I opened up my email, and to my horror, I had a shop report returned to me - again! I open up the shop and, somehow, had made typos where there weren't any the first time. I was really upset by this as I began attempting to fix the errors. For some reason I couldn't fix the misspelled words. I was also quite upset with myself for not proof reading the report before submitting it in the first place. Just about the time I was going to email the proof reader, the phone rang. Thank you, daughter number one. You woke me up from a horrible nightmare. I was so relieved. I guess I had better stop reading this forum before bed!

You must have been dreaming about Intellishop

Horrible nightmare? Why do I feel like shoppers worry about the smallest issues? lol

We do not!

We observe, document, report, and submit the smallest issues!

And then editors find even smaller, microscopic issues and let us know (or not and just dock our grade!)

I actually did open an email that is a horror issue.
I followed all the guidelines, finished the shop, debriefed it on time and was done. Until today that is.
The email said, I know the guidelines said to call up to five times to contact this Place. However we do not want to turn the report into the client without the phone call completed. The actual call is recorded and so I had to call through the computer system. The system cut me off with no more attempts after the fifth call was made that day. That was that, I filled out that portion of paper work.
The scheduler now wants me to continue to try to call additional times. She said she was going to reset the page to allow up to ten more calls. She did not fix the page to allow me to try to call any more times. I finally contacted her again and told her the problem. She was mad at me because I did not tell her earlier that she did not correct the page for calling.
Now am I missing something here or should I even be ask to do this type of going against the guidelines. No additional money was offered for the extra work. I just don't think this is a good thing.
Is this a common thing? What do you think? What would you do?

You followed the guidelines, you should be paid.

If she wants to you go beyond the shop requirements, she should be offering more pay.

And more importantly, the client NEEDS to know about your experience, as it was the first time! Five call and you couldn't reach a live person. Realistically, would the average customer continue trying for a total of 10 -15 times??

I wouldn't!

On past shops, I have expressed to the scheduler that the client should know that the customer can't reach a live person after a reasonable amount of attempts. As a customer, I probably won't bother after a few failed attempts.

Who is the company (MS)? Don't mention the client - just the company please.

Others may be able to tell you if this is a common occurrence with that company.

HAS to be an Intellishop nightmare. I've written four books and a short story. All are published with great reviews. Editors at Intellishop make me feel like I'm a writing novice, rather than a novelist. Isn't it an editor's job to edit? Why should they deduct points from shopper reports? If we didn't make a few mistakes, they wouldn't have a job.

I have had a rough week, my latest thing is that an editor has sent back a report wanting to know what a sales person said on the call, no where in the requirements was I required to make a call.

What has worked well for me, has been to ask the scheduler or the editor (who ever is asking for more information) to show me (not tell me, but SHOW me) WHERE in the guidelines does it say that I need to do - fill in the blank.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they can't find that requirement anywhere. Problem solved.

If they continue to go on about how I should have just known to do it, I ask them to explain to me how much more they will pay me for "being a mind reader."

In that rare case where they can find it, I ask them more questions. It's not been a problem. It's usually in conflict with something else in the guidelines.

And I have learned that Beyond/RSG/whoever else they are these days, that the guidelines and shop requirements and shop reports will have conflicting information/requirements. And asking for clarification gets me nowhere! The responses to my very carefully construed questions, along with the supporting sources and quotes, are very vague. "Just do what the shop guidelines say and you will be fine."

Uh really? Cuz they say to do x, and the shop guidelines in the report say to do y, and the report itself asks for z and don't mention x or y. And you want me to do what???

Pammie - Ask the editor to show you where in the guidelines it says to call the sales person and where that information is asked for in the report.

JHJones6753 - yeah, they are BAD. I have had them completely remove an explanatory, very detailed paragraph from my report and then claim I didn't follow guidelines. I copy and paste my narratives. I also screen shot save my reports. AND I save my reports as a PDF file. I went back and saw that I had completely explained what the sales person did. (I was shopping for x product and the sales person REFUSED to let me look at x product and REFUSED to discuss x product. He ONLY wanted to talk about z product. I explained this in detail. I had also shot the scheduler an email and gave her a heads up. She said write it as it happened.)

I went to the scheduler and explained. She came back with a copy and pasted tidbit from my report and said nope, you didn't tell us what really happened. This was after I had sent her a copy of the submitted report with clearly showed my "missing paragraph."

I didn't get paid. I CHOOSE not to work for that company anymore. If the editors can get away with that behavior - altering a report so much I am not being paid for my efforts - I don't want to work for that company. I later found out the report was submitted to the client and accepted. I later ran into the sales person who was angry with me for "reporting him to his bosses." Really???

Remember, at the end of the day/night, editors are humans and sometimes make mistakes. It's when they choose to sabotage our reports so we don't get paid or refuse to own up to their mistakes that they become monsters.

There really should be a limit on the number of calls we have to make without additional payments. I like the real estate agent calls because I make three calls, make a record of the date and time I called, and then if I still can't reach someone who can tell me about the property, I submit the report and get paid.

You need to point out to the person trying to get you to do more phone calls that she is dealing with two contracts. The contract with the hiring company and the contract with you (hence the term independent contractor). Do not accept phone contact with this person because they will lie, make them e-mail you. You don't have to do the phone calls, because your contract has been executed and as this would be a new contract they need to offer you compensation for your work. CC someone else in at the company because I have the faint feeling this person screwed up on her end and is trying to cover their incompetence and the only way they can do that is by bullying you into doing the work. If they have to turn in two reports for the one job, Lucy will have some splaining to do. But then again you may win the battle but lose the war when you stop getting assignments, unless of course her coworkers dislike her then you might end up with more work...lol