Maximising income - Mystery Shopping? Surveys? (Part Three)

wensie

Another aspect with TNS is that it could simply be a saturated market in your area.
Just keep on trying.

mimi1234

I had a plane visit to do tomorrow, but I have had to cancel it due to a family emergency. It's the first time I have cancelled for that company. Do you think I might get booted? It was totally out of my control, but because the visit was not your quick and easy stamp/burger one, I'm thinking I might get booted. Errr. *** Looks like I am going to have to give up MSing for the next few months as things are getting very stressful at home due to the emergency, which is a shame as I really enjoy doing it, and it is doing wonders for my confidence. *** Anyway, keep my and my family in your prayers, and I hope this dark cloud passes soon. Thanks.

wensie

mimi1234 wrote: »

I had a plane visit to do tomorrow, but I have had to cancel it due to a family emergency. It's the first time I have cancelled for that company. Do you think I might get booted? It was totally out of my control, but because the visit was not your quick and easy stamp/burger one, I'm thinking I might get booted. Errr. *** Looks like I am going to have to give up MSing for the next few months as things are getting very stressful at home due to the emergency, which is a shame as I really enjoy doing it, and it is doing wonders for my confidence. *** Anyway, keep my and my family in your prayers, and I hope this dark cloud passes soon. Thanks.

Oh mimi, I'm sorry to hear your news. First of all I am wishing all the best for you and your family.

Regarding your assignment - it depends on the company. I have never had to cancel such kind of assignment (especially as I will only have my first "plane" assignment this week!). I would just send them an email, explain everything and hope for the best. If they don't understand I would consider it a bad company and wouldn't want to work for them again anyway.

jobbingmusician

I agree with wensie (and also send condolences on your news). When I said earlier that someone would get penalised for cancelling a Gap job, I meant that it would affect their overall rating. If you have worked for the flight company for a while already, you will have a nice positive score to offset against your cancellation this month - so don't worry about it!

I managed to screw up earlier this month - I was lucky in that I checked before going out to spend £50 in a restaurant, and found that the last night was the night before :eek: They seem to have forgiven me, and I even got a nice email from them along the lines of 'mistakes happen'. xxx to that company!!!

UK007BullDog

Spent the last 2 days reading this forum, not all day of course as I still have work, housework, cooking and lots of other stuff to do. I have only managed to read to page 10 so far, plus the 2 new pages added since then. There are links in the posts to other sites which I investigated as well.

May I request that someone put a new sticky together with all the most important info? There is just too much chatter in this thread. Even though its related its not vital to newbies.

Oh well, at least I found another forum with the MS companies represented and one can talk to them. I think I am signed up with 10 plus companies.

My feeling of those companies that let you sign up straight away without valuating and testing you cannot be as professional, hence only paying £5 per job? Going by comments on here they seem to use people, churn them over and then spit them out. I also suspect that some of the companies are "middle men and women" who are outsourcing the work from larger companies. The key is to get to the main company to earn a decent "wage".

No offence to anyone. My nature is to query everything.

redcar_2

Which bits did you find useful so far that are missing from the first post?

UK007BullDog

Which companies are reliable, look after their shoppers. Number of jobs offered on average. How to act.

I dont think I will be doing any burger jobs if they know when people come and they have everything set in stone for many years. What is the point? Anyway have not been in a burger joint for years as I do not agree with their extortion of workers, farmers and animals. Their charity and green makeover just do not wash with me.

LOL, on Page 18 so far.

Dazzieboo

I think the best bit about this thread, is all of it.

It tells the story about the life of a Mystery Shopper, it covers all scenarios, all payment queries, FAQ, true scenario problems, solutions to those problems, advice on which companies to start with and sometimes advice on which companies not to touch and of course, the all important tax questions.

A thread like this is perfect for those new into this line of work and should give them a true reflection of the work involved.

I don't see the bits between as chatter, just shoppers sharing their experience, which others could well learn from.

redcar_2

UK007BullDog wrote: »

Which companies are reliable, look after their shoppers. Number of jobs offered on average. How to act.

I dont think I will be doing any burger jobs if they know when people come and they have everything set in stone for many years. What is the point? Anyway have not been in a burger joint for years as I do not agree with their extortion of workers, farmers and animals. Their charity and green makeover just do not wash with me.

LOL, on Page 18 so far.

Good for carrying on reading. As Dazzieboo says the information is invaluable even the chit chat so I would recommend it. The big problem and best bit of MS is that it is difficult to generalise so thats probably why you don't find a lot of the info on the first post.

You can take it that all the companies mentioned in the first post are reliable but I know we do not have a totally comprehensive list. These though are a good start so you can get used to how to work. In terms of highlighting their reputation, it would be difficult to post up that x company doesn't look after its shoppers as I am sure you can imagine a bad rating might get MSE in trouble and a good one might not reflect a recent problem. One thing I've decided in terms of how they look after shoppers is that every company can be bad to some shoppers sometimes. As you can probably tell from reading posts, the actions sometimes seem to be a bit on a whim and therefore some people love certain companies whilst others have suddenly had loads of problems even if they have had no problems before.

Numbers of jobs offered seems to vary and very much depends on your location in the country so its difficult to generalise. From my experience GAP seem to have the most jobs, other companies are much smaller, but as the types of jobs vary number of jobs isn't the only criteria to judge them on.

Lots of the companies have training materials which help you to know exactly what to do and the standards they expect on their reports. I don't think it would help for us to try and repeat this as jobs and companies again vary so you are best reading the job information which usually gives you all the detail you need.

Most of us have worked hard to get good at this job so whilst we are helpful we are not keen to hand on a plate information to people not willing to do the legwork too.

Anyway keep reading and I am sure you will find people happy to answer specific queries you have.

ruthiejane

ruthiejane wrote: »

I've been asked to do a job for GAP, they phoned me and asked about it, told me they would need to send me a special kit. I've accepted the job but now realise the location isn't in the town they said, but on a holiday park which charges an entrance fee. They haven't mentioned the entrance fee anywhere and have not answered my enquiry asking if it will be reimbursed. It could of course be that the chain the shop is with haven't told GAP that you can't access the establishment without paying an entrance fee. What do you think I should do - it isn't for a couple of weeks, but of course I can't phone them to ask!

Anyone? Sorry I asked a couple of days ago but didn't get any suggestions over Easter! Can anyone help?