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

N.I.M

Can anyone give me an idea of how long its going to take me to fill out the report for the Broadband calls? I'm looking at the call costing me about 20 to 25% of the total fee so I'd rather not spend another half hour doing a report after the half hour call.

Trevor64_2

littlemiss1612 wrote: »

hi, i was wondering if anyone could help me? i did my first mystery shop today and after looking on this thread quickly registered as self employed now the thing i need help with is that i get some housing benefit and tax credits so i have to tell them and they are going to want to know how much i will earn, i know it wont be much but i need an actually estimate figure to give them and dont know what to say.

you can get a form from the housing benefit office for declaring your MS earnings retrospectively each week or month and your housing benefit will then be adjusted later. As you say, it won't add up to a hill of beans difference unless you do alot of MS work.
Housing benefit is non taxable income to the best of my knowledge so it won't affect your final tax bill either.
Again, to the best of my knowledge, you don't need to declare this as income for HMRC. You do however need to declare any benefits received from DWP such as income support, tax credits, JSA etc.
Just as an aside, regarding JSA: If you receive contribution based JSA you can declare up to 16 hour work per week and not be deducted any benefit due to your earnings up to £160. If you receive JSA income based however, any earnings will be deducted from benefits after the 1st five quid. (This applies to all income based DWP benefits).
As far as tax credits go, they shouldn't be affected by MS earnings unless you are earning serious money from it, and lets face it, none of us are.
It's worth double checking all this on HMRC website and with your local council but I think most of the above is right.

misssarahleigh

N.I.M wrote: »

Can anyone give me an idea of how long its going to take me to fill out the report for the Broadband calls? I'm looking at the call costing me about 20 to 25% of the total fee so I'd rather not spend another half hour doing a report after the half hour call.

Might be a bit late now but 10 mins max

mysterious_girl

misssarahleigh wrote: »

Might be a bit late now but 10 mins max

They're mostly free 0800 numbers too.

kst101

mysterious_girl wrote: »

They're mostly free 0800 numbers too.

Suppose the poster might not have a landline and so need to pay mobile rates for 0800 numbers.

mysterious_girl

kst101 wrote: »

Suppose the poster might not have a landline and so need to pay mobile rates for 0800 numbers.

For most of the ones I did they had to be recorded calls from your home phone.

kst101

mysterious_girl wrote: »

For most of the ones I did they had to be recorded calls from your home phone.

I did all mine from my home phone as well - was just trying to think why the other poster might have had to pay for them.

GFK phoned me up yesterday desperate for me to do some more - they've increased the amount you can do to 15 now.

misssarahleigh

kst101 wrote: »

GFK phoned me up yesterday desperate for me to do some more - they've increased the amount you can do to 15 now.

Where does it say that?

N.I.M

kst101 wrote: »

Suppose the poster might not have a landline and so need to pay mobile rates for 0800 numbers.

The 2 I was looking at were 0844 numbers, but nether were recorded.

Cheers for letting me know.

eezyrider7

kst101 wrote: »

I did all mine from my home phone as well - was just trying to think why the other poster might have had to pay for them.

GFK phoned me up yesterday desperate for me to do some more - they've increased the amount you can do to 15 now.

It still shows 10 when I check. It also says you can only do 1 per Broadband Provider but I can see only 1 BB provider. Is there really 15 different ones?

EZ