Any friends here that use the Easy Shift or Field Agent apps?

I used to use all those phone apps a LOT. I think I made around $500 a month on them. I stopped it though when the photo requirements became ridiculous, like 8 photos of a packet of potato chips right next to the cash register. I got asked to leave a location just one time too many.

Easy Shift has very few shifts available in my area and the competition is fierce. Field Agent has more available and I find their jobs easier to complete. I'm very selective about which ones I accept. I have no desire to be thrown out of a store.

Both apps pay fast. Also, if you "flake" on a job you don't have to worry about being deactivated.

Depending on the area you live in, these may or may not be worth the trouble. It is nice to pick up a shift when you're already in the store mystery shopping or regular shopping.

I've done both. They were my start to mystery shopping

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2015 08:45PM by quiettime.

The app Field Agent has dropped one that I had finished even though it showed completed, and while I was doing another in an area with weak cell service it froze up on me and I lost two more that I was going to do.

I tried to do one for easy shift. Way too much work for the pay and pretty much impossible to get all the photos they wanted. I had a clerk staring at me as I was taking pics. I had to abandon the shift. The only problem I have with Field Agent is they only give you 2 hours to complete the assignment after accepting it.

I recently downloaded both Easy Shift and Field Agent. Neither of them pay very well, IMHO, but I thought they'd be fun to try.

I did my first one for EasyShift this past weekend to see how it would go. If the order of the questions had been more logical it would have been a very quick $6.00, but the way the survey was laid out had me walking around the store way too much and repeating my steps several times - it was really inefficient. And I thought it required too many photos - lots of redundancy. But now I have an idea of how much time is required. I don't think the pay rate is very good based on my one shop, but I have to say that I was paid very quickly - within 2 days. In the future, if I have time, I'll sign up only for shifts that are in places I have to visit anyway, and only if the tasks don't strike me as being a PITA.

As for Field Agent, last weekend I tried to do some tasks that involved finding certain store-brand products in a particular supermarket. I chose those items (after scrolling through a list of well over 100 items, most of which I couldn't figure out because they were written in supermarket code shorthand that was hard to understand) because I was going to that store anyway. Not the app's fault, but the store did not carry the flavors of the item I was searching for in the size required by the app. There are some new tasks just listed that I may try if I have the time.

Bottom line for me is that these are only worth doing if they mesh nicely with something I'm doing anyway. They don't pay well enough for me to get excited about them.

I deleted both apps off my phone.

1. They run in the background all the time and constantly turn on the GPS and slow your phone down and chew up the battery.

2. They expect you to do things that will out you to a shop that you could get a better paying shop in the future with the photo's they expect.

3. They dilute Mystery Shopping and are meant to get complete amateurs to replace experienced mystery shoppers to do a $12-$15 assignment for $5-$6 simply because the app tells you your already near the location.

I'd like to see the companies fail that are behind these apps. They lower the bar one more notch on MS pay for all of us.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/2014 11:35AM by scanman1.

@scanman1, I think you probably and most likely 100% correct.

scanman 1, I'm glad you posted your comments. I hadn't really thought about the fact that these businesses are using inexperienced people to get their data more cheaply. That's a really good point, enough to make me decide that I won't mess with them any more. I appreciate your bringing that up.

As far as being outed, when I did the one EasyShift I was careful to avoid being noticed by staff in the store (but of course you never know). I found that doing that was actually harder than conducting the mystery shops I've done at that same store.

So, having considered points 2 & 3, I'm deleting the two apps.

As for your first point, and this applies to lots of smartphone stuff, I only keep location on when I need it, so that helps a lot as far as draining my phone's battery. The other thing I do is use the Battery Doctor app, which optimizes everything on my phone to reduce battery consumption - it keeps apps like EasyShift and Field Agent in their place, not sucking up the power. In fact, for anyone who has a smartphone and thinks the battery is being drained too quickly, it's worth taking a look at Battery Doctor or one of the other highly rated power saving apps out there. Aside from reducing consumption, it helps manage the battery charging in your phone so that (in theory, anyway), the battery life expectation improves.

I believe ScanMan is correct. I have Field Agent and have noticed a few "Mystery shops". They are a regular cell phone vendor shop and the pay is only $5!

I deleted them both off my phone. Thanks for the information. I never thought of them tracking me and giving shops to inexperienced shoppers at a REALLY low fee.

You want to know how you're doing? Hire us! We'll get the job done professionally.

Okay, I guess I will be the opposing view to Scanman's post. While some assignments posted by Field agent, Easy Shift, Gigwalk etc are mystery shops, the majority of them are not. Most assignments require merely taking a few pics and answering a few questions-there is no "expertise" required. Sure they do not pay very much, but they are also effortless. I have done two on my morning walk yesterday and was paid $10.00 for very little effort. Mystery shopping is not my primary source of income so adding a few shop apps to my routine works for me. I don't want them to disappear.

They do pay very little but if you are in the store anyway...... with ZERO paperwork.

I looked at two Mystery Shops and they were the full shop for half the pay I have seen on the job boards.
One was a cell phone manufacturer shop, where you have to go in and see if the employee will attempt to sell their product AND take photo's of all of their product displays for a whopping $5.

There is another shop on the board right now for a $12 base pay at the same exact location and this shop is for the company and not a vendor. It is a Sassie shop and of the 11 or so in my area, none were taken six hours after the email went out. They also had a 180 day rotation since last time you shopped this location stipulation.

The $5 shop would disqualify you for the slightly better shop, even if you did manage to snap photo's of all of that companies branded displays and not get noticed with two employees in the store and zero customers.

I did see offers to snap photos for $4. I would not find a parking spot at Walmart for $4 if I passed the store. If I was already in the store, I could see this being worth the effort to take a product photo. The scavenger hunt from one app listed house brand products that are for stores not even located in my state, or the product description is so vague that it looked like a real easter egg hunt for peanuts.

Spork, clearly different tasks will be available in different locations, so each of us will see a different mix. Before I deleted EasyShift I saw a little bit of everything, and yes, some of them were mystery shops that were the same as what some of the MSCs have, only paying less.

Bottom line, of course, is that EasyShift will make sense for some, not for others. Best way to decide is to try the app and see what's available in one's geographic area. If you see regular mystery shops, you can always get them directly from the MSC instead, where you might have a chance for higher pay, a bonus, and the chance to build a relationship with the MSC. Do the non-mystery shop tasks via the app if they make sense for you.

I have a few apps that give me points for scanning and/or buying certain products at stores where I'm already shopping - Ibotta, CheckPoints, Checkout 51, Rewardable, etc. The only one I know of specifically for mystery shopping is PrestoMap - where do we look for the others discussed in this thread, please? I'd be interested in at least looking at what's available in my area.

Thanks!

@Lisa4984 Where are you located? Your answer depends on the level of help I'm willing to give you. Just kidding! Easy Shift and Field Agent are apps just like the others you mentioned. I use all of those too, but I've earned way more money with these two. The trick with these is to check them many times a day. Field Agent only gives you two hours, so unless I'm headed out, I don't reserve those.

Very funny! I'm nowhere near you - the Pacific Northwest. I found both in my Google Play store. Then I just have to look at the "Similar Apps" - thanks!

Easy Shift: First two "shifts" I see - 27 questions and 12 pics for $4. As if!

Field Agent: 8 questions and 6 pics for $8 - now we're talking!

I have made some decent money with Field Agent and generally the jobs are very quick. Did a WalMart greeter audit today (there actually wasn't one!) 5 dollars in 5 minutes. And while I was there I racked up some Shopkick points. Another one you might want to consider (unless you live in my area of course) is Mobee. Similar to Easy Shift/Field Agent, you can't withdraw cash but you can get gift cards for major stores. One nice thing about Mobee - the job pays a base "salary" and they bonus you if it's your fist visit to a location, or you've traveled xx miles since your last job. On some I have more than doubled the base rate in bonuses.

Last but not least, iBotta. With the teamwork bonuses there are some nice extra funds to earn besides the rebates themselves. I'm trying to get the third $10 December bonus before the month runs out but it'll be close. If you don't have iBotta yet and want to join an active team, private message me and I'll give you the code. We both win.

shpilkus Wrote:
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> Another one you
> might want to consider (unless you live in my area
> of course) is Mobee.

Do you still get coffee, donut and ff on your Mobee? All that stopped a few months back and now I got these weird audit, which are impossible to do, because the pictures would not load. I loved it when they had Starbucks!

Yeah, I like Mobee too. But they require a lot of work for $1.50 and you can only cash out in gift cards.

I need a better iBotta team! I don't know how to join one though. My teammates are the one's that used my link to sign up and they hardly do anything. I never get the bonuses.

don't knock the gift cards...through various apps like Mobee...the time Target had a data breech...I was safe...I had only used gift cards at Target!

Mobee was better last year. $10-$15...sometimes $20+ on one shop. Made an entire route one time. Risky since they are not able to be reserved, and someone could get there sooner. That was so nice. -sigh-

The Mobee 1100 points at the department stores are actually 4 separate shops....sneaky!

I was in a drug store doing a Field Agent and had an easy shift at the same time. But my phone wouldn't pull it back up for me, so easy shift you get a raspberry from me. Oh, and also deleted.

The key is to finish one job and start the next. Finish the Field Agent then start the Easy Shift.
No issues that way.

2stepps Wrote:
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> I was in a drug store doing a Field Agent and had
> an easy shift at the same time. But my phone
> wouldn't pull it back up for me, so easy shift you
> get a raspberry from me. Oh, and also deleted.