I am now seeing that this is no rare thing that Monnie Howard and the Cirrus Marketing Intelligence company doesn't pay the shoppers. I spent so much time preparing to complete the mystery shops for this company- This was actually the very first company that I performed a shop for. They were announced audits of a particular brand of storage units. Monnie Howard was SO communicative during the period of me doing the shops in Sept and October 2023. Now that I am asking about my payment after waiting the OUTRAGEOUS amount of time that this company requires to pay invoices she is nonexistent, Not one person at this place will respond to my messages. There has to be someway to get this company shut down. They are con-artist. If we as shoppers neglected the communications we would be black balled and outed by the community... Why is the standard not the same for the companies? This one boasts they are BBB accredited and one of the top preferred companies on the website.... Why are they allowed to get away with this?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2024 05:32AM by christopherahrendt1.

In 2015 one of the first apt shops I did was for Cirrus. The first shop, they said I talked too much and wouldn't pay me. I did another shop for them and was told I didn't talk enough. The shops are not recorded. How would they know? I never did another shop for them again. Stay away from Cirrus.

Seems like there is a long history of them doing this. Why are they not ran out of the platforms. MSPA needs to work for both sides!

We have two long standing rules..

1. we don't do POP audits.
2. we don't work for Cirrus.

They ripped me off too.. The rules ALWAYS changed after the shop is done. They ALWAYS want a narrative with exact quotes, but don't tell you that ahead of time. And they never ask for additional information until two or more weeks later and ask for details you couldn't possibly remember that much later. Unless you recorded the entire interaction, which in most states is illegal.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2024 08:08AM by Morledzep.

They were my #1 vendor until Ipsos cornered the gas station market.

Never stiffed, but always the latest pay in the industry, and sometimes I had to chase them for money.

Never had issues with reports being questioned.

Ended up developing a nice relationship with Monnie and one of the schedulers who would throw me off-board projects every now and then.

Back then cash flow was not as critical as it is these days. I was all about building up a big A/R balance that would translate to weekly payments on a fairly regular basis.

Now I don't have the time window for slow-paying companies, unless a huge bonus shows up and I am still hunting for shops. I'm regularly working for 2 other companies in addition to Ipsos, one pays mid-month, one pays 3rd week of the month. Combined with Ipsos' more frequent pay schedule my cash flow is as regular as I can get it doing this kind of stuff.

Monnie has ignored all emails from me but when she was trying to get a sucker to complete the jobs for her she blew me up with emails and responded right away. She did wait for almost a month before asking for a picture that I left off (Which I didn't leave off) but responded right away with 2 pics of what she was claiming was missing. There has to be something that can be done.

Shop was accepted and I was never paid by them.

WOW! This is all very enlightening to me.

Exact same here. I even received the invoice submission confirmation email.

Yup!

@christopherahrendt1 I recall an older thread on this company's non payment saying to send a reminder email to a certain address and that action yielded payment. I don't recall the email address, but more than one person said they received payment within days. I am not disagreeing with you that an email to the owner should yield results, but it might be worth doing a search on this site for that specific payment email address. Didn't Monnie say they were in the hospital, etc. I do remember that a shop done thru their site or the magic platform means that a shop done and approved in September and sending the invoice at the end of the month meant that you are supposed to receive payment by the end of the first week of January. If you don't send the invoice, then that could be a reason for them to delay payment. One of the older threads on this company mentioned that Cirrus has a knack for finding the next victim to stick it to. You would think the pool of shoppers would've run dry long ago.

Another platform said that they were faster payers from the 100 plus days that people online claimed. I figured out that they listed jobs on another platform and were doing this to keep getting people to do their shops with all the negative feedback. I went to that platform and don't see any of their previously listed jobs.

Not sure if that means that others have claimed them or they are in a worse position that some thought. MSPA is around for the MSPs. They don't get any money from shoppers, so it isn't in their interest to look out for shoppers. It is strange because shoppers are a huge part of the equation of the MSPs' business model.

Many yrs. ago, 10 if not 15, I investigated a relationship with Cirrus. When I realized it would be approx. 110 days between report submission and payment, I concluded my consideration. The company currently has work in my area on the iSeretShop platform.

If anyone accepts work, just remember the story of the rescuer and the snake. After the snake had warmed and returned to normal activity, it bite its savior, who inquired as to why. The snake's reply was that the rescuer knew what it, the snake, was when he picked it up.

I used to do a lot of phone shops for Cirrus, but I gave up on them long ago because I got tired of having to chase after them in order to be paid. I think requiring an invoice is utterly ridiculous to begin with. (We all know why they do this - hoping that shoppers will forget, meaning free labor for Cirrus.) But when I sent an invoice and they still didn't hold up their end of the agreement? Unforgivable. They wouldn't have accepted an excuse if I'd failed to do a shop; no way was I going to accept theirs when they didn't/couldn't pay me as scheduled.

They're a 10-ft-pole MSC.

Oh, and this?

@christopherahrendt1 wrote:

MSPA needs to work for both sides!

MSPA = Mystery Shopping Providers Association. They rarely refer to themselves as anything other than "MSPA Americas," but make no mistake about what those four letters stand for. "Field talent" is allowed to join, but by MSPA's own description, it's nothing more than a database of shoppers who have access to a handful of paid courses. Look at MSPA's board of directors and the issues they lobby legislators for - when you see something that benefits shoppers, make sure to let us all know.

UPDATE TO ALL: I received a response from MSPA and they denied that Cirrus was in any way a registered member of the MSPA: Here is the response that I got:
Hello Christopher,

Thanks for reaching out and I’m sorry you are having a problem.

This company is not a member of MSPA Americas. Thank you for reporting them and we will have our legal team reach out to them to cease and desist.

Please understand that we are not a regulatory body or legal institution. If you are having a dispute, you will need to work that out directly with the company involved or use other legal services in your community.

I do truly hope your situation resolves itself to your satisfaction.

All the best,

Beth

I forwarded this message to Monnie telling her that she was a fraud. I was paid within the hour!
Mind you- as I stated prior I have emailed her prior more than once in regards to payment: her response was quick tonight:

Hi Christopher –

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, I’ve reached out to Beth and have resolved. And I was unaware of the invoice issue. Can you please send to me, and I will research further.

Funny though that the emails sure had no issue tonight in getting responded to and that magically I was able to be paid in minutes. Battle won for me but others beware!

@christopherahrendt1 wrote:

UPDATE TO ALL: I received a response from MSPA and they denied that Cirrus was in any way a registered member of the MSPA: Here is the response that I got:
Hello Christopher,

Thanks for reaching out and I’m sorry you are having a problem.

This company is not a member of MSPA Americas. Thank you for reporting them and we will have our legal team reach out to them to cease and desist.

Please understand that we are not a regulatory body or legal institution. If you are having a dispute, you will need to work that out directly with the company involved or use other legal services in your community.

I do truly hope your situation resolves itself to your satisfaction.

All the best,

Beth

I forwarded this message to Monnie telling her that she was a fraud. I was paid within the hour!
Mind you- as I stated prior I have emailed her prior more than once in regards to payment: her response was quick tonight:

Hi Christopher –

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, I’ve reached out to Beth and have resolved. And I was unaware of the invoice issue. Can you please send to me, and I will research further.

Funny though that the emails sure had no issue tonight in getting responded to and that magically I was able to be paid in minutes. Battle won for me but others beware!

Glad it all worked out for you, Christopher. Sadly, it won't be long before the next person with "new participant/new member" tags makes a post saying they've been snookered by Cirrus.

I am not done with my battle here. I have some other things that are filed and were filed prior to them paying me that I hope will aid in the problem, What they are doing is not ok, There are sooooo many stories that I have been finding of them doing this. It's such an infuriating experience and I for one am tired being taken advantage, scammed and ripped off by someone at every turn. I don't want someone else to have this be their first experience like me. Luckily I found other companies that I really like working for but others may just give it up. It's not ok.

If they are repeatedly ripping people off, maybe it's time to involve law enforcement. There's a website for reporting online fraud; also some state attorneys general might be really interested in investigating them.

I already tried reporting them to the California Attorney General, However when I did I still had not been paid and that was the basis of my report. I am working on more filings, however, this will be a little tough for me to argue my case since Monnie Howard promptly paid me from her PayPal account when she got the email from me showing that I was contacting companies that she used to make her company seem more reputable. Which BTW- the website no longer proudly displays the "Elite Status" that they supposedly held with the MSPA. That has been removed since my contact with them. Even though the email I received back from Monnie said that she had spoken with them and cleared it up... Another lie. They are a fraud for sure.

I am glad you got your money. I read many posts over the years about them not paying on this forum, and I have never signed up nor worked for them.

They were the very first company that I did shops for. I know now how to check companies out better. I just can't believe with all of the people that have had this experience that we are not able to get the shut down. We sure enough would be unable to find work if we acted like they do.

Wow! I have been having payment issues, too. I figured if I checked out this forum that I would find something about this "company". I called the phone number listed on ISS and spoke to the owner. I explained my issue and mentioned that I had sent numerous emails to the schedulers and 2 departments. She told me that someone should be getting back to me soon. That was 2 weeks ago... ????

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2024 04:53PM by Miss_Terri.

UPDATE...EUREKA!!! I JUST CALLED MONNIE ON HER CELL. I GOT THE VOICEMAIL AND LEFT A PLEASANT MESSAGE. NINETY MINUTES LATER...I GOT A PAYMENT I MY PAYPAL ACCOUNT!!! Persistence pays off!

I am glad that you got your payment. I will be honest- every time I see a post of theirs on a site I send that site an email informing them they are allowing the shoppers to be scammed by this company. I hope that Monnie is starting to feel the heat. It's not cool that they make you contact them repeatedly and they have been doing this for years. The email I sent to Monnie when I was fighting for payment I told her that I would hate to know that I had the reputation that she and her company have citing the post that said we have 2 rules and 1 of which was not to work for her company. Anyway- Glad you got paid too!

This has been going on for over 15 years that I know of. I worked 1 shop for them and it took 6 months of contacting them to get paid. I have never worked for them since.

Thanks to all the input on this site when I first started shopping, I never worked for them. Thanks all!

Run Forest run!