Mystery Shopping Thread 25 *PLEASE READ THE OP FIRST**PLEASE NO CLIENT NAMES OR FEES

Macadamia

Cybi-Ping wrote: »

Well its finally happened, I did a big reimbursement only job and the MSc has refused pay.

Poor you. This is my absolute nightmare. It makes me hesitate and sometimes stops me from taking the attractive big reimbursement jobs.

Particularly the nice hotels where the ms brief says you have to pay full whack and go thru' a muggle booking process, to pay £200 for room only when you would otherwise pick it up on laterooms with B&B for half that amount.

Some of these companies expect you to report on the bar service, but have the same alcohol limits on a quick lunch as they do a 24 hour stay. I have been close to ballsing it up many times. (& on occasion I have got away with it.)

Good luck in appealing this Cybi-ping. And keep us posted.

whitelabel

re a claim
one thing to consider is their defence
they contracted you to perform a specific duty to their brief which your agreed to do - forming a contract, the reward of which would be your payment for completing that contract in full.
but you deviated from that and as such you broke the contract.
as such you are not due the reward of the contract agreement.
im afraid in small claims, on the balance of probabilities you most likely would lose and could face a counterclaim for breach of contract with them recovering the impact costs of getting it shopped or any cost impacts to their client for not submitting a report in time.... just something to consider.
you are self employed therefore a business and as such this would be a business to business civil claim -

cupboardie

Helion refused to pay me for a car audit which I devoted 3 hours of my life to (research and prep, visit itself and filling in the form) as I didn't get the right results. Thing is - I did exactly what they told me to, tried to get the best possible price for a certain car.

It's not my fault the dealership didn't give me the discount they were supposed to and refused to give me a written quote! I think they were on to me - whilst they left me alone I had a withheld number hang up on my phone - it seems they suspected I was a mystery shopper and tested my phone number. Also they were really rushing as if they knew I wasn't a real customer.

Scarlet1982

Two payments in from RA today looks like one is for the health shops and the other TV/Laptops.:j

TractorGirl327

Cybi-Ping wrote: »

Well its finally happened, I did a big reimbursement only job and the MSc has refused pay. I did make a mistake but it was so tiny that not paying is a really harsh punishment. They said the client won't accept the report, but in reality my mistake makes absolutly no difference to any part of the actual report or the questionnaire. Being self employed is all well and good but when something goes wrong you have no one to fight your corner.

What was the "small mistake", can you tell us without divulging the client or agency?

If they have specifically asked you to do something and you haven't, then I'm afraid they are well within their right not to pay you.

Geeves1980

It's been a while since I posted on this thread (or one of the previous incarnation!) as I fell out of doing any Mystery Shopping after I finished Uni and started work.

However I've recently been thinking of starting up again and was just wondering how much had really changed.

At the time, I did some regular jobs for Grassroots and I usually enjoyed those, although getting the jobs I liked before anyone else was quite difficult as I always seemed to log in and see they had already been taken. I've noticed on the first page rundown (yes I did read it all again!) that GR still operate on the same self allocation.

Just a quick question for anyone who has completed assignments for them for a couple of years, do they still have many of the same clients or have a lot of the popular ones moved to another company? Are the fees about the same or have things in general gone downhill since 2011/2012?

I 'relieved myself' from GAP. I generally had quite a poor experience with them, they refused to pay me for some betting shop assignments I did as the staff recognised me as a mystery shopper. I argued that of course they would, following the ridiculously obvious brief. Strange how it was the shops that failed on a certain part, which was listed in the report that 'outed' me!

I didn't think much of Retail Eyes (or whatever it's called now) so unless they have raised the standard of their clients or their fees, I don't think I would sign up with them again.

I remember Optimum Contact being quite good and I had a favourite job I used to do for them, which was definitely worth my time, although their reports had to be very detailed. I don't mind this though, as I want to gain more experience writing some detailed reports.

Do they still exist? Have they changed much?

I would ideally like to get into a company that has assignments for some nicer restaurants and a hotel or two, not to earn any money as such, but to be able to have a nice evening out with my partner or friend every so often. I realise that these are pay up front jobs and wondered if many people had had negative experiences with those, such as refusal to reimburse?

If it was my fault due to missing something on the brief, I would learn from that, but sometimes I wonder if they deliberately try to find ways to not pay you. Anyone had any experience with that?

Before I even move to that though, I think I need to start small again to get back into the habit of the reports, observations etc.

I have a full time job, so won't be making this a daily thing.

weeg

cupboardie wrote: »

Helion refused to pay me for a car audit which I devoted 3 hours of my life to (research and prep, visit itself and filling in the form) as I didn't get the right results. Thing is - I did exactly what they told me to, tried to get the best possible price for a certain car.

It's not my fault the dealership didn't give me the discount they were supposed to and refused to give me a written quote! I think they were on to me - whilst they left me alone I had a withheld number hang up on my phone - it seems they suspected I was a mystery shopper and tested my phone number. Also they were really rushing as if they knew I wasn't a real customer.

Same here - more or less. They had the exact car I had enquired about in stock in another branch, so refused to give me a quote for a factory build, on the basis that I didn't need a factory build. And they wouldn't give a discount on any other vehicle except the one they had in stock. I did everything I could, but not the MSers fault if the dealer doesn't want to be messed around by a rival's MSer.

Larac

cupboardie wrote: »

Helion refused to pay me for a car audit which I devoted 3 hours of my life to (research and prep, visit itself and filling in the form) as I didn't get the right results. Thing is - I did exactly what they told me to, tried to get the best possible price for a certain car.

It's not my fault the dealership didn't give me the discount they were supposed to and refused to give me a written quote! I think they were on to me - whilst they left me alone I had a withheld number hang up on my phone - it seems they suspected I was a mystery shopper and tested my phone number. Also they were really rushing as if they knew I wasn't a real customer.

That's probably why there are shed loads of car audits sitting on their site. Once bitten twice shy..

Big_Graeme

Larac wrote: »

That's probably why there are shed loads of car audits sitting on their site. Once bitten twice shy..

Yup, they are a pain when they set such tight specs and requirements, salesmen are just out to spot mystery shoppers and string them along.

Cybi-Ping

TractorGirl327 wrote: »

What was the "small mistake", can you tell us without divulging the client or agency?

If they have specifically asked you to do something and you haven't, then I'm afraid they are well within their right not to pay you.

I'm writing it off to experience, I did make a mistake and wouldn't win a claim but I still think it's a harsh punishment. The brief asked me to buy two soft drinks, I mistakenly bought one soft drink and a glass of water.