MYSTERY SHOPPING THREAD XI ** New people make sure you read the first 2 Posts **

squeaky1055

teabythesea wrote: »

Signing up to retail eyes, who wants the referral? x

Have pm`d you.

borders

Well that's my first month mystery shopping. Had more jobs so far than I thought I would get. Some money in the bank this morning, always nice to get paid for what you've done.

See a couple of previous posters mentioning ESA. They have already phoned me twice trying to get me to do late jobs. The one today was for an 84 mile round trip. Have agreed to do it after they upped the fee and gave me £20 petrol money. Don't know if that's good or not. Seemed ok to me, especially as I can fit in another job on the way back.

What kind of distances do other folk do?

teabythesea

Thanks for this thread guys. I've just signed up to a few of these and have been offered jobs. My dad has took care of the tax stuff. This is fantastic as i'm a student and really need the extra money after leaving my job so a man with a family to support could have it! I presume this is karma :T

cte1111

borders wrote: »

Well that's my first month mystery shopping. Had more jobs so far than I thought I would get. Some money in the bank this morning, always nice to get paid for what you've done.

See a couple of previous posters mentioning ESA. They have already phoned me twice trying to get me to do late jobs. The one today was for an 84 mile round trip. Have agreed to do it after they upped the fee and gave me £20 petrol money. Don't know if that's good or not. Seemed ok to me, especially as I can fit in another job on the way back.

What kind of distances do other folk do?

£20 petrol money sounds fair enough to me. I don't usually go that many miles away but it depends on how long it would take really. If my OH is at home then sometimes we go for a day out mystery shopping, so maybe to Wales or somewhere with a few shops en route. It pays for the petrol and makes for a nice drive. Gosh I bet we sound ancient, we're only in our thirties!

If you can help companies out, then it makes them more likely to assign work to you in the future usually. This has worked for me with Bare, the first jobs I did for them was a short notice car circuit a fair distance away, but since then I've done 50+ jobs including flights so it was a worthwhile investment of my time on that occasion. They asked me rather tentatively to do a single car shop recently that they knew was a distance away from me, but I was happy to do it as I was doing some stamp shops half way there so try my best to be helpful when they ask.

With ESA I'd say keep applying, once you've done one shop well for them they are more likely to offer lots of work. I've done about 50 shops for them in the last few months, which has been a major boost for my workload. They like lots of comments I've found. If possible, I would say apply for jobs a bit further afield, again just to get your first few jobs in with them.

I live in Manchester, so there are lots of towns / suburbs with a reasonably short drive. I've picked an area a bit further out that I apply for jobs in, and find that I get more jobs in this area than in Manchester itself. I guess this is because there are more people applying for the jobs in Manchester and not so many applying for jobs in more distant suburbs. So even though it takes me a bit longer to get there and I sometimes have to pay for parking, I can nearly always schedule lots of different clients on the same day and it makes the whole thing more worthwhile.

Sorry for the essay.

ukmonkey

@borders - I'd go anywhere for the right job. UK-wise, furthest afield I've done one was probably about a 200-mile round trip.

yonk

leanne2682 wrote: »

can anyone help! just wondering how long esa take to assign jobs once you have applied!

I've applied for a few and never get any allocated. Meanwhile, they spam me with emails. Getting to the point, I may take myself off their list.

Tesco_points_addict

Quick question! Are Aba worth signing up too? I know its not as straight forward as signing up to other MS companies and they seem to work in a different way.

TPAx

Tesco_points_addict

skipsmum wrote: »

hi, Ive been offered my first mystery shop with retail eyes. I know I need to inform the tax office, but can I try this one job first to see if I can do it before signing up for tax etc? I get carers allowance so don't want to rock the boat for no reason and the job is only £3!

Anything you earn no matter how little has to be declared. However you get three months from the first job to sign up. I think its 3 months,,,...i'm sure someone else will know the timings if I've got it wrong.

TPAx

Mystery_Shopping_Ninja

borders wrote: »

Well that's my first month mystery shopping. Had more jobs so far than I thought I would get. Some money in the bank this morning, always nice to get paid for what you've done.

See a couple of previous posters mentioning ESA. They have already phoned me twice trying to get me to do late jobs. The one today was for an 84 mile round trip. Have agreed to do it after they upped the fee and gave me £20 petrol money. Don't know if that's good or not. Seemed ok to me, especially as I can fit in another job on the way back.

What kind of distances do other folk do?

Most jobs I take pay a generous mileage allowance and so I am happy to travel wherever the work is - depending on the location, and how many jobs I have for other companies en route, the driving can be even more profitable than the mystery shopping assignment. Don't mind flying either if they make it worth my while, but I don't like to be away for long as I miss the wife and kids. £20 for an 84 mile round trip sounds very reasonable - here's hoping you get offered a lot more like that.

red_fox

pinkprincess39 wrote: »

Anyone had their money from Aba for the cheap designer stores yet?

I got one today but I am still waiting for another two.