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

Alongman

Gamereat wrote: »

I see MF lost there betting shop to SL. Be a lot lower fee for them now. Not surprised

Slightly concerned as MF have two betting shop clients. Also never heard of SL who are they? Maybe the fee will be lower but I quite like them four or five free bets a month I have done quite well these last three months. Mind you the winner at 11/2 helped particularly as I had won on the gaming machine earlier. :T

Alongman

JWIOW wrote: »

Does anyone have any experience working for PIP??

Yes I like PIP nice company, fair payers and on time. Also interesting briefs.

Alongman

My latest message from GYP. I have absolutley no idea what this means. I think it means I wont get paid soon. Anyone else had this?

"Initialization failed: please check the API key,
swf location, version and network availability."

Gamereat

Alongman wrote: »

Slightly concerned as MF have two betting shop clients. Also never heard of SL who are they? Maybe the fee will be lower but I quite like them four or five free bets a month I have done quite well these last three months. Mind you the winner at 11/2 helped particularly as I had won on the gaming machine earlier. :T

Serve Legal, 18-19 year old only at the moment. They pay transport too though

Cleo09

I've been watching and reading for a while now. Thanks for posting useful information. I have been mystery shopping for a while now too and it's always nice to chat to fellow shoppers.

I wanted to say that I too used to work for TNS... for a short while...until I ended my relationship with them. Although, I never did any banking jobs for them, I did find them underhanded too. For example, once I did a job that required two visits to a dealership - not one - and they expected me to bring back offers on quotes (the best deal) without expecting us to go through the entire showroom sales process. This was unrealistic and not at all in keeping with most dealer sales processes. I was also cross they never put the evaluation questionnaire up on the site before I signed up to the job and it turned out to be hideously complex, involving numerous calculations, and taking ages to fill in. So I refused to complete them. So I was not paid at all. Therefore, I know what they can be like.

As for banking jobs. I do lots of these successfully. But I will NEVER do banking job that requires me to give over my genuine personal details. I will only use fake details. I too would be furious if I was told there would be no credit check and there was because the implications can be serious for the shopper concerned.

Big_Graeme

Gamereat wrote: »

Serve Legal, 18-19 year old only at the moment. They pay transport too though

Ah, so they haven't lost the client, the client is using a specialist age verification service.

Tolteca87

So are we sure that MF lost the bookie and that it isn't just SL doing compliance jobs for the same client?

ms_night_ryder

superliss wrote: »

I understand what your saying but realistically what else are you meant to do if the MS company are not playing ball? We all know how much credit applications can affect credit scores. If the proverbial hit the fan and I needed a loan from the bank, this may sound selfish but I'm not going to be thinking about my fellow MSers first.

If you have had 3 creit apps in 3 weeks or less that could have a massive impact on you. You take the assignments in good faith not thinking you are going to get screwed over. I would have done the same.

Dunno mate, I steer clear of all credit check type queries, in fact I have pretty much knocked ms on the head, as it is just not worth the hassle, the only ones I do are for GR.

Big_Graeme

MysteryMe wrote: »

The only bad form being shown is by those who are supportive of bad business practice. It is those people's attitude that allow many MSC to treat mystery shoppers poorly in every respect and it is those people who are the problem not those who wish to be treated in a professional and honest manner.

The MSC can not have these checks removed, it is down to the client to do that, if the client doesn't honor its agreement or a member of staff makes an error what is the result you want? Getting the clients back up by going over the head of the MSC is not going to do much good for other shoppers. Also what would happen if the real client wasn't the institution shopped? I've done many of these and I know for sure that quite a lot of them were for regulatory agencies and a government agency.

I don't do these jobs at the moment because I need a clear credit record, as far as I know "soft checks" should be treated with caution as one slip and they become full credit checks. The fee is high because of this (and the PITA the jobs are).

katwoman28

Thankyou!!!
I should have gotten a notification but have just come across this.
You're a star.x

Scarlet1982 wrote: »

Last night I made the switch to Xero there is a monthly fee for using this but I can claim this as an expense. I was previously using a spreadsheet which was easy in the beginning but after about 6 months I found the task daunting and also easy to accidently delete something.

Xero seems to do what I want it to I'm currently importing all my bank statements for the last year and reconciling. This is basically downloading a file from my online account and importing. Everything that isn't MS related I’m coding to drawings or funds added. I'm also able to upload receipts to match my expenses.

I’m interested to know if anybody does use a computerised accounts package I did have an old copy of Sage Instant accounts but sadly this wouldn’t work with Windows 8. The link below details some apps which may be of use to you katwoman28:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/softwaredevelopers/mobile-apps/record-keeping.htm

I'm hoping to get on top of my accounts in the next fortnight and get round to submitting my return.