Mystery Shopping Thread 23 *PLEASE READ THE OP FIRST**PLEASE NO CLIENT NAMES OR FEES

HeavensDevil

DPJames wrote: »

:T
Please tell me that's not a serious comment.

:rotfl:

Careful misssarahleigh, Big Graeme will start on you next!

mimi1234

mskitten2904 wrote: »

I don't know about everyone else but I tend to be fussy with fees, I try to stick with higher fees only and string a circuit from them

Same as me then. Personally, I won't do a visit if it's less than £10 and it's the only one I am doing. If I can get a circuit going, I'm not too bothered.

MysteryMe wrote: »

I have done some of the low paying station jobs for RA but ones where I can get lunch or tea out of it with the reimbursement and it's the station I travel through each day

I almost pee'd myself when I saw the train station shirt shop with RA. They gave a hefty reimbursement on that. I've done the said shop for RM for a long time and they have never done a reimbursed visit. I also looked through all the others and picked 2 more with biggish reimbursements. Otherwise, I would not even look at the newpaper shops, not even with a circuit going.

Must admit the RA fees are paltry, but if you have nothing better to do at lunchtime, you might as well bounce in a pharmacy or three.

Normally I hand the slapper booze to work colleagues or dispose of in the first bin I see. Lucky Mr Bin Man

N.I.M

Workie_Ticket wrote: »

The payment for visit in Newcastle is 30% less than that.

Same in boro town centre, and most of the town centre ones, Teesside park is £5 which I'm guessing is to cover petrol to get there.

HeavensDevil wrote: »

Although I must confess, whilst I wouldn't do it myself, I'm not entirely against DPJames' earlier post - RA should be embarrassed by their paltry fees, and newbies need to know that these are not normal or acceptable figures. And the client must already know what the shopper ultimately gets paid/reimbursed, musn't they?

Its disgusting, I have no problem naming and shaming them.

Beki88 wrote: »

I am a newbie and have no idea what is normal or acceptable. A lot of the jobs I have done have paid less than £5 (normally less than £4 thinking about it). But I thought if I get them done then it's a chance to get my foot in the door.

That is EXACTLY what they want you to think Beki, trust me, tell them where to go with fees that low. In-fact if you want I'd be more than happy to give you an idea of whats acceptable and what isnt as far as fees are concerned if you want to PM me with any questions.

MysteryMe wrote: »

I have done some of the low paying station jobs for RA but ones where I can get lunch or tea out of it with the reimbursement and it's the station I travel through each day.

With the electronics job, as already stated you can't buy anything for the reimbursement, it usually takes forever to try and get MOS to interact with and the report whilst mainly tick boxes is still going to take 30 mins to complete inc uploading the pics. So for me, they are not something I'm going to apply for.

Never seen one take less than an hour, I'm surprised these places do that level of trade with everything costing less than half their prices online.

kst101 wrote: »

I have done the electronics one when I was doing other shops in that area. And had confirmation from RA that you could have a reimbursement of up to 5 times the figure being said here. I actually did manage to find something for the original figure though - a thing you can scrape sticker residue off with :rotfl:

* falls over * you found something for less than a quid at Maplin?

mimi1234 wrote: »

Same as me then. Personally, I won't do a visit if it's less than £10 and it's the only one I am doing. If I can get a circuit going, I'm not too bothered.

Even with a circuit I'd want to be getting close to that.

mimi1234 wrote: »

I almost pee'd myself when I saw the train station shirt shop with RA. They gave a hefty reimbursement on that. I've done the said shop for RM for a long time and they have never done a reimbursed visit. I also looked through all the others and picked 2 more with biggish reimbursements. Otherwise, I would not even look at the newpaper shops, not even with a circuit going.

Must admit the RA fees are paltry, but if you have nothing better to do at lunchtime, you might as well bounce in a pharmacy or three.

Sarah, I will remember to keep it for you. Normally I hand to them work colleagues or dispose of in the first bin I see. Lucky Mr Bin Man

I just wish RM would give me work.

Anyone else had their RA account unsubscribed for no reason this evening?

Also I've amended that post to remove the client name

And to lighten the mood on the board, I got to hold my daughter for the first time in 2 weeks today :j:j:j:j:j

Anyone got a problem with my going off topic for that

misssarahleigh

DPJames wrote: »

:T
Please tell me that's not a serious comment.

What, you think your the only shopper with a sense of humor?

spender

NIM, what lovely news hope you had a lovely cuddle

supermonkey

Hi,

Assuming money spent is a job specific expense (eg hotel stay, restaurant bill), what if you carry out the assigment with someone with you? Eg that would raise the restaurant bill. Eg. Should the business expense only be for one meal & drink? Technically then the cheapest items on menu should be ordered?! What if the assignment requires more than one person to carry it out?

N.I.M

supermonkey wrote: »

Hi,

Assuming money spent is a job specific expense (eg hotel stay, restaurant bill), what if you carry out the assigment with someone with you? Eg that would raise the restaurant bill. Eg. Should the business expense only be for one meal & drink? Technically then the cheapest items on menu should be ordered?! What if the assignment requires more than one person to carry it out?

While this gets dangerously close to the "Do you declare benefits as profit" argument which I'm too tired to get into tonight, my thought would be if you had to take both people and both had to order a meal then you expense the full amount. If you have to take a second person but the brief specifies you only have to order one main and one drink for example, not that any company would be so MFing stupid as to state that as a brief, then anything beyond that cant be claimed as an expense.

someone

supermonkey wrote: »

Hi,

Assuming money spent is a job specific expense (eg hotel stay, restaurant bill), what if you carry out the assigment with someone with you? Eg that would raise the restaurant bill. Eg. Should the business expense only be for one meal & drink? Technically then the cheapest items on menu should be ordered?! What if the assignment requires more than one person to carry it out?

Rule of thumb would be, was what you are claiming (full or part) "reasonable" for the job/brief.

I would say for a restaurant if you would look out of place not having at least one person there then you can deduct for two meals.

If you must have a starter and main then it is reasonable to deduct for both. You could even "reasonably" justify a drink. You however could not have 6 drinks after the meal and claim them.

superliss

Trevor64 wrote: »

Stockport and Salford ... "Payment for visit is £3.50, plus a reimbursement of £1.00".

Absolutely scandalous. I couldn't even get there for that.
The fee was 3 times that when RM had it.

Same in Nottingham and Derby. I did this job for RM at Xmas for triple. Good fee reasonable report. Takin the Michael.. Cheeky fawkers

N.I.M

I have a radical thought, should we perhaps make each and every one of RA's clients aware of the apalling treatment, well below minimum wage fees and the likelyhood that data is not being properly gathered as people are unlikely to spend the requisite amount of time in the store and doing the report for a £3 fee?