My wrap up of 2009 included a check from Regal for a December shop that was relatively on time.

I noticed the check was cut inside the 60-day window but the postmark was a few days later. Not late enough to make me worry, though.

In all fairness - I emailed Regal one time inquiry about my payment. I received a prompt response that they would look into the missing issue. I never heard anything again. I did not email again and wrote it off.

I realize that my write-off process is MUCH quicker than most people. It is a simple business decision for me, but I think it is important to clarify - as it seems that others have had a good experience with Regal and I do not want MY experience to prevent people from choosing to do business with them.

I run about $10,000 per month in fees/reimbursements and I simply do not have the time to chase after $25 - so I don't. Less than $50 - I will follow up usually one time (maybe more, but that is the average). If nothing - then it gets written off. Obviously if the amount owed is more, than there is a LOT more follow-up as appropriate.

So Regal maybe be a GREAT company. Mistakes happen, and perhaps mine was just that. While I personally would not work for them again - I would not suggest that anyone else avoid them.

Freeman is the one that owes me a good chunk of money from 2009 - they sent an email that it'd be paid the week of Feb 28th. So...we'll see. Service Sleuth was slow to pay some shops, but did eventually pay out.

I won't shop for Goodwin any longer. I did three for them last year - low fees, and multiple emails to get paid. Another mystery shopper in my area also had issues with a much larger amount - a $90 reimbursement dinner shop. He said he emailed and emailed and got paid 4-5 months afterwards.

ATH owes me a tiny bit from December. I did two or three shops for them. Though they can be slow with pays, I have never NOT gotten paid at all from them, soI continue working with them.

I am ecstatic to report that JC and Associates did what was right and paid me for shops that I completed in 2009. I had sent them a Paypal request last week. They responded after a couple days and said during the transition to another company, they thought I had been paid and that I could expect payment during this week. I did receive a Paypal deposit from them today. I am so happy that this has been settled.

I was paid for my December Service Sleuth Shops about a week ago. Interestingly, they sent several payments in Feb for the month of December. Likely a very busy time of the year for them. I did appreciate getting the money in chunks, as each payment said "more to come".

If you got paid from ATH in any manner, thank your blessings.....It is not normal for them to pay their bills.

CheckMark still owes me $300 from 2 years ago.

I did a shop for ath last week. Will have to wait and see if I get paid right. I started to accept several more but saw their name come up several times in this thread. So, I'll wait and see instead of spinning my wheels and seeing my blood pressure go up. ;)

Waiting on JC and Associates for December 2009.

They got me to do a shop in January. They set me a reminder the morning of the shop. So I went and did it. When I got home from the lunch shop, there was an email from Jason Rivera saying they had to cancel the shop per the restaurant company.

I sent him two emails which he ignored. Looks like I am getting stuck twice.

No way!!!!!!! I'm so sorry. They aren't on my list yet and I will keep it that way until I see your issue resolved. I better never waste my time, gas, ink, and energy ndddd laid out cash to get home to find someone has cancelled my shop in the couple of hours before I did a shop. grrrrrrr Hope the food was good.

Does anyone have a good suggestion on how to keep track of what money is owed to them? Do most shoppers use excel? I have to admit, I have been doing this almost a year and I still have not come up with a really good system to track what I have coming in.

We all finally hit on a system that works best for us. I track everything on paper with a log that lists all the pertinent stuff - MSP/Shop/Location/Date/Mileage/Fee/Reimbursement/Notes and Date/Method paid. I use a 3 ring binder, that also has alpha dividers with a page for every MSP I sign with - phone numbers, addresses, names, dates, clients, passwords, etc.

I am a huge fan of spreadsheets simply because it makes the information so flexible without rewriting anything. I sort it as a calendar as I am accepting jobs; insert rows as I add new jobs; highlight jobs I have requested but not yet been awarded; cut and paste to organize routes; go back and cancel jobs that are highlighted as pending before I hit the road for the day so they aren't awarded in my absence requiring a second trip; cut and paste completed jobs as they are done and reported to a completed section of my sheet; sort the sheet by MSP to make it easier to record payments as they are received and highlight the jobs in blue that are paid. When my sheet 'turns blue', I know everything is paid. When it is all blue except a couple of jobs I know who to start chasing for payment. For me the one spreadsheet keeps track of it all and the individual rows just keep having relevant information added to them as it becomes available.

I do something similar to Flash with color coding, but use the iCal calendar on my mac (you can do this with outlook as well on a PC).

I have one color combination for jobs I have requested and set aside time for, another for jobs that are scheduled/unpaid, and a third for those that have been paid.

The iCal will not do all the cool math that you can do with a spreadsheet, but it makes it very easy to see what upcoming, or what has not been paid at any particular time. It has one other major advantage as my memory grows worse each year...reminders!

I have reminders that tell me when I need to leave for shops that have deadlines, reminders for when I have to chase my $$, reminders for when I need to follow up on a report, etc.

The calendar also syncs with my iPhone, so I can make and change entries when I'm on the road. It's been a lifesaver except for one time; I had my phone on the bar at a dinner mystery shop and the reminder came up with "Dinner mystery shop" while I was talking with the bartender (The iPhone illuminates and displays a message when the reminder comes up, as well as vibrating and making a noise to get your attention).

I have now changed the reminder messages to be a bit more generic and just have the restaurant name.

thanks for the ideas.

G8r1966 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have not been paid from JC and Associates for a
> phone shop thru a scheduler done is Sept. I wrote
> them 3 times and the scheduler and have now sent a
> note to the new company that they have merged
> with.
> They should at least answer the e mail. It
> infuriates me.

I got paid completely from JC on 03-01-10 with shops dating from Sept 2009!! If you haven't been paid yet from JC assoc. The best thing I can say is to send all your accounting to both JC and the other co. JC is trying to right the screw ups of the company he sold to. The more specific and documented you are, the better chance you have of getting paid. A bad situation all the way around.

I sent invoices via email and paypal to Market Stat for a JCA shop done on a 7 day pay last May. I did this the other day, It has not been acknowledged and I remain unpaid.

**********************************************************************
“Making mistakes simply means you are learning faster.”
~Weston Agor

Like SteveSoCal, I also use mobileme and my imac, macbook pro and iphone to sync everything, and use calendar color coding, since I can then access it from whatever machine I happen to be using. Like Flash, I also use a spreadsheet. Hers. :-)

**********************************************************************
“Making mistakes simply means you are learning faster.”
~Weston Agor

Every single one of my companies pay me monthly. Nothing overdue :)
If I once didn't gget my money I would simply stop shopping for them.

What's up with Athpowers. They owe me for 10 shops. Seems like it takesthem along time to pay.

Pay can be slow. They pay by check, and it's cut the end of the following month after the shop. Then mailed. I've always been paid.

THX MERT

Good to know that you do get paid. Most of them are slow. I never expect to receive any payments quick. I usually receive them after I've forgotten, which usually works out because unexpected money is good money.
THX AGAIN

wow, mnairus, what kind of lawyer did you use?

I did a shop just this past week and for some lame reason the company decided to NOT accept the shop! I know I entered all the data they requested, for this time, they actually paid a decent amount.. Also, they NEVER contacted me via my regular e-mail.... it ended up in my spam mail!

That's bad... I did one shop for a company that the dispatcher messed us the schedule and I worked several days without pay. I'd like to get paid back for that, cuz it was 13 hours each day without no pay!

That's bad, the VP think that they can threaten a shoper!

I'm glad you got yourself an atty!

mnairus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the funny thing is that they did accept the shop
> but some bogus reason as to not pay what they
> promise. Then some vice president from the company
> thought that she could make threats to me. I am
> lucky that I got the lawyer for free

Goodwin owed me money for 2009, I have always had to hunt down payments from them. Usually I would receive it a day or two after asking. This time I got the run around and had to ask three times. The third time I got an answer that I was in a payment line and would need to wait my turn and they had no idea when that would be. I posted on Volition about not getting paid and within 2 hours they sent me a paypal payment.

Direct Scheduling Services owes me for a job I did 12-30-09 and was supposed to be paid on 1-15. As I mentioned in other threads my chances of collecting from them are pretty slim as the owner does not respond to my payment requests.

Sometimes I have been able to get companies to pay by responding to one of their job postings with, "would love to do the job for you but you still owe me $x from my last shop".

SMB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Sometimes I have been able to get companies to pay
> by responding to one of their job postings with,
> "would love to do the job for you but you still
> owe me $x from my last shop".

If I am at this point in the chasing down payment stage with an MSC, I just respond back to the scheduler with the feedback,

"Thank you for the offer, but I still have not been paid for the last time I did this for you, on Day/Date/Year."

If I have made collection attempts that have gone unanswered, I include that info. If not, I just ask what date I can expect payment, and we go from there.

**********************************************************************
“Making mistakes simply means you are learning faster.”
~Weston Agor

I was told by Freeman that my payment would be in the batch that would be "Monday at the latest". Foolishly I presumed that would be the Monday following the email. This is now Thursday following that Monday, so who knows what Monday they were referring to . . . . Aaargh!

The Monday after they file BK? :-(

**********************************************************************
“Making mistakes simply means you are learning faster.”
~Weston Agor

[singing quietly to self . . . "Monday, Monday . . . can't trust that daaaay. Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that waaaaay."]

:-)

**********************************************************************
“Making mistakes simply means you are learning faster.”
~Weston Agor