Mystery shopping thread 26 *please read the op first**please no client names or fees

vegasvisitor

chills87 wrote: »

A quick question here about declaring your income. I am a 20% tax payer as I am already employed and PAYE. I've recently started mystery shopping as a way to make a little extra money. I'm working things out and all the assignments I've done so far are a loss on paper (but not in my pocket) when you take into consideration the HMRC advised 45p per mile expenses.

My question is, do I still have to declare this work through self assessment if I am making a loss. Also, if I do post a loss on self assessment, will I be entitled to a rebate on some of my PAYE income tax?

Thanks.

Why would you be doing it if you are making a loss? I think you are making yourself open to investigation if you are doing this at a loss, and trying to claim money back from the taxman to support it. Why would you be doing it.

I suspect maybe you're not doing your calculations correctly, given that you seem happy to take the work. If your mileage is coming out more than the job, you must be planning to go there anyway or something for it to be worthwhile taking. Are you including the benefit in kind too? If you are doing a meal with no fee then it is a benefit in kind, so is not a deductible expense.

missymouse

Some of the scenarios in MS are bizarre imo.

Certain store visits which involve a query at a counter about medication. It's a bit odd not to make a purchase. Why would you queue up etc plus scenario is unlikely as wrong time of year. You then go on to the main till to buy something after making a shopfloor enquiry.

Chomeur

What's happened with Market Force's high street sandwich shop visits? They used to have hundreds listed, now I haven't seen any for several weeks.

so_very_confused

II don't know but they don't appear to have a fraction of the work they used to.
Given their level of remuneration I tend to use them as fillers or if I want a particular product.:)

genetic

I can now see the sandwich shops, but didn't for longer than I expected after my last visit. Maybe the frequency with which you can do those visits has changed?

sunnyp

I too haven't been able to see any sandwich shops for weeks now on MF. They still have them as I still get weekly emails with a list of locations that they could use help with! Note sure what's going on there to be honest

Doc_N

For anyone looking for 'free' meals, I see that Mystery Diner are trying to recruit new diners at the moment. They've taken on some large pub chains with a very small meal/drink reimbursement which hardly covers the cost of the food and drink, and I suspect they're finding it difficult to get enough people prepared to spend the time required to do it for a minimal return.

There doesn't see to be much about them on here, so I thought a few comments might be useful. From personal knowledge of the way they operate, I'm not surprised they're having to run a recruitment drive - in most cases the reimbursement won't cover the cost of the meal, and unless you're a Platinum Diner (one level above Gold) you're unlikely to get the better assignments. Keeping that coveted Platinum status has become extremely difficult because of a system they introduced fairly recently of penalising diners for minor errors in reports. If you make a small number of errors, you're downgraded.

What's even worse is that these black marks for 'errors' (termed 'Things to Consider' or 'TTCs') are very difficult to challenge because Mystery Diner rarely admits its mistakes - it has an extraordinarily arrogant attitude towards its diners and seems to regard itself as infallible. Some, maybe even most, of the people checking the reports from diners seem to take great delight in dishing out these TTCs for trivialities such as using the word 'should' instead of 'could' when a diner suggests an improvement.

There are feedback forums within their website, but they're heavily moderated, and critical comments are frequently removed - with the result that genuine communication between diners over problems faced is near-impossible. There are frequent sycophantic, grateful comments from people expressing their thanks to Mystery Dining for 'allowing' them to eat out, so maybe it's not so surprising that the staff seem to have such a low opinion of diners!

I do wonder how accurate the reports are, too - because anything negative tends to create extra work for diners. Positive reports and comments usually go through without too much hassle (subject to the TTCs) but anything negative tends to give rise to a phone call from the office to the diner asking for a lot of detail to substantiate the negativity. Scores of anything less than 10/10 require additional work from the diner, and often a telephone conversation, and I'm guessing a lot of diners just take the easy route and gloss over the faults for an easy life - not what the restaurants want, but easier for Mystery Diner, who probably have to spend far less time on positive reports.

So sign up if you're interested - but three or four hours work for what can be as little as £10 isn't a great incentive, and maybe that's why they're looking to replace some of the diners that have given up on them and decided it just isn't worth all the hassle of TTCs, condescending staff and frequent phone calls.

Larac

lesley74 wrote: »

Why would you be doing it if you are making a loss? I think you are making yourself open to investigation if you are doing this at a loss, and trying to claim money back from the taxman to support it. Why would you be doing it.

I suspect maybe you're not doing your calculations correctly, given that you seem happy to take the work. If your mileage is coming out more than the job, you must be planning to go there anyway or something for it to be worthwhile taking. Are you including the benefit in kind too? If you are doing a meal with no fee then it is a benefit in kind, so is not a deductible expense.

Would agree the tax man is likely to take a dim view, if you take jobs which are not profitable. A lot of these jobs are only worth doing if you can get a circuit up.

MO2

Has anyone done a job for this MS Company recently. I used to do stationary shops for them, but have not heard from them for over a year now. Are they still in business?? :huh:

Big_Graeme

sunnyp wrote: »

I too haven't been able to see any sandwich shops for weeks now on MF. They still have them as I still get weekly emails with a list of locations that they could use help with! Note sure what's going on there to be honest

They do have an age limit on them too. Might be that.