Mystery Shopping Thread 22 *PLEASE READ THE OP FIRST**PLEASE NO CLIENT NAMES OR FEES*

brooke3

Boredupnorth wrote: »

I am not sure if it’s a bad choice for you or not as I obviously don’t know your circumstance. However there are some of us on here that do this as a living and manage quite nicely thank you very much.
It takes time to get to a point where you can support yourself from it. Given you are around the London area there are a lot of shops available, there are also a lot of shoppers too though. You will probably find it not profitable to start with and will need to claim some sort of benefit to keep you going. As a short term fix when it’s not something you have done before I doubt it will work.

What counts as quite nicely? I did it in London full time before I started my current job for a month, I'm already established with all of the company's that I work for as I was doing it for years on a part time basis before that. By the end of the month I had earned slightly less than a thousand pounds, I only took four days off in the entire month.
I guess another thing to consider is how much you can live on. I didn't have any rent to pay at the time so it wasn't that bad but if you are paying rent it doesn't leave much to live on. On the other hand if you can get restaurant and attractions then your social life is sorted too! Keeping in mind that for many jobs you have to pay out before you will get anything back so you need to have some money to start with.

Boredupnorth

brooke3 wrote: »

What counts as quite nicely? I did it in London full time before I started my current job for a month, I'm already established with all of the company's that I work for as I was doing it for years on a part time basis before that. By the end of the month I had earned slightly less than a thousand pounds, I only took four days off in the entire month.
I guess another thing to consider is how much you can live on. I didn't have any rent to pay at the time so it wasn't that bad but if you are paying rent it doesn't leave much to live on. On the other hand if you can get restaurant and attractions then your social life is sorted too! Keeping in mind that for many jobs you have to pay out before you will get anything back so you need to have some money to start with.

I am interested in how may obs you did that month?

brooke3

Boredupnorth wrote: »

I am interested in how may obs you did that month?

What's an obs?

yonk

jobs? maybe

rachchel

gastronomix wrote: »

Anyone who has been doing mobile enquiries had a request for a head and shoulders photo, today or in the past? I received one today and can't say I'm particularly happy about supplying this in case it somehow compromises any future enquiries.

Is it for GFk ? If so they described me perfectly even down to my handbag for a burger job and it hasnt stopped them giving me another one in the exact same burger branch 2 weeks later. I wasnt asked for a photo though .

brooke3

yonk wrote: »

jobs? maybe

Oh I see. In my profession an obs stands for observation and I was thinking maybe it was the same.

I can't tell you off hand how many jobs I did exactly. Some days I would do up to ten but in general it was lower than that. Other days I would just do one big one (like a tourist attraction which didn't necessarily pay well but took up most of the day) and then phone calls and emails in the evening. I guess I could have got more work if I had really tried but I don't work for all of the mystery shopping company's that are listed at the beginning of this thread and I wanted some time to get to know my local area (which incidently I only ever managed to get three jobs in the area!)

gastronomix

rachchel wrote: »

Is it for GFk ? If so they described me perfectly even down to my handbag for a burger job and it hasnt stopped them giving me another one in the exact same burger branch 2 weeks later. I wasnt asked for a photo though .

No this was a TNS job.

misssarahleigh

brooke3 wrote: »

Oh I see. In my profession an obs stands for observation and I was thinking maybe it was the same.

I can't tell you off hand how many jobs I did exactly. Some days I would do up to ten but in general it was lower than that. Other days I would just do one big one (like a tourist attraction which didn't necessarily pay well but took up most of the day) and then phone calls and emails in the evening. I guess I could have got more work if I had really tried but I don't work for all of the mystery shopping company's that are listed at the beginning of this thread and I wanted some time to get to know my local area (which incidently I only ever managed to get three jobs in the area!)

Thats where your problem was. There are many more than those listed in the OP (hundreds) and I only do this part time but make a fair amount from companies not even mentioned on here.

I know plently of MSers that do this full time, and although it's hard work they bring back a decent pay packet. If you were off doing all day tourist attractions as well then I would say that was your second issue. There are 'benifit' jobs, not profitable ones.

sparklysaver

Did a super-duper urgent gapbuster job tonight for a lovely premium and won £20 with the promotional code on my drink, so that's a nice wee bonus. :beer:

Also, I spent the morning on one of the free HMRC workshops for the newly self employed that someone on here mentioned - can't remember who it was but thank you! Was a bit dull but really helpful and the people taking it were happy to chat and answer all sorts of questions. I'd recommend it if you're not sure about tax and NI; it was only a few hours but I'm a lot happier that I'm doing things properly now.

brooke3

misssarahleigh wrote: »

Thats where your problem was. There are many more than those listed in the OP (hundreds) and I only do this part time but make a fair amount from companies not even mentioned on here.

I know plently of MSers that do this full time, and although it's hard work they bring back a decent pay packet. If you were off doing all day tourist attractions as well then I would say that was your second issue. There are 'benifit' jobs, not profitable ones.

But how much is a decent wage? Do people really make £30,000+ doing mystery shopping? And if they do are they really getting paid much more than minimum wage when you think of all of the hours you have to put in.

I wouldn't say it was a problem...The month that I spent mystery shopping full time wasn't intended to make a living wage, I was just shocked that at the end of it after working sometimes 10 hours a day (not including the hotels, restaurants and the museums etc.) and only taking four days off in total I was left with less than £1,000 profit. I'm not complaining, I had a really fun month and got to do a lot of things that I wouldn't have thought of doing. And having £1,000 in addition to my salary was of course lovely. All I'm saying is that if I was the person who asked if they should mystery shop instead of claiming job seekers I would be wary.

(And by the way I do work for company's that aren't listed here, I meant that I don't work for every company listed on this forum and if I did I'm sure I would make more money.)