I recently received an email from a MSC stating that they were terminating my IC agreement. I asked them why, as I had done several shops and audits for them and had a ranking of 98.6 just a few days prior.

They replied back something about a "known associate of mine" caused a flag in their system.

When I asked for more information, they pulled out the "client confidentiality" card saying they couldn't comment on specifics, but then they went on and implied it had something to do with a specific fast food restaurant. The thing is, I had never done a shop for that restaurant because I don't like the food enough.

Here is my main concern. I had only been shopping for this MSC for about a month, and they have not paid me for any shops yet. They owe me close to $1,000.

I am wondering if this was a sneaky way to try and not pay me?

Or, could it be more vindictive? Just the day before one of their schedulers called me. It was a different scheduler then the other dozens of calls I received from them. She asked me to do two jobs for them within 48 hours. Both were revealed audits (which is what I did a lot of for this MSC) but one was 2 hours away each way and the other was an hour and a half away each way. And it was raining. Even though the pay they were offering was pretty fair, I declined because of the distance, the weather (it was raining), the road conditions (one of them was in a town surrounded by highways on cliffs) and the fact that they were in opposite directions, which prevented me from doing them on the same trip. Plus, I had already made plans with my nieces and didn't want to flake.

So, I politely declined.

Any thoughts?

Have you tried calling them to get an answer? You can definitely make your argument more easily on the phone than you can in an email.
Also, it's always helpful in cases like this to mention who the MSC is, in case someone on here has some particular insight or experience that could help. It also lets the rest of us know which MSC's are causing problems.

I agree with Hoju. Try calling them and speak to a live person who can hopefully shed some light. You should get paid. Who is the MSC?

Providing thoughts on this would be just idle speculation without knowing the company or specifics. The comment "known associate of mine caused a red flag in the system" and "client cnfidentiality" sound like Market Force but MF does not use a ranking system visible to ICs. I can't think of any company using a ranking that would show 98.6.

If your reports were accepted and you were not told you would not be paid, I believe you will be paid. Market Force, and all other companies that I know of, does pay for all accepted reports completed before deactivation.

I'm guessing it's Market Force and I'm guessing that someone else who lives in the household shops for Market Force or someone else logged into their Market Force account on the same PC as the OP.

AustinMom Wrote:
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> does not use a ranking system visible to ICs. I
> can't think of any company using a ranking that
> would show 98.6.

Oops, didn't think about that

Actually, I have a double question. What MSC uses a ranking system that would give you a ranking of 98.6, and has so much work available that, after your first month of working for them, they owe you $1000? That should narrow it down. I guess it's physically possible with Marketforce, if you worked the max of 4 assignments a day, for every day in the month.

My first thought had been MF except the ranking and they are not known for any retaliation when it comes to weather creating a driving hazard. In fact, they tend to come down on the side of safety first, shops second.

The rating system sounds a lot like Sinclair Consumer Metrics. Their rating system goes up to 100 (mine is a 99.1 for them, my wife is a 99.4). These ratings are not shown on their site, you have to ask an employee about them.

That sounds horrible. I hope you get paid. I also hope you have some kind of proof that you did the work so that if you have to take them to small claims court you can. I am a relatively new mystery shopper and I worked this one job for one company which returned my work asking for more details and afterward they said that even though they gave me a high grade on my shop payment depended upon their client's approval of my work. I won't work for them again. Once again I certainly hope you get paid. I'll be very wary from now on.

Evemarie, Most MSC's work this way. If they do have questions, more details needed, etc. they will contact you. You update them via email or by logging into their site and correct it (if it can be). If the client does not accept it for some reason, you won't get paid. This is normal process and most of the MSC's state this in the guidelines. I have gotten perfect scores for reports before and still get told this spiel.

lbw1000 is correct, usually a shop is returned for additional detail and almost always shop payment is conditional on client acceptance. MSCs, however will frequently pay at least something if a client refuses a shop without justifiable cause. Some MSCs have more backbone than others, some will contact the shopper if a shop is contested to hear the shoppers side while others just kowtow to the client and short shrift the shopper. There are a couple of companies I will no longer work with because the client is purported to have rejected the shop and my polite (and less than polite) attempts to resolve the issue, where I did nothing wrong, were rebuffed. Too many companies out there to bother with the dolts.

And in this case, what rational human being would go $1000 in the hole with a company they had never worked with before and knew what the pay schedule was like???

I am a retired Union Organizer that knows labor law from a State and Fed level. They must pay you. If they do anything other than pay you, they are not right in the eyes of the law. You can take them to small claims court in your city and get a judgement. If they do not show (as they won't) that is not your issue. I must note that you worked for them for how many 10-15 dollar shops and did not get paid... and why??...

Send them an email. In your subject line place "Demand for payment, Due and Payable at Once". Get the name of The Secretary of State in the State they reside in. Get the same information for the Business licensing division of the city they reside in. Give them 30 days to pay you in full, results no excuses. State that unless you are payed in full that you will begin the complaint process to the Secretary of State, begin to challenge their business license, and even contact their local BBB as well.
Include the contact information for these entities in your email. Find out who owns the building they rent from and complain to them as well. Contact the utility company and complain to them that they have a tenant / user of utilities that owes you $$$. Why are they supporting this damned leech. Have your friends contact them. Hell, even those of us here need to contact them as individuals via email and telephone to show our support for you.

Sometimes you have to fight in life. win as well.

Don, Las Vegas

Sinclair and Person-to-Person use the decimal point rating system. I know I work for other MSCs that rate this way also but those are the only two that I can think of right now.

The OP did not say she/he was not getting paid, only wondering if the company was "firing" her/him so they would not have to pay. Hopefully the OP will not be one of those one post wonders that come here, post and then leave while well meaning members of the forum write voluminous advice. Note that the OP has not yet returned to check on the advice given. Of course it is only 15 hours or so.

Thanks for all the replies, everybody. I wasn't sure the protocol for naming the MSC and didn't want to do something that was against rules or ethics.

As for the amount of money earned in such a short period, I lucked out in the fact that my second job with them was a $150 audit. After completing that one they called me the next day and offered me three other audits that paid between $125-$175 each. Because of my location and the fact that I travel to some somewhat far flung places on a semi regular basis, I was offered several of these jobs in the subsequent weeks at no less than $75 and up to $175 after bonus pay. The pay added up quite quickly.

To clarify, as it seems it is allowed for me to do so after reading the replies, the company is Market Force. As for the rating, they had given me the rating over the phone in a previous conversation. As for the decimal, I am nearly certain they gave me a rating with a decimal. However, it is entirely plausible that I am getting them and SCM mixed up as I recently got my rating from them as well. Regardless, both ratings were both over 95.

Someone mentioned it could be simply that more than one person uses the same IP to go to their website? If that is a possible reason, then it is likely the reason as three family members shop for MF and it is plausible that we would have used the same IP at one point or another. I don't recall reading in the ICA that family members couldn't shop for them, so not sure why that would be an issue. Unless they are worried that it is one person using multiple names, but that should be an easy thing to confirm. In our case, we all have had our SSN's verified and they could easily pull up video footage of any of our shops to confirm that the correct person was the one shopping.

I think I will take the advice of others and call them to speak with them.

And sorry if my reply was delayed. It is Easter holiday and I have had my kids all weekend and my grandmother's birthday which have taken precedent.

MarketFoooorrrrceee *raises fist to the heavens*

Boy howdy, you sure hear more and more stories about that company around here, don't you?

bgriffin Wrote:
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> I'm guessing it's Market Force and I'm guessing
> that someone else who lives in the household shops
> for Market Force or someone else logged into their
> Market Force account on the same PC as the OP.


ding ding ding we have a winner

btw
Most state and federal labor law does not apply to independent contractors.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2014 03:13PM by walesmaven.

Don't know if you will ever get real reason. MF seems to let people go quite frequently for nebulous reasons but they do pay on time. I see my job board shrinking so I think I will soon be getting the boot. However there are many good qualities of that company and I did learn a lot about mystery shopping. Just time to move on to other MSC's.

Fired or not, MF will pay what they owe. I've heard of a number of people being canned from them after the third person signs up from the same address. My wife and I both work for MF with no issues, but I have an older daughter who wants to work for them, and I have intentionally not allowed it because of stories I have heard on this forum. Three seems to be the magic number of people in a household working for them when they start letting them go. I don't know if it's based on IP or registered phone number or street address.

I think it's the number your device puts out. At first, I thought the IP address. I think it's because someone else is using your computer and combine THAT with the same IP addy, MF freaks out.

Every device has a number built into it. I believe they are able to see that.

I may be wrong though.

You are not wrong - everyone has an IP address- and they are not that hard to figure out if you know what you are doing.

I know about the IP addy, but every device sends out 'signature'

I bet if someone used MY computer to log into MF, it would raise flags. (like maybe I'm cheating = 2 accounts?)

Sadly SF this is very typical behavior for MF and there have been many posts about it over the years. People just like you have had this exact same problem. As the others have said, it does appear to be connected with someone else using your computer to access their website. Apparently they have kittens when this happens and immediately deactivate you.

BTW I am sorry this has happened to you as they appear to have been a lucrative client for you. I think eventually this happens to us all with Market Force and it just happened sooner rather than later to you. Also, you'll get paid.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2014 10:04PM by jpgilham.

Gee, I sincerely hope that's not the reason... I referred my wife to MF and she has done quite a few shops for them. But we both connect from home and therefore have the same IP. Why would that raise an issue when there are 2 shoppers registered? Sounds a little knee-jerk to me. Hopefully this won't cause an issue, but I don't know a way around it. She needs to report her shops, I need to report mine... etc.

This is what I think..

You registered with MF on your computer.
She registered with MF on your computer. (I'm assuming same computer)

I'm sure they have a record of that, so it's okay.

Let's say I visit you and sign into MF on your computer.

GOODBYE! My shopper ID and your computer signature do not match, since I registered with them on mine here...

Makes sense, no?

No

Actually it made me think about the IMSC in Chicago. There was a small group of people in my room and a couple of the shoppers were not staying in the hotel. They logged into the hotel Wifi using my account in order to submit some reports. This thread made me wonder what would have happened if all of us were submitting reports to MF.

Canuck Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This is what I think..
>
> You registered with MF on your computer.
> She registered with MF on your computer. (I'm
> assuming same computer)
>
> I'm sure they have a record of that, so it's
> okay.
>
> Let's say I visit you and sign into MF on your
> computer.
>
> GOODBYE! My shopper ID and your computer signature
> do not match, since I registered with them on mine
> here...
>
> Makes sense, no?


No, actually. I've accessed my MF account on my laptop, smartphone (over the cellular network and various wifi hostposts around town) and from work - all vastly different IPs and computer 'ids'. This makes no sense - what if I was travelling and logged in from the hotel's public computer in the business center? I can't imagine they would deactivate for this...

Shpilkus
Make sure your payroll does not go into the same bank account for them.
It may not be a problem now but they eventually weed those out.

shpilkus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Gee, I sincerely hope that's not the reason... I
> referred my wife to MF and she has done quite a
> few shops for them. But we both connect from home
> and therefore have the same IP. Why would that
> raise an issue when there are 2 shoppers
> registered? Sounds a little knee-jerk to me.
> Hopefully this won't cause an issue, but I don't
> know a way around it. She needs to report her
> shops, I need to report mine... etc.