Two identical shops, different locations and dates - I did today's shop yesterday and yesterday's shop today.

I also entered the shop I did yesterday (on the wrong date) into the wrong report (wrong location.)

Just to make things clear...yesterday I entered today's shop which I did yesterday into yesterday's shop report but I actually did that shop today and now I have nowhere to enter that report.

Confused? Me tooooooooo!!!!!

I just emailed my scheduler and tried to explain it. I think I should send her a bottle of wine, but since I can't I think I'm going to start drinking it now.

So sorry. It happens. Enjoy the wine.

Can I get a glass. I am professional shopper and I had to read it careful to understand which I do.

I "almost" did that when I had the same situation as you had. Something made me re-look at my paperwork and sure enough, I had the wrong days for each. Thankfully, I caught it and fixed everything. It can happen when you have lots of shops going on and some are identical except for the date!

I hope you feel better after enjoying that wine. I have messed up my share of times. Somehow on some phone shops I reported them in the wrong reports. I thought I did each report before doing the next phone call so was really surprised to be contacted - after it had all been accepted. I didn't have their recordings any more but luckily a couple of the recordings were still on my computer and I had my notes and was able to straighten it out. They thought maybe I had more than one report open at a time on my computer.

They have let me work for them again.

The scheduler may be able to change the date of the shops.

Schedulers are adept at working magic - this sort of thing happens routinely and we can usually make sense out of nonsense....most of the time! And....a sincere apology goes a long way!

Today I did a shop and forgot to get the business card! I got all the other brochures, but forgot the card. I contacted the scheduler, and hope because I remember the name they will let it go through. I am new to mystery shopping and am trying to do everything right.

@Shop8671 wrote:

Today I did a shop and forgot to get the business card! I got all the other brochures, but forgot the card. I contacted the scheduler, and hope because I remember the name they will let it go through. I am new to mystery shopping and am trying to do everything right.

I hope all goes well for you. We were all new once and I remember how it felt back when I first started shopping. Just keep your chin up, keep accepting shops and try to move forward...

Since I didn't mention the client I want to give a shout out to my scheduler, Linda Pegram at Bare.

She waved her magic wand and opened up the report that I had submitted with the wrong information, changed the dates on the shops, and is allowing me to have another go at submitting the right info into the right report for the right date.

I've done a lot of shops for her and she is just awesome. Always answers if I email and just seems unflappable. Once before I shopped something on the wrong day and she fixed that too.

So it ended up ok. I've been working a lot lately and maybe this was just a wake up call for me to remember to check and double check what I do.

@SueAtJancyn wrote:

Schedulers are adept at working magic - this sort of thing happens routinely and we can usually make sense out of nonsense....most of the time! And....a sincere apology goes a long way!

SueAtJancyn, my very first shop for you had to be rescheduled multiple times due to weather issues. Not once in all our back and forth emails did you say for me to just get my sissy Texas butt in the car and go count some clothes! You just kept calmly rescheduling until the day things thawed out.

It's happened to me before. I have had some wonderful schedulers who happened to be attentive to emails and were able to fix things quickly when I mixed up reports. I have also realized a few times after hitting submit that I made a mistake or left out important information, and my scheduler has gone in and corrected or added information to a report for me. This has occurred with different schedulers and different companies. You know, once they get the shop scheduled and it gets completed, they don't have to go the additional mile, so kudos to those who do (sounds like Sue has helped you out Number Nineteen, so w2g Sue!).

I panicked one night when I was doing a report and notice the last name of the leasing agent was missing on the business card. I spent over an hour looking on the internet under the apartment complex and managing company to see if I could find a list of employee names. I even searched facebook. I'm just a little OCD - ya think!!!!!!!!!!!

@NumberNineteen wrote:

I've done a lot of shops for her and she is just awesome. Always answers if I email and just seems unflappable.

Good that it worked out. Crazy how two different shoppers can have two totally different experiences.

Be extra careful when reporting results at larger MSCs. I know for a fact Market Force cannot do this because they simply have too many reports. And yes, I've screwed up and shopped the wrong location before on an MF shop... nothing to do but reschedule or cancel at that point.

cunningphome: 99% of shoppers who stay in the game and are successful are OCD. I was OCD way before I started being an MS, so I think that it just goes with the territory...hey, other long-term shoppers, correct me if I am wrong about this...aren't we mostly obsessive about doing the best possible job that we can and always including the proper information?

Hey have the Rover app relay the information into the wrong shop form. I had no idea until I got the feedback a week later! I had to re-enter over 300 answers and pictures into the correct form after trying to find the hard copies. Fun times!
I feel your pain!

Anyone who has shopped for a while has probably had a similar experience. Always contact the scheduler. They will usually try to work it to fit if they can.

I've done a few wrong location or wrong scenario but for companies & shops I've done many times. The schedulers know me and have worked with me to try to get me paid for a shop that is usable. Good luck.

How about going to the wrong place TWICE! I had 3 monthly reveal shops on the other side of town (where none of the streets run N-S or E-W). I went to the 1st one and, after working for over an hour, was told by the manager that they had been shopped 2 weeks ago. I went to the 2nd one and completed the shop. I then completed the 3rd shop. I contacted my scheduler about the 1st shop and was told the shop 2 weeks ago was for the previous month and that I had to do it. Instead of going back to the 1st shop, I went to the 2nd shop and started where I had left off. In a conversation with management, I realized I was not at shop one, but at shop 2. Finally I got to shop 1 and completed the assignment. No more shops on the other side of town for me!

What a great attitude. Definitely enjoy the wine.

Many years ago I was doing some check cashing shops in the Albuquerque area. The addressing the adds directional at the end (123 Central Av NE or 231 Central Av SE). The business had locations of almost the same numeric on Central Av. Not thinking, I went to the south location for a north assignment. I had to redo. I didn't thinking of the directional too carefully until then.

You know..I forgot a businesscard once and thank goodness it was a revealed shop. I called them back and humbly asked for them to e-mail me a copy, and they did.

I once screwed up two shops very similarly to the above OP. I did them ok, but I filled out two entire reports (Loong ones) in the opposite spots. Did the scheduler help me and change the dates? NOOOoooo--she erased them kindly, so I had to redo both of them. The one time I screwed up the two shops on different days..did the scheduler help me? Noooo, not then, either. They both got invalidated.

I deal with three different schedulers at Bare, Nicole Webb, LaTanya Greene and Jeffrey Rose. Every one of these people are the best. I have a favorite scheduler at several other MSC but nover more than one, except here. I figured I had nothing but the cream but am happy to hear of other SugarPlum Schedulers at Bare. (As in "stuck in my thumb".

Another 'Sugarplaum Schedulers" at Bare are Tara Wright and Kathy Griffin. A few times they had waved their
magic wands and things were better in the mystery shopping world.

Speaking of confusing shops, I shopped the wrong store twice. Fortunately, I caught my mistake and I was able to reschedule the shop. There were two shops with the same name, except one was for kids, located in the same mall. Having done these shops before, I thought they were the same two stores. Only when I started on the report did I know I went to the wrong store. I checked the mall online and discovered that there were actually two adult shops and one kid shop under the same designer. I immediately rescheduled the shop and saved my record.

I feel your pain!

I am having trouble understanding how two 'identical shops' can have different locations and dates. If the shops were at different locations and were to be performed on different dates, how can they be 'identical'? This forces me to imagine a long list of 'what-ifs', and my best guess is that you were scheduled to do two 'similar' shops at what I'll simply call Store-X, which has multiple locations. So you did a shop at Store-X1 but reported it as Store-X2, and vice versa, and you did this on the wrong dates for each one? If this sounds like what happened to you, then I'd suggest you use a calendar to keep track of all your shops. Everytime you accept a shop, enter the time and location on your calendar. Most importantly, print out all shop instructions, take them with you, and verify location, type of shop (dine-in; drive-thru; audit, bank loan, etc.), and date, before beginning your shop. Based on what you've described, the mystery shop companies I primarily work for would at the very least reprimand me for not paying close enough attention to the shopping instructions they provided and would caution me against repeating this mistake in the future.

Hilarious - but not laughable. It's like the Abbott & Costello routine of "Who's on First?" Just remember that today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday - and it will all be fine in 50 years anyhow.

Well, I don't think anyone is perfect. Looking back, I could not believe I ever made the mistakes I did a while back when I was a newbie. Yet, the shops all went through. I would not be so sanctimonious to think I am incapable of making any error again. It would just be easier to correct any boo-boo, if it could be corrected. It is from learning from our mistakes that we become better shoppers. For instance, no amount of bonus could persuade me to ever overbook again. I know when I could easily make short cuts and cost me the shop.

And based on the fact that the schedulers were willing to wave their magic wands indicated that the OP was a trusted shopper to them. It is in those little things that the schedulers do to bend over backwards that show the shopper is a keeper in their eyes. Perhaps she has done a number of things to save their butts, too, like taking a flaked shop or a disliked shop to get it off their list...even without a bonus. Even sacrificing a more important shop, moneywise or funwise.

Or perhaps doing something more to save the shop is in the schedulers' nature. But I bet they don't do it for every shopper. I give OP (numbernineteen) the credit for having that 'something' to encourage the scheduler or the MSC to be on her side and remember that without one or the other, there is no successful shop.

Thanks, risinghorizon!

I thought it odd to be lectured by a first time poster but didn't say anything because of all the shenanigans going on lately with newbies.