I decided to get back into Mystery Shopping again after an 11 year absence. I had never worked for J M Ridgway before, but I just completed a grocery store shop for them over 7 days ago (a shop with about 200 questions, and 9 narratives of the departments I had to visit). Yet thus far, I have not heard anything from them. When I did shops for other companies before, they seemed to usually get back to me within about 5 days with their gripes of what I did wrong with the shop. So I was wondering how long does J M Ridgway normally take to get back to you on a shop? Also, how long does it take them to pay? I’m set up with PayPal with them, so I am hoping that will speed my payment along, as I don’t recall any companies offering that payment option 11+ years ago. I seem to recall, I had to wait about an extra 5 to 7 days for a check to arrive in the mail once a company approved my shop. Thank you in advance for your help.

P.S. It took me about 30 minutes to gather all of the data I needed to complete my 200 question report (for a medium size grocery store), but it took me about 2 1/2 hours to answer those 200 questions and write 9 narratives of the departments I visited inside the store. Is this normal to spend about 2 1/2 hours completing a grocery store report like this?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2023 03:26PM by DesertDavid.

Welcome back to MS.

Did you mean JM Ridgway? I have done grocery shops for them but only for chains with much simpler forms. I also do other projects for them. Different projects often have different payment periods. Hopefully, someone who has done the same shop for JM Ridgway will see your post and answer some of your questions.

In my experience, no news is good news when it comes to JM Ridgway. Don't expect any feedback or a score.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2023 08:57AM by BusyBeeBuzzBuzzBuzz.

@BusyBeeBuzzBuzzBuzz wrote:

Welcome back to MS.

Did you mean JM Ridgway? I have done grocery shops for them but only for chains with much simpler forms. I also do other projects for them. Different projects often have different payment periods. Hopefully, someone who has done the same shop for JM Ridgway will see your post and answer some of your questions.

In my experience, no news is good news when it comes to JM Ridgway. Don't expect any feedback or a score.

Thank you very much for coming to my rescue, BusyBeeBuzzBuzzBuzz! I greatly appreciated it so very much. Until you came along, I was starting to give up hope.

Thank you for your warm welcome to the group, as I am a Newbie here.

Thank you for catching my typo, LOL!, I should have typed J “M” Ridgway, and I made the corrections. Maybe that is why nobody replied, until you came along to help me.

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with J M Ridgway, it is very helpful.

Okay, I will try to stay positive that “no news is good news”. Yet I do find it irksome that I worked my shop 4 full days "before" it was due, and I could only work the shop from 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM (per their instructions), yet I had to answer those 200 questions and complete 9 narratives and have it turned in by 11:59 PM the same day. I don’t know why they don’t give us up to the deadline day to submit our completed reports . . . since they are going to sit on those completed reports for days or weeks before they will give us any feedback on them. I would have been willing to take more time and do a better narration job if I did not have a "due before midnight tonight" deadline pointed at my head. :-(

One last question, will they contact me (via an email) with my report review or do I have to try to find the review in my J M Ridgway account under the reports that I submitted section? I go into my account and try to find the status of this shop/report about every 3 days, but it just shows that I submitted my report and that is all. Tomorrow will mark 14 full days since I did shop and submitted my report.

Thank you so much for your help. :-)

You're very welcome.

What SASSIE status do you see? If it says it has been Received, you should be all good and will be paid. If it says Completed, that means they have not reviewed your report yet.

Again, don't expect feedback, a score, or a review. Seriously, no news is good news (provided the status is Received). Who was your scheduler?

MSCs usually won't give you until the day of the deadline to file a report even if you shopped within the shop window but still days before the deadline. They want your memory to be fresh. Also, they want any extra time to work in their favor. That means they can wait before reviewing/editing your reports and still send them to their clients in a reasonable amount of time. It also gives the MSCs leeway to repost the shop in case a shopper's report is rejected.

@BusyBeeBuzzBuzzBuzz wrote:

You're very welcome.

What SASSIE status do you see? If it says it has been Received, you should be all good and will be paid. If it says Completed, that means they have not reviewed your report yet.

Again, don't expect feedback, a score, or a review. Seriously, no news is good news (provided the status is Received). Who was your scheduler?

MSCs usually won't give you until the day of the deadline to file a report even if you shopped within the shop window but still days before the deadline. They want your memory to be fresh. Also, they want any extra time to work in their favor. That means they can wait before reviewing/editing your reports and still send them to their clients in a reasonable amount of time. It also gives the MSCs leeway to repost the shop in case a shopper's report is rejected.

Thank you again, BusyBeeBuzzBuzzBuzz. I appreciate the extra help and you sharing more.

I’m not sure who the scheduler is, however when I go into my account to look at my submitted shops, it states that my report was “Received”. Yet if I am not mistaken, it has always been in that “Received” status since I submitted it 14 days ago, I don’t ever recall it being listed as a “Completed” status, but I could be wrong as I don’t really remember, it just seems like every time I checked the status, it seems like it has always said "Received".

Thank you again for your help and support. Have a nice weekend. :-)

You're welcome and I hope you have a nice weekend, also.

It may be that JM Ridgway edited and approved your report so quickly that you never saw the Completed status.

Good job on what sounds like a bear of a shop. (200 questions???)