Today I got an e-mail asking me to tweet about why I love Mystery Shopping, etc. on Twitter for a chance to win hidden video equipment. Why do companies do this? Why on earth would I want everyone following me to know that I'm a mystery shopper? Ok, so pretty much I have to tell the world I'm a shopper just for the chance to win something. Stuff like that makes me mad. To me it is just proof that MSCs don't care about whether or not we can make money, they just want more people to get recruited so they can lower their fees and give me a ton of competition so I can drastically reduce my income. No thank you, I will not put that on my Twitter or Facebook or whatever. Are you freaking kidding me??!!

Use a fake name, like you do here.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. A real genius has his original ideas closer together.
~Georg C. Lichtenberg

I wouldn't worry, how do they know who you are, or what you look like?????

I suppose... I just don't feel like creating MORE accounts just to keep up with these companies.

Irene, if you use your real name and photo on T and FB, people KNOW.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. A real genius has his original ideas closer together.
~Georg C. Lichtenberg

I don't do Facebook or Twitter. I would be interested in hearing from shoppers who do, with respect to mystery shopping. Is there beneficial or interesting info that is learned from joining these sites?

I also got the email about the Twitter and Facebook.
Right now, I'm fine with checking the various job boards and I'm not really interested in getting alerts from the companies via these methods. It really has nothing to do with anonymity for me....I just feel like there is such a thing as information overload.

I am on both, and follow a couple companies on Twitter. They list jobs and give out info., it's just fun, but for those that are not comfortable, don't do it. I am not getting the problem if we choose to follow a company after having been invited.

The problem is that some people do not wish to give up their anonymity to others, MSC or not. Other followers can see you there. If that is an issue, you just do a second account that does not have your real friends and family, and does not have your real name, but has your shopping handle. I know I am NOT using my regular FB and T accounts for MS related activities, for many reasons. But I have several others, for different reasons, and one of those I allow to follow MSC's.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. A real genius has his original ideas closer together.
~Georg C. Lichtenberg

Yes my main concern was that I don't want my friends knowing what I do for a living. Each friend that does know about what I do decides to start shopping and I see my profits go down because there are more and more shoppers in my area. I already have a jobslinger account and get tons of e-mails with shop postings, so I totally agree that it is getting to the point of information overload. I already check my e-mail, business e-mail, facebook, jobslinger dinger, and several different websites every day for jobs. Now I'm supposed to add another twitter and facebook account? nooooooooooooooo

My reaction is the same. I get plenty of emails for jobs I don't want, even at the bonuses that are being offered at this time of the month. I check job boards and already know what is worthwhile to do and take those that are. So even the emails are mostly redundant. I make friends with schedulers I like to work with and we email mostly because it is more convenient for both of us. I don't need to go twittering away my time with folks to find out the latest and greatest $5 shop they couldn't place.

I am tired of sweepstakes, giveaways and contests. I propose that instead of spending that money on those "fabulous" prizes, they pay a decent shop fee.

I'd rather have a steady $20 per job pay than $10 and a chance to win $1000.

You're supposed to use a fake name here? Oh oh.

Don't worry, Michael, there's probably a lot of Michaels in Minneapolis, probably more than one shopper there named Michael. But, having said that, remember that ANYbody can come to a website and read what we post. I'm not a totally secretive person, but, byeond identifying my general location, I wouldn't want to advertise my name or address on an open web posting.

You are probably fine, Michael :) Generally it is the better part of wisdom not to give too much information about yourself anywhere on the web. It can be too useful to scammers, identity thiefs and in general persons of ill will. Just as a small experiment a year or two ago I took a phone number a shopper had posted. Using various 'web services' available for free, I was able to find her name, address, view the building she lived in, find out how long she had lived there (and where she lived before), and through a series of lucky quirks actually came up with her social security number, parents' names and the high school she had attended. I had enough information that, had I chosen to do so, I could have illegally posed as her to have her credit report sent to me. It represented an entertaining hour of web research and was motivated by idle curiosity rather than evil intent.

....so........LOL....... you have a potential new career opportunity if you ever decide you want to go that way ...... good thing for us all that your ability is channeled toward good rather than evil .....
Even knowing better than to give personal info on the web, it's still pretty scary to me that a piece of info, like a phone #, can yield a massive amount of personal information if searched by someone who knows what they are doing.

And the crazy thing is that you don't need to know much about what you are doing. Unfortunately a lot of information that is out there is 'public record' so you can do nothing about it. All you can do is keep enough of the peripheral information about yourself, your life, your family either off of the web entirely or as anonymously as possible out there.

I periodically search the web for myself. Luckily there are enough folks with my same first and last name that a search yields too many people to be useful. There was a big brouhaha here because a few years back Driver's License information was posted on the state's Motor Vehicles website containing waaaaay too much personal information (basically all information from your license application). Similarly documents on the Property Appraiser's website were showing buyer and seller social security numbers. Both of those have subsquently cleaned up their acts about what is displayed to the casual visitor.

Flash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And the crazy thing is that you don't need to know
> much about what you are doing. Unfortunately a
> lot of information that is out there is 'public
> record' so you can do nothing about it. All you
> can do is keep enough of the peripheral
> information about yourself, your life, your family
> either off of the web entirely or as anonymously
> as possible out there.
>
> I periodically search the web for myself. Luckily
> there are enough folks with my same first and last
> name that a search yields too many people to be
> useful. There was a big brouhaha here because a
> few years back Driver's License information was
> posted on the state's Motor Vehicles website
> containing waaaaay too much personal information
> (basically all information from your license
> application). Similarly documents on the Property
> Appraiser's website were showing buyer and seller
> social security numbers. Both of those have
> subsquently cleaned up their acts about what is
> displayed to the casual visitor.


I was amazed a few years back when I googled my name and an old resume that I had created to apply for a particular job was online for the world to see.

I knew the source because it was a special version of my resume that, while not inflated, was creatively polished to highlight specific strengths. I had used it once, and that was it.

But there it was posted on a job search website.

Come to find out, that employer uses that site to screen applicants, so, when I emailed my resume to them, they entered it into the site with other applicants.

So, there in the first line was my name, address, phone number, cell phone number, email address, schooling and job history, along with contact information for my references.

It was not pretty, nor was it easy to get my info out of that data base. The Job Search company told me the only one who could edit or delete a file was the person who entered it. It took several weeks of back and forth phone calls to get it resolved.

Unbelievable, JayTee. Had you not googled yourself and pursued the purge of your I.D., it could have been out there in perpetuity. Can't imagine that company not protecting your identity. Incompetence runs rampant.

I can imagine it. My experience in HR, though old, bets on it being more common rather than less so.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. A real genius has his original ideas closer together.
~Georg C. Lichtenberg

And yes, I can imagine it as well. I am pleased that a couple of my foibles are related to companies/websites now defunct. The material is still accessible via the archive.org 'wayback' machine, but as for currently browsable, they are not. I generally choose a quiet evening a couple of times per year using google and other search engines to try to find myself by name, address, phone, ss#, children's names, parents' names, siblings, etc. One sibling seems to not be able to get his name out there often enough, but at least his references are all to himself and his glory so never include siblings and only occasionally our dad. The internet is a place to leave footprints but no DNA.

If there's no sense of responsibility from companies, how about liability in making such info public?

My guess is that threat of lawsuit would get them to comply. At the same time, though, last spring I was hearing recommendations from what I had previously perceived to be responsible folks, that jobhunters should put up a FB page with interests, accomplishments, photos etc. so the recruiters could 'look them up on the web and find out more about them'. I must say that to me that did not sound like a very smart notion, but then again I am stuck in the time warp that went by the saying that 'fool's names and fool's faces are always found in public places'.