.

I would never do any more work for Mystique Shopper. It takes forever to collect payments. In addition, they tried to cancel a shop that was already done.

Re: IntelliShop, I'm not familiar with that scenario at all. I think you might be talking about car related stuff, which I don't do. The company is not my favorite, but I don't have any problems. That said, I'm very particular about the shops I apply for. One of the things I will NOT do for them is lay out a lot of money. I did that for the first shop I performed, and definitely, the pay period REALLY stinks when you have to do that! Right now, one of the shops I'm waiting to be paid on had some costs associated with it, but nothing significant.

Re: Mystique, I had the same experience re: pay, kittybratt. When you tack on the time and annoyance spent having to email incessantly for payment, the shop fee is certainly not big enough!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2011 02:43PM by nicelytwicely.

There are quite a few ... Restaurant Evaluators tops the list. Took almost 6 months to get reimbursed $150 for a high end restaurant shop. I contacted the BBB with no response. Finally I contacted a local investigative reporter and guess what, payment came.

It tell's you in the guidelines for IntelliShop that you will not get paid for 60 days. So if you did a shop in December then you get paid the end of Feb. Marketforce dont just term you for no reason, you must have done something to make them term you. I have been working for Marketforce for a long time and I had to shops rejected but it was my fault I didnt read the requirement right.

bestfr1303 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
Marketforce dont just term you for no
> reason, you must have done something to make them
> term you. I have been working for Marketforce for
> a long time and I had to shops rejected but it was
> my fault I didnt read the requirement right.

bestfr1303, I have also worked for Marketforce for a long time, and they suit because they are self-assign, pay regularly, and their reports are fast and easy. But MF does terminate shoppers for "no" reason. They have internal controls set up that call for termination of shoppers at certain points. This could be the number of shops a shopper has completed or a variety of other reasons that may or may not have been triggered by a "mistake" made by the shopper. When MF terminates a shopper, they frequently do not tell the shopper he has been terminated; the "Select Shops" simply disappears from the shopper's site. If the shopper inquires, he is most often told by MarketForce "we can't offer you any new shops" and that the "reason is confidential" and cannot be disclosed to anyone, including the shopper. So, while MF suits my purposes and I will continue to shop for them, I am very much aware that MF does terminate shoppers for reasons that have little to do with the shopper's performance.

Thats your opinion.

bestfr1303 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thats your opinion.


No, it's not just her opinion. Check this and other forums. The same story is told over and over and over by different shoppers all over the country.

Shoppers with hundreds of MFI shops under their belts, many with no previous issues-termed with no explanation. Some have had the temerity to ask and got no explanation whatsoever.

Attend some MSPA or similar group conferences, you'll hear the same indicia. I am very cautious with MFI as as result.

Certainly my response is that working with the blue portal is 'good while it lasts'. I do not expect it to last forever--whether it is because I screw up or somehow trigger an algorithm that says I am not to be trusted or whatever. It is sweet while it lasts and there other fish in the sea.

Mystique shopper is a real piece of work. They tried to get slick & tell me in March of 2011 that I could not be paid for a job that was completed in Dec 2010. I had gone to the wrong location, but realized the mistake when I was submitting my report. I also nocited that there was an available shop at the location that I did the shop at and requested that they switch the shops, which they did and told me everything was ok back in Dec. I sent them emails 30 days later, 45 days later then every week to request my pay and everytime their response was, your on the list to get paid. Then they have the nerves to tell me that I could not get paid because I went to the wrong location. You know that I had a fit!!! I threaten to contact the BBB as well a the client & submit a copy of my report and deman that the client pay & reimburse me. I also told them that I would contact the news. The money was in my paypal account within minutes. I'm really upset that I to go through all those changes to get paid. What's worst was the whole time they kept sending notices of the available shops. They have a lot of desent paying shops in my area, but I'm afraid to shop for them again. I don't work for free and I do not need the aggravation.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/2011 10:02PM by luvs2shop.

I am adding Customer Service Experts to my list of companies to deactivate myself from. Their reports SEEM standard when you do them....a list of about 20 or 30 yes/no questions (with no narrative fields) and an overall narrative field at the end. After doing a thorough job answering the questions and doing a good narrative, the editor bounces the report back to me telling me to "specifically address" questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 9, 12, 13, 13a, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 30. These are YES/NO questions like "Was the associate wearing a nametag?" YES. Why is a narrative required for this? And if they DO want narrative on each question, why not put a narrative FIELD beneath each question, noting that a comment is required?

Furthermore, they ask to "specifically address" things I DID address in the narrative.

Very irritating, especially considering the modest pay.

CSE reports are what they are. You either stick with it long enough to knock out reports quickly with few or no questions missed, or you walk away. It's funny; I took about 3 months off of doing their airport circuits and then when I did 25 shops on 2 circuits last week, it took me 3-4 reports to get back into the swing of addressing every question. BUT, it's important to remember that a 7 or 8 from them is like a 9 from anyone else. I still like the opportunity to do 10-15 shops in one place in about 3 hours and come home with such yummy swag (scones, cookies, chicken quesadillas, etc) for a week of noshing, plus a ton of travel-sized toiletries.

When I get a CSE editor saying that I have not addressed something in the narrative that I have addressed, I email my scheduler, who either removes that or clarifies for me what I might have left out that really was required. This willingness of the schedulers to work as a team with me is a big plus.