Mystery Shopping Thread 21 *PLEASE READ THE OP FIRST**PLEASE NO CLIENT NAMES OR FEES*

borders

polythenegirl wrote: »

I assume with the GFK internet calls you need to actually be living in the postcode that on the assessment?

The post codes appear to be for telephone exchanges. I doubt if they're being that specific though, as some of the exchanges in my region only have a couple of hundred lines and they would be very lucky to have a shopper within that small an area.

pepsi9983

Does anyone know of any companies where mystery shoppers can carry out assignments on online shops? I remember reading about a company before on MSE but can't seem to find it in any posts.

Thanks in advance.

mysterious_girl

pepsi9983 wrote: »

Does anyone know of any companies where mystery shoppers can carry out assignments on online shops? I remember reading about a company before on MSE but can't seem to find it in any posts.

Thanks in advance.

Edigital research

pepsi9983

Thanks very much!

pheonixrising21

DevilsAdvocate1 wrote: »

Yes you do, unless you can argue that there was another reason for you to do the job. This can be difficult to do. If you did the job in order to get the benefit then it is taxable.

I have a similar query. when counting mileage as an expense, do you always count it from your home location. For example, I work 20 miles from home and often do mystery shops within a mile or two of work. Do I count mileage as, say, 4 miles (for a return trip from work) or say, 44 miles (a return trip from home), if the assignment is two miles further away from home as work is?

And what about assignments I do on my way home? For example, an assignment 5 miles from work and 15 miles from home, which takes me a 1 mile detour on my way home from work? Are my expenses 1 mile (the detour from my usual route home from work), 5 miles (the distance from work), 15 miles (the distance from home), 21 miles (the distance from work to home via assignment) or 30 miles (the round trip from home as though I did a one off trip just for the assignment)?

Any help would be much appreciated...

misssarahleigh

I count the miles from work. i do this all the time.

Town from work is a 2.8 mile round trip. From home 11.2 mile trip.

If Mr tax man comes, and notice's that you have lied (as thats what your doing) he'll be after you.

And He knows you work full time and can easily ask to check the time you completed the job (e.g. if you have also put a parking expense down and your ticket says 12.30, you have clearly done it in your lunch hour).

He will declare you have lied about your travel expenses to avoid paying additional tax by purposly lowering your profit margins.

As for on the way home. Again be truthfull. Count the miles you have done in additional to your normal route home. The small amount you save isn't worth lying and being found out for as he will then go through everything with a fine tooth comb.

Monkeynut

Just tell the truth!
So if you go out of your way by 1 mile on your way home, then it is that 1 mile that you can count, not the whole journey as you would have been making that journey anyway for your commute to or from work.

Also be honest if you are doing more than 1 job in the same place at the same time. For example it's a 6 mile round trip from my house to the car park I generally use in my town, but if I go into town to do 3 jobs, I split that 6 miles between them, so account for 2 miles each. You wouldn't be able to put 6 miles for each job, thus deducting 3 times as much for travel expenses.
It's really not worth ever trying to risk, as MissSarah said.

marvellousaunt

There's a week in my accounts where I'm in the negative for some of my jobs. I planned them all around work and then was off sick with my main job, but didn't want to cancel a large number of MS jobs I'd got lined up. So my mileage is all out of whack for that week.

I've always recorded my actual mileage but it did make me wonder how they would know whether you were at work or not. You say 'obviously in your lunch hour' but how do they know you weren't on leave and doing MS or .. etc etc. Just got me wondering really.


Edit - Also, are people aware the maximum you can claim is £3 per week for the heating/electricity costs from working at home? Found that on the HMRC website. I'd say the wear and tear done to my sofa/laptop/electricity bill from all the survey printing and filling out amounts to far more than that, but oh well.

mysterious_girl

misssarahleigh wrote: »

No. But once you accept the assignment and see the coversheet your postcode must match the region e.g. Yorkshire.

I did one for 'The North' As my partners postcode is North Yorkshire. Asked them about this and they said that the report was wrong as the postcode I used wasn't 'The North' but 'Yorkshire'.

I explained that it should be more clear as this information is only avaliable once the assignment has been accepted and asked them to change the report to the correct region as it's perfectally valid.

Didn't hear back after that.

I had to cancel 3 of mine because the coversheet said "Midlands" and I'm in the North West.

pheonixrising21

Thanks for the help guys! I have been recording two sets of milage for the jobs I have done, one as a round trip from home, and one as the mileage I did when I set off to do the job. Most of them are either Home-assignment-home or work-assignment-work. A couple of them were work-assignment-home, so will have to find those and work out the additional mileage to doing work-home directly. That should make it all accurate for mr tax man!