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

Hi video shoppers

I'm fairly new to this side of things - I have the usual PV500 and BU13 kit. I bought it new a few months ago.

It's starting to give me some problems. I wonder if they are the kind that people on here sometimes mention re the BU13 - and was hoping someone could help me solve them.

I think it's cable issues.

The sound has started cutting in and out randomly - even though mic connection is taped in place.

Also, sometimes the unit says "no signal" but a (hard) jiggle of the connection into the camera solves it after 1 or 10 hard wiggles (that I worry will mess up its angle). It's pretty random - it will do it straight after being fine - ie when there has been no chance for the cable to move.

It's all annoying me and is going to cause a failure sooner or later. I've been lucky so far that the sound cut outs have not been while talking to someone.

Any ideas or hints or places I can get non Lawmate/better cables much appreciated!

Cheers

My BU13 came in a little packet that said "BU20" on a sticky label. I'm pretty sure it's a BU13 of one sort or another.

Either way, the connection and mic are definitely patchy!

What mic is it you have - or is something workable an easy ebay find? I need something with a thin plug I guess. Not the thicker standard plug. Hmmm!

Moneysaver199 wrote: »

Anyone know when a payment due 25/07 from MF should hit the bank?

Was just about to ask the same thing! Got my first payment from the 10th on the 14th so was expecting yesterday or today or the 25th, but nadda!

skyshadow wrote: »

I'm not sure what the logic is but some payments arrive within 2 days as you'd expect with BACS and some like at the start of the year were over a week.

On a different note I've signed up with ESA and wanted to clarify something with other shoppers. The train ticket jobs seem to indicate you buy your tickets and then send them in to get payment but cannot actually use them?

I only ask as this seems like a lot of front loaded costs with no benefits beyond the fee. I'm more of a fan of assignments where you can keep the product such as free travel so I'd be grateful if someone could confirm if there are any other perks as reading the notes it doesn't seem so. Thanks

Thanks, money will hopefully come soon then. I'm glad I'm not the only one, at least it's probably ok. Not that I have much yet, just started.

As for the train jobs, I did a bit of asking around about this, the questionnaire is quite long, and no you're not allowed to use the ticket. So I suppose you're just doing it for the fee. You will get the postage refunded too. It's not a bad fee compared to some of the MF jobs , but as you say no freebies involved. I think this is perhaps better if you're doing plenty of free food jobs and you're maybe lunched out or whatever, so you could supplement with these? Apparently it's more worthwhile with these if you manage to get a handful of them. I wonder how long they will go on for. I've not long signed up with them as well, and haven't done any with them yet.

skyshadow wrote: »

Thanks for helping me make sense of that. I guess I've always been used to 2 types of jobs. Those where you get a small fee and a freebie paying for the item up front such as lunch jobs or those where you do an enquiry with no upfront costs and get paid for this.

I'm a little put off by jobs where there is a huge upfront cost with no benefit beyond the fee. I used to be visits for phone shops last year which were great as you could do lots of them all in a day with no upfront costs. These train visits seem similar but require a lot of disposable income to finance them first.

This depends on the ticket required for the job. Some are quite low value. The one I was going to do was about 25 miles on a very simple route so the upfront cost was lower than the fee. I did see some that were a hundred miles or so though, so I guess the ticket could cost quite a bit!!

As for the phone shops, I'm curious about those. One I looked at with a different company was to go in and take a contract and you could choose to keep the contract if you wanted, or not keep it (in which case you had to take a cheap handset). Now, I have to wonder how all that works, given that you've probably just signed up and given bank details. Now that makes me nervier than a train ticket, but perhaps the train tickets you looked at were of a more long distance sort. It may even be worthwhile looking at a bunch of them from a different city, maybe a city you could go and plan to do some shopping in anyway?

Another query from me...I've been tracking my shops, not many so far, so that I have something for tax. I'm deducting 45p a mile travel and 6p per printout. Quite often I have nothing left as profit from the shop, but obviously I'm just getting started at this. Some of the food isn't much good to me either, have taken a friend along to eat some of it too. Anyway, will I just track all the fees and deductions for tax purposes. I realise I'll need to do something about this within 3 months. I gather it isn't too difficult, although pulling the information together might be time consuming if I do lots or don't keep my spreadsheet up to date.