Comments on: Your Mystery Shopping Experience

By: Roosevelt Gilmore

Roosevelt Gilmore — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 05:25:53 +0000

Your blog is so informative … continue the great work!!!!

By: Marcia

Marcia — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 06:55:05 +0000

Hi Jacob,
I have been mystery shopping since 2005. I started with Shadow Shoppers and felt the $60 or whatever it was, was worth the start up.From there I signed up with a lot of companies. I think I’m signed up with close to 100. There are certain ones I hear from all the time. There are a few I check on occasionally. Making money is a joke. I do this because I get an occasional free meal at a restaurant I might not eat at. I’ve done various banking, bedding, brakes, shoes, and a whole lot more. Someone mentioned not getting paid for a shop because of the wrong drink ordered. Well, I did a shop for a Mexican restaurant, should have been a total of about $45.00. Well, the bartender (part of this shop) did not give me a receipt and I didn’t ask for one. Nothing was said in the instructions or form about a bar receipt. Needless to say, I did not get paid. I had a friend with me and it was close to her birthday so I chalked it up to a great birthday present for her. I did not tell her I did not get paid.
I do this because it gets me out of the house (I’m a senior citizen) and I feel I am doing a service by improving food taste, and customer service in many different areas. I am more choosy now since I have done a lot of the jobs offered to me at least once. I keep within 30 miles roundtrip which is 2 gallons of gas on my pick-up. Some of the shops do not pay any fee and the form takes a long time to do a good job. If the restaurant is worth it, I do it anyway.
I have a question for you- How do I contact car companies in my area that give/lend free cars for advertising OR pay me to put a sign on my car?
Thanks in advance for the info.
Marcia

By: Ken

Ken — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 18:45:36 +0000

Jacob,
I’m a “noob” too. I just discovered this forum, and I think it’s great. I only sampled the comments above, but what I’ve read is a big help, both pro and con. I’m retired, and I only work a couple of days per week. I’m not looking to earn a living, just occupy my time – at a net gain.
I started in January 2007, and signed up with the company that offers the free Bronze membership. One of their scheduling companies contacted me directly (that’s perfectly proper) because they needed shoppers immediately for tax-preparation offices. I did ten locations for them at about 1/2 hour apiece , got 9s & 10s for my reports, and just received my first $200 check. Now the scheduling company sends me jobs all the time, averaging about $15-$20 per 1/2 hour of work. The scheduling company uses the “sassieshop.com” system, so I just searched the web, which shows a number of sites. Most of them are different scheduling companies that you can sign up with free of charge. Then you sent a sassieshop.com
list, which I’ve been using. These sites are good because the system provides details of the shop up front. Those that don’t, I don’t sign up for.
For February, I have another $160 earned for 5 different shops.
For March I have 7 shops scheduled, averaging about $15 for 1/2 – 3/4 hour of work.
SHOPPERS: BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL ABOUT SIGNING UP FOR SURVEY-AT-HOME COMPANIES. I’m still receiving a ton of “spam” as the result of naively signing up with some of these vultures, and that’s about all I’m receiving. I only spent a few dollars for “shipping & handling” (what does that mean anyway?) on “offers” connected with these surveys, but those are legitimate deductible business costs.
To date, I haven’t paid one red cent for signing up with anyone. I’m getting small jobs, which is fine, but I’m building a repuation with scheduling companies.
I have a question: Is there a rating forum where mystery shoppers can rate the mystery shopping companies and their schedulers – for the benefit of other mystery shoppers? A forum like this one would seem to be the best way.
Anyway, I hope this helps someone out there.

By: Scared & Confused Vicki

Scared & Confused Vicki — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 01:06:27 +0000

Wow – reading this board as a “newbie” is scaring me! I just joined Shadowshoppers and rec’d 10-15 job postings the past few days. I have accepted 5 and they are effective tomorrow. Needless to say – in hindsight – I have searched information on Shadowshoppers and too much is negative but there is positive. What should I do? Their application process has you include a photo and SS#. Yes, I was going to do the free Bronz membership but chose to do the 39.99 Gold. All sites I saw for Mystery shopping called for payment – even when I googled. Where are the free sites for this type of job? Thanks in advance for your help, understanding and advice.