MYSTERY SHOPPING THREAD 18 - please don't mention client names or fees on here!!

look_after_the_pennies

Phew, tax return done! Fingers crossed I've done it right as it was my first ever one. Just had a few pence to pay!!

Beckfordbaby

lisa76 wrote: »

I never get anything with GR and I've been on there for years!!! I have even logged in as soon as I get an email but the shop has always gone - guess there's someone quicker than me in this area!

I queried this with GR. It gives you the time the job was accepted by someone else and this on occasions was before the offer email reached me! Nothing happened to improve it.

Monkeynut

pinklady07 wrote: »

Me too! I can't work out what is supposed to be done next. I think you are somehow supposed to attach the recording but I dont know how.

Got to be a good thing then if it seems to be like it for both of us. More likely a problem their end than ours.
Has anyone managed to submit one successfully today??

I'm sure our lovely friend Max will be right on it and get it sorted asap!

Must say as well how completely different the company involved is this time round - sooooo much more helpful rather than before where it was almost like if you don't want to come and visit the location you won't be given the time of day!

mimi1234

look_after_the_pennies wrote: »

Phew, tax return done! Fingers crossed I've done it right as it was my first ever one. Just had a few pence to pay!!

Same here, very few pence to pay as I did not really do much MS back then. Silly me totted up all the fingers for the next tax year first. Oh well. I have most of next years return figures already worked out. Woohoo.

teendude

Becles wrote: »

I wondered that as every time I check the site my daughter shouts "ooooh there's Mam on the com-poooo-ta" :rotfl:

All the self employed queries, ring this number from the first post on the thread: 08459 15 45 15

That's the self employed helpline and they'll get registered and sort out any mistakes. They're really nice and helpful.

You do need to register even though you are a student. If you have a full time job, you also need to register. When you do your tax return, you fill in your self employed figures in one section, then there is an employed section where you can copy the details from your P60.

Thanks,
phoned them up (they didn't shut till 8) and he basically told me I will get invoiced a years worth of NI contributions. Which I should send back with a covering letter explaining my mistake.

One more question - if I am self employed as of Tuesday next week, do I have to do a tax return before April? or will it be April 2012?

mysteryshoppingninja

teendude wrote: »

Thanks,
phoned them up (they didn't shut till 8) and he basically told me I will get invoiced a years worth of NI contributions. Which I should send back with a covering letter explaining my mistake.

One more question - if I am self employed as of Tuesday next week, do I have to do a tax return before April? or will it be April 2012?

Period from Tuesday next week til 5th April 2011 (or 31st March 2011 if you find whole months easier) will be due by 31st January 2012. Then full year April 2011 to April 2012 is due January 2013 and so on...

hfc53

Dear All,
I have been a mystery shopper for many years and I have just been let down really badly!
I took on a job for RE at a particular Dry cleaners.
I took along my beautiful winter coat and left it there. I was quite happy until I received the coat back. It was ruined. I mean absolutely ruined. What was once a comfy, cosy, long black cashmere coat with glorious red lining was now a wrinkled, shrunken mess. Bits had faded, shoulder pads were screwed up, buttons all over the place.
I contacted RE. Eventually they got back to me.
The Dry cleaners denied any wrongdoing, although when I took it to a different dry cleaners they took one look at it and said 'it's been washed not dry cleaned!'
Surely this should have been sufficient. but no.
The dry cleaners said that as I could not prove that it had happened as a result of their work, they would not accept liability.
The Mystery shopping company.... TWO MONTHS later eventually agreed to give me 50% of the cost of the coat back. This was a 'goodwill gesture as I didn't have the receipt!'
To be perfectly blunt, I wouldn't work for RE again, ever! They are very very rude, unhelpful and the operations director of RE actually told the woman in the dry cleaners that I was a mystery shopper!!!!!!!!! That really was the final straw for me.
So simply be very wary. If anything goes wrong you are on your own! They will drop you in it straight away!
You may enquire why I did not get in touch with the CEO? I did I sent him email after email after email. All to no avail. Either he doesn't exist or he is just a coward.
Please excuse my upset, but the coat cost me £299, after paying for a clean at £16.20, I received £5 for the report and £10.00 towards the clean, then £150 towards the cost of a new coat. Not including the six trips to the cleaners on the advice of RE and the two months of daily phone calls to RE and the cleaners. overall I'm massively out of pocket and massively out of patience with them.
If you work for them, good luck, I hope your experience is better than mine.
Hugs
hx

pinklady07

hfc53 wrote: »

Dear All,
I have been a mystery shopper for many years and I have just been let down really badly!
I took on a job for RE at a particular Dry cleaners.
I took along my beautiful winter coat and left it there. I was quite happy until I received the coat back. It was ruined. I mean absolutely ruined. What was once a comfy, cosy, long black cashmere coat with glorious red lining was now a wrinkled, shrunken mess. Bits had faded, shoulder pads were screwed up, buttons all over the place.
I contacted RE. Eventually they got back to me.
The Dry cleaners denied any wrongdoing, although when I took it to a different dry cleaners they took one look at it and said 'it's been washed not dry cleaned!'
Surely this should have been sufficient. but no.
The dry cleaners said that as I could not prove that it had happened as a result of their work, they would not accept liability.
The Mystery shopping company.... TWO MONTHS later eventually agreed to give me 50% of the cost of the coat back. This was a 'goodwill gesture as I didn't have the receipt!'
To be perfectly blunt, I wouldn't work for RE again, ever! They are very very rude, unhelpful and the operations director of RE actually told the woman in the dry cleaners that I was a mystery shopper!!!!!!!!! That really was the final straw for me.
So simply be very wary. If anything goes wrong you are on your own! They will drop you in it straight away!
You may enquire why I did not get in touch with the CEO? I did I sent him email after email after email. All to no avail. Either he doesn't exist or he is just a coward.
Please excuse my upset, but the coat cost me £299, after paying for a clean at £16.20, I received £5 for the report and £10.00 towards the clean, then £150 towards the cost of a new coat. Not including the six trips to the cleaners on the advice of RE and the two months of daily phone calls to RE and the cleaners. overall I'm massively out of pocket and massively out of patience with them.
If you work for them, good luck, I hope your experience is better than mine.
Hugs
hx

Thats dreadful. How awful for you. How the shop can deny its their fault when they handed it back to you is unbelievable. Surely its this kind of terrible service that the MS program is designed to find out. Have you considered using the form letters from the Which magazine to take the case further with the dry cleaners? My daughter did when a company ruined the wedding dress that she put in. Ended up getting a substantial sum back from them withthe help of Which.

Lil_Me_2

To be honest with you I'd have ignored RE and dealt with the dry cleaners directly as a "real" customer. Even if it meant I lost the fee and never worked with RE again. You may have got further with them.

Tarasam

I also had this (not Msing though) with a wedding dress. 4 weeks before my wedding I needed to have it cleaned, all my alterations were done, I'd bought a shop sample dress and it was a little grubby around the hem where it had been tried on, the dry cleaners didnt treat it as they should and 80% of the beads came off. I was mortified, it was too close to the big day to get a new dress, so my mum bought some beads as close to the design as she could and repaired it as best she could. The cleaners in question wouldnt give me any compensation at all.
I now do not trust ANY dry cleaners.