Anyone else work for Maritz, they are a great company,but their website sure
leaves a lot to be desired.Anyone else notice how many times through the day
their website is offline. I think they need a real webmaster or who knows what the problem is.I used to build and maintain websites and I never had to take the whole site down for updates or whatever.

Their website has been a real thorn in the side. It is counterintuitive, fragile and slow. I stopped working with them in part because their site is so flaky. It lost a job in the transition to the new site that took a while to get sorted out. And it is misleading to encourage shoppers to email them because they don't email back. Unless things have changed significantly, they were apparently printing out emails to distribute to staff and somebody might call you back. Certainly a company it still makes sense to call if there is a question/issue/problem. But it strikes me that they are not at all a computer savvy bunch.

I like working for them because they have a lot of jobs in my area and they do
pay on time. You are right Flash they rarely email back,I get phone calls.I have brought these problems up to several schedulers and they seem to be in denial about it.I asked them how many people have access to the site and they said "oh I don't know".I asked them about a webmaster ,Oh yeah we have a IT guy.You would think a co. this big would get it togther more for their shoppers.

Their website is painfully slow, and the schedulers, for the most part, are very old fashioned. I like personal contact in a company, but they take the meaning of that to a whole new level. I have gotten emails that tell me to call them. I call and what they wanted was to tell me I was assigned a job. I know, I saw it on the site, when I logged in to get the phone number you neglected to put in the email telling me to call you! I think the whole idea of cloud computing and web based workers is well beyond the ken of a lot of the staff at that firm, including, apparently, the "IT guy." :-)

I agree. Every few months I'll get calls from a nice lady trying to get something booked. Most of the time, I decline. Seems to be an old-school MSP.

I just got a call from one of their schedulers practically begging me to take a gas station shop that paid $6. I asked her if they were adding a bonus and she said no.

The only time I even consider something like that is when I actually need gas.

Haven't had a good experience with Maritz. They are definitely not on the ball with replying back to emails, phone calls, paperwork, inquiries, etc. I waited 3 months to get paid on one job and when I told the scheduler that I wouldn't take anymore shops without a guarantee of payment within 30 days she said she would get back to me. Guess what? She never did!

Again, a good example of who you deal with @ Maritz. Website problems? Yes they have a bunch. For some reason their IT Folks refuse to put additional servers online to handle traffic flow. When I try to enter data and their site times out , I simply call the scheduler and tell her that due to their site my submissions will be late. I am not going to stay up all night and fight with it. That works and they understand.

Pay problems? Call their 1-800 number and ask to speak to payroll. I had one that turned out to be waiting on a scanned receipt I had forgotten to upload. That was easily corrected and I was paid.

tgb. $6 Gas shops? Did you leave out the part of the $5 gas and $1 inside reimbursment? That makes it a $12.00 Gas shop. Or where you thinking of that other MSC?...

I have been fortunate to deal with some good people there. makes it worthwhile to me.

I understand what you are saying mrcomputer101, at the same time I found that there were so many specific issues that I just asked them to terminate me. We are paid to do a job. Their pay is far from spectacular. We are not paid to have to track them down because of their system problems or lack of follow up to emails or notification if a scanned receipt did not make it through their system. They also have a noxious habit of taking a simple shop with straightforward requirements from another MSP, lowering the pay and turning it into a major project of study guides, tests and nonsense. Of course I have no way of telling whether when they took on the job the client specified it be done in a small time window rather than at any time during open hours on a given day, but I saw an overall trend of that happening, almost to the point where I would question whether they stepped over the line about whether shoppers were being treated as 'employees' vs 'independent contractors' in the eyes of IRS.

I am in agreement with you Flash. 2+ years ago, I stopped shopping with them due to the exact things you describe. Later, when they picked up a contract that GFK lost, I went back with them to do the same oil company locations. The pay was better, longer timeframe and about the same amount of questions/pictures.

As we discover with these companies, your experiences may vary!... Mr.C

Better on those shops??? In my books those were $12 "fee only" shops with the former MSP. There was a requirement of "a minimum of $5" of gas and "an inside purchase" so with that terminology, any purchases within reason were deductible as a business expense. Typically I put $10 worth of gas in the tank because $1, $3, $5 worth of gas in a $3-$4 per gallon environment to my thinking screams "shopper" unless you are putting it in a gas can or a motorcycle rather than a hunking big old pickup truck. The 'inside purchase' at one point allowed me to purchase an updated book of local maps I needed for work and again was a 'business expense'. So the $ are exactly the same but the flexibility of the shops have been destroyed. Instead of reporting on an unsophisticated but efficient website, you get to report on a truly flaky site.

And yes, different folks have different expectations and tolerance of companies they work with.

I really like the gas shops. Since I always use a credit card at the pump, I can make a high or low purchase without notice, so I usually do $5-6 and grab the credit card receipt. Then I walk inside to the convenience store and ask where the bathroom is (and in most cases the clerk is paying NO attention to the pumps unless someone comes in and pays cash and he has to set the pump for the amount of purchase). I check out the bathroom and complete my notes on clerk's name and description. Then I go back out in the store and buy a can of tea - 99cents - and I've got my 2 receipts. It's a fast easy report. Sometimes I try to do three in a row - gives me about a half tank of gas (I have a tiny Mazda).

I do the gas station shops. I try to do at least 6 at a time, because I have a 14 gallon gas tank. If I leave home with less than 1/4 tank, I can get home with the tank full, and the 5 gallon can in the bed of my Ranger at least 1/2 full.

I buy a $25 gift card as my inside purchase at the first shop, and use it for the gas at the rest of my shops. That way it doesn't attract attention.

I try to do a route at least twice a month, and will ocasionally sneak in a third route. I alternate between the three different gas companies that they do in my area. I do about 75 stations a quarter, and repeat them every other quarter as allowed. If I do them on Monday I have a full tank of gas to work with heading into the rest of the week.

I will also call the scheduling team when we head out on a road trip, and ask what shops they have that may match my planned route. That helps offset the cost of gas when we take the real truck and pull the trailer. Two or three each day on a 8 day road trip is an extra $300 or so. It costs about $80 to fill the gas tank on my F150, so thats 3-4 tanks of gas.

Im trying to figure out how to justify deducting the entire mileage for my family vacations, but I haven't actually tried to pull that one off yet. If I could just find a company that would pay me to evaluate the campgrounds I stay in each night, I think my conscience would let me do it.

Great idea about the gas card, JayTee. I'll try that.

Anybody who has problems getting paid with Maritz, there is a really great lady working in Payroll named Helen. She was a lot of help getting me paid when I goofed on my first shop invoice.

JayTee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Im trying to figure out how to justify deducting
> the entire mileage for my family vacations, but I
> haven't actually tried to pull that one off yet.
> If I could just find a company that would pay me
> to evaluate the campgrounds I stay in each night,
> I think my conscience would let me do it.

Have you contacted KOA to see who shops their franchisees? I have never seen campground shops but it may start them thinking about it if they aren't doing it already. It has been years since I have camped, but the KOAs seemed very prevalent and there may be other campgrounds chains around the country by now. I know back when we were camping there was a whole lot of difference in cleanliness and hospitality from location to location--especially in pool maintenance and laundry facilities.

Flash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> Have you contacted KOA to see who shops their
> franchisees? I have never seen campground shops
> but it may start them thinking about it if they
> aren't doing it already. It has been years since
> I have camped, but the KOAs seemed very prevalent
> and there may be other campgrounds chains around
> the country by now. I know back when we were
> camping there was a whole lot of difference in
> cleanliness and hospitality from location to
> location--especially in pool maintenance and
> laundry facilities.


I haven't looked into it that seriously yet, I have to admit, I enjoy the idea that when I am camping I dont have as many reports to write.

We HAVE actually consideredd teh idea of either
A) forming our own company just to do campgrounds, or
Writing campground reviews and compiling them onto a blog or into book form.

There are books out there, but they seldom answer the questions that I as a mystery shopper would address.

Hmmm.. how do you mystery shop at a campground and still get your report done by midnight? Better hope it is a KOA with a wi-fi connection!

80% of the campgrounds we stay at have wi-fi, but we are planning, before the end of this season to have satelite internet anyway, so there would never be an issue.

I seem to only get work when they call me....have yet to ever be assigned something I signed up for online. My phone presence must be more impressive than my anonymous online identity........Thanks Maritz, Im flattered, but give me more work!

I was signed up with them a while, and they would call me with stuff they couldn't fill, but I never took any. Too far away, or revealed gas station audits also too far away. I finally got a call on a candy store I would do. I called back, and it had been taken, but that allowed me to talk to someone there about my login issues. They fixed them. After that, I applied for 12 and got 2. After I did those, I applied for 2 more, got them, applied for more, got some. As of next month I will hit the mark to self assign, as several I applied for were scheduled by them for August. For me, the old phone method doesn't work well-our time zones are REALLY different and we play a lot of phone tag. Email would work so much better in my instance, but when they email, they just email me to call them about a shop. No specifics. I stayed away from them for about 6 months due to the fact I had heard of payment problems, but I have been paid in a timely and in contract manner for the shops I have done so far, so no longer think about that as an issue.

Do you know what that "mark" is to self assign?

10 shops accepted.

Here is a silly question, but how and when does Maritz pay for shops. I've looked through their website and can't seem to find that information anywere.

Thanks!

I have been getting my checks around mid and end of month. Thats after they clear the editor...

shop-a-holic Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is a silly question, but how and when does
> Maritz pay for shops. I've looked through their
> website and can't seem to find that information
> anywere.
>
> Thanks!

Thier policy is the 1st and 15th, however, if everything has cleared sometimes the checks come a day or two earlier.

Thanks deech and mrcomputer101 for your responses.

Self-scheduling definitely makes it easier to work with Maritz. I like Maritz a lot, their shops are reasonable and their reports are easy. I really like their gas shops. But the constant phone calls were making me crazy. I had to go in and remove my work # and my cell phone # from my profile because the calls were too frequent and a couple of the schedulers are VERY pushy. They called constantly with "Here's one that's really close to you, do me a favor and take it" .... and they were 30 miles away and not bonused. I don't take far away orphan shops, especially unbonused. I sometimes got more than one call in a day about the same shop. And sometimes got a call 3 or 4 days in a row about the same shop I turned down on day 1. Maybe if they called 3 or 4 times I might stop saying no? Except for the frequent telephoning, Maritz is great. The schedulers are all really nice, I just wish they were more into e-mail, e-mail works much better for me.

At least, with these guys, when a shop is scheduled it is scheduled. There is no seven or eight calls in 30 min. wanting to change a date or time. Sometimes I will let my voice mail pick up the call and return the call when I can. That way I miss a lot of calls for the shops I do not want to do or cannot do.

I did shops for a company that really would call 7 or 8 times ): in an hour or less wanting to change something someone else scheduled. I guess that is why the schedulers call don't bother me much.