Eye Spy for Field Agent

July 08, 2022 12:42AM

Are these worth the trouble for anyone?

At $5 each, it's a fine reward if you find it. However my recent attempts have come up dead. In many cases it's not that I can't find the product, but that I think the number they're looking for is wrong.

For example, a product that matches the description and weight, having the exact UPC number - except the app has an extra digit, a leading zero. Occam's Razor says the data entry goofed, or the store has it's own system, not that an exact box exists somewhere with a different digit for no reason. So it's unsolvable if they need an exact match.

Of course I'm new at this. Maybe there's a rhythm or system of knowing the solvable ones in advance that makes the attempt worthwhile?

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July 08, 2022 05:03AM

There have been threads about this. The consensus is that it is a total waste of time. I don't recall anyone ever saying they succeeded in the exact match demanded by FI.

However, I have completed other jobs for them that are rather straightforward.

July 08, 2022 03:41PM

I gave up on the "Eye Spy" jobs long ago! As Cease said, once in a while other, much more straightforward jobs come up that are worth doing if you are in the area.

July 08, 2022 04:13PM

I try to look up the UPC online before accepting to see if I can see what I am looking for. I only have luck with one pet store near me, but I have made (once) $55 in about an hour. It's very hit or miss but easy if you can find them. I see A LOT of Starbucks items (from the coffee shop) and as those have no bar code I am really wondering what they are thinking sometimes.

July 08, 2022 04:46PM

Thanks.

Literally the first one I tried worked great. It was a store I go to anyway and I knew what the product was - an item in the store's bake shop. A quick score had me enthused. And then it's been downhill since.

Not finding it would be one thing. When I know what they mean but the UPC is impossible, that's just frustrating.

Good to know I'm not alone. Maybe I'll find a niche for it like scaithamer's pet store, but I don't expect I'll make an effort on them anymore.

July 08, 2022 09:53PM

Recently, I have found the paid gigs to be more complex for a lower fee and not as abundant as they used to be.

July 09, 2022 04:29PM

They are not worth the effort.

"I told myself to quit you; but I don't listen to drunks." -Chris Stapleton

July 09, 2022 11:23PM

One time I found a water type of product in a convenience store. Rather than look conspicuous, I just bought the product and took pictures in the car. But like Amarsir, it was downhill from there and I gave up. I tried one at a pet store and the problem there was that employees really kept wanting to help me.

July 11, 2022 08:13PM

@sestrahelena wrote:

Recently, I have found the paid gigs to be more complex for a lower fee and not as abundant as they used to be.

Agreed. I'm seeing shops with the "this one may take awhile so be sure and allow enough time" with 30+ photos and 30+ barcodes, for $3.00 or $3.50.

And nope, I won't touch an Eye Spy job after two serious attempts spending time looking for multiple products and finding none.

July 21, 2022 01:45PM

I have only completed one of these years ago, with the previous MSC and it was purely by chance… I found an eBay listing for the item with full high quality photos including the UPC — at the time it said you could do them “any way you can” so I took really nice clear photos of my screen — and they accepted it… it was a very 1990s looking Conair hair dryer with very 90s packaging and weird pointed ends to dry curls… but they accepted it and the UPC and description matched…

I am pretty sure these are to update the UPC database… some store somewhere had an old hair dryer they sold that was probably sitting there for ages and didn’t match in the database, so they wanted pics of the item and UPC in case it came up again…. And like previously mentioned, I bet a lot of it is data input error.

After getting paid for the one, I tried finding a few other items online like that, but no one had high enough quality images — although I did find a few items — they appeared similar to the hair dryer — mainly older things that were sitting around for a while and probably triggered something when they got sold but were too old for full metadata that we have on things today… I tried looking in the stores a few times to no avail… it really is a scavenger hunt.

July 21, 2022 01:59PM

@Amarsir wrote:

At $5 each, it's a fine reward if you find it

Hardly. Its been decades since $5.00 was a fine amount of money -- for anything.

July 21, 2022 04:37PM

sestrahelena, you are a poet and don't know it!

July 24, 2022 12:34AM

LOL, I got a Field Agent ping telling people to do their little training for the Eye Spy assignments. Dudes, I've done the training. The jobs are Not Worth It.

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