Mystery shopping thread xiii ** please don't mention client names on here **

Puzzcat

angel, personally I like Tern, GFK, GR and ISS the best.. but they all offer different assignments and I think each person should be allowed the freedom to be able to comment on this thread without feeling they are doing wrong. Just my opinion...

PurpleMunchkin

angel13 wrote: »

As with people who do not like jobs without fees well I got a night away last year in a lovely hotel via RE and I did not get paid but I had a great time especially as food and staff were all fantastic. So it was worth the loss on paper due to petrol and other costs to get a nice treat.

Completly agree - 2 years in a row i got to take my hubby away for an overnight stay. I didnt mind at all about the lack of fee when you have a really good reimbursement which basically covers anything you could want and a nice treat - that makes it worth it

millerose

Can anyone offer me some advice please?

A query has flagged up on an assignment I have done for RE. However, when I go to answer in 'your reply' and click submit I am getting an error message which says 'please check your reply'. Am I doing something wrong? or is the website being funny?

I have emailed RE about it, but as its the weekend not sure if they will reply.

Thanks x

cte1111

millerose wrote: »

Can anyone offer me some advice please?

A query has flagged up on an assignment I have done for RE. However, when I go to answer in 'your reply' and click submit I am getting an error message which says 'please check your reply'. Am I doing something wrong? or is the website being funny?

I have emailed RE about it, but as its the weekend not sure if they will reply.

Thanks x

I wouldn't worry about it too much. They will call or email you if it is genuine query rather than a glitch on their side.

aless02

another RE question...how do you accept out of date assignments when all the days are greyed out? I tried e-mailling them but no response yet.

Miss_Qwerty

aless02 wrote: »

another RE question...how do you accept out of date assignments when all the days are greyed out? I tried e-mailling them but no response yet.

You'll need one of the office staff to change it so you'll have to wait til they're back in and give them a call. They won't be there now.

mrstommo

jacand wrote: »

Had 4 calls from GFK today, all for the same job. They are desperate. So glad I turned it down and bartered each time. Got a nice fee out of it.

How do you see a list of jobs available for Gfk - I get an email to say job available in my area and I log on to site and decline or accept it. I would like to see a list of jobs available. Fairly similar process for GR too.

proshopper

I am a relative newbie to this forum, but certainly not a newbie to MSing. With all the backbiting and whatever, I just thought I'd add my two penn'orth:

Why are there these divides between new/established MSers or hobby/earn-a-living MSers?? There doesn't need to be!

I have been MSing for donkey's years. I started when I had little children at home and did it to supplement my part-time income when I became a single parent. Those of us who are now highly experienced MSers started somewhere!

PurpleMunchkin wrote: »

Millerose i feel for you - i too would have taken offence to what was being said. I too am in the same position as you. Stay at home to my little girl making some extra money so i can take her out and about. I enjoy the work and i see all the fees & reimbursements as a small bit in a larger picture. Im happy to do the small jobs because added together they bring in a decent amount of money. Does this mean i dont take my job seriously - does this mean i stand outside the stores and make up the jobs.

Well summed up, I think, PMunch. That was me (albeit a good few years ago).

I am perfectly aware that there is a group of people who think that MSing is money for old rope. They are the ones that give us all a bad name, and are ultimately responsible for the lowering of fees. They are the ones who mis-shop and drop jobs, causing the MS companies increased overheads (and therefore ultimately cause the lowering of fees). These are the MSers that we should be railing.

What I will add, here, is that I cannot imagine MSers in that category actually bothering to follow threads such as this. I also cannot imagine them caring enough about the quality of their work to ask for help from others. So, can't we just stop tearing into each other on this thread?

All of us have (and still do, in my case), picked up rubbish jobs just to gain experience. I think that indicates a realistic approach to the work. That said, my definition of a rubbish job may not be the same as another MSer's definition. As I have said elsewhere in this thread, I have an objection to reimbursement-only assignments that do not reward me in any other way: fortunately for the industry as a whole, we do not all have the same needs. What I look at as a worthwhile perk may well be sneered at by others (and vice versa). Vive la diff!rence!

Now, back to the old chestnut of RE...... well done MGirl for volunteering the following service:

mysterious_girl wrote: »

I've just gone on their dreaded website and accepted a job from them for the first time in 12 months. This is a reimbursement only job for a store that I have never entered in my life. "Why?" you are all wondering...
Well....I am going to time exactly how long this load of rubbish takes me, starting with perusing the briefing notes and accepting the assignment and setting the date (3.45 minutes).
I'll let you know how I get on. It's Monday. Stay tuned!

Seriously, it will be interesting to see just how much time is involved, even though I acknowledge that the findings will not be of relevance to every forum reader. I will say once more, vive la diff!rence!

deedee71

Well as everyone else has an opinion, here is mine........the bullying on here is shocking. Cliques, personal comments, back patting and fawning.

The very first time I posted on the MS thread I was told I was too stupid to be a mystery shopper.

I'm sick of reading strings of posts baitching at each other.

The nature of the job means you can't really discuss it with "real" people and this is supposed to be for cameraderie, venting to folk who understand when things go wrong, swapping tips about briefs and ms companies.

I'm beginning to suspect the nastiness is on purpose. The more people who can be put of msing the better as there are too few jobs to go around.

Can we all agree to be civil, keep posts about the work instead of thread protocol and make this a nicer thread to visit please.

(And if anyone is thinking about directing personal comments at me, they won't beat what I was called today by my manager.......an educated housewife!)

cte1111

mrstommo wrote: »

How do you see a list of jobs available for Gfk - I get an email to say job available in my area and I log on to site and decline or accept it. I would like to see a list of jobs available. Fairly similar process for GR too.

If you set a shortcut in your favourites to the log on site, then you can check for available jobs before they send you the email. I used to wait too until I got the email, but when I started checking at random times often found other jobs that had popped up.

They don't have a big list of jobs to pick from, they just offer them to registered shoppers according to their distance from the site. They keep increasing the distance until someone picks up the jobs. So if you picked up your local bank branch at 7pm, it's worth checking again at 8pm for others a bit further away.