They are a good part of my bread and butter too! I stay away from the ones that require a gas purchase as I have found when bunching them together my little car can not hold the gas I'm required to buy!

I have done all Brands with this company. It takes me about and hour to get all pictures required. It takes me about one and half hours per report to edit and write what is needed. I am in CO and I ask for a set amount based on round trip mileage from my home and the shop. If it is in the final month of the quarter of the period I have found they will pay and if set up in a route the better. They want to pay the least possible amount they can but you can make money if you plan them right. I have found that 5 shops per day is the most I can handle. Doing the Night time shops will pay more however watch the time period and there requirements for some and not be done two hours after sun goes down and they can not be done as the sunrises. Remember that the ones done in a city will not pay as much if they are out of town or do one want to do them. A gift card works best on the pay at the pump part because some brand's bare your card if used more than three time in 24 hours.

@lbtweety47 wrote:

They are a good part of my bread and butter too! I stay away from the ones that require a gas purchase as I have found when bunching them together my little car can not hold the gas I'm required to buy!

I have been there. I have found out you have to carry a 5 gallon gas can to bale you out

I had a good run at a low price with convenience stores/gas stations that did not require a lot of work to complete and the reports went fast. I was able to complete and report all the shops and made a decent day's pay for doing so. They were all located in one town and with route planner, it made everything so much easier in a city I was unfamiliar. When these shops ran out at the end of the year, I believe the MSC lost the contract, as they have not reappeared in the new year. I tried my hand at red, white and blue stations, thinking they would be similar but with a total of 7 photos instead of two for the quick shops. The pay was the same. The problem was that I had to document in writing and with pictures any issues at all sites, including any illegal materials, porn, adult magazines, pipes, bath salts, roach clips, bongs, drug magazines, excessively chipped paint on anything, dirty bollards, side panels, toppers, even excess signage on the doors into the building entrance. I would up taking anywhere from 20 to 40 photos because if one pump was dirty or chipped, or two bollards or trashcans or they didn't contain washer liquid and squeegees, then a picture of each one had to be taken and documented in writing. I was spending over half an hour at each location for $9 and then an hour to document the shop. I quit after one day and told the scheduler why. I was at one podunk town and found synthetic dope for sale and was ordered to leave when I started photographing. The man behind the counter was carrying a visible gun on his waist. He did not pull it, but after the manner in which he spoke to me, that was it for me. I was through. I did not spend 8 years in college to obtain a doctorate degree and 43 years working in high paid positions to spend an hour and a half for $9. I love most of this work and if the first ones open up again somewhere, I will take the red initial ones again. But the red, white and blue, the MSC needs to pay $50 a shop and the shopper needs to be armed.

Debit cards are best for paying for gas. The gas stations let me use the same credit card 2 times per day before rejecting on the third attempt. So credit cards can be used twice. Debit cards can be used 4 times per day; twice as debit and twice more as credit. Also, debit cards are easier to get with poor credit, and you don't have to pay for them. I have always used my pickup truck, so where to put the gas was not generally a problem since the tank held 25 gallons.

Gas stations are a good part of my business. If you know how to negotiate and when to negotiate you can end the month with nicely bonused days. Last month it was 2 shops for $174 and this month it was 4 shops for $175. Nice way to close out the month. Both mini routes exceeded my 2 to 1 income/expense ratio and averaged around $40 per hour, not counting report uploading time. I have done enough stations that I can be in and out in 1/2 hour or less. While I do see some seedy restrooms I have not had the bad experiences that some describe. No heavy drugs, no guns, no gangs and very few antagonistic owners or attendants. There are enough stations in suburban areas that I can pass on the inner-city sites. One of the positives of MS is that I choose where I go. Just saying.

I like Maritz. I will do the Seashell reveal and the Red, White and Blue mystery shop. Did R,W,&B a few days ago, $12 shop fee, $5 gas and $1 purchase (2 bags of Planter's peanuts for $1...can stay in car for emergency snack). No pictures...Easy! Doing another next week. I had forgotten just how easy. Did the green ones a yr or so ago, as well as the Morning/Night one, but for some reason, stopped. In NV, bonuses don't happen often, as we are scheduled thru the scheduling companies, who add a few $$ to the shop fee.

@jay225 wrote:

I've seen a few threads on here that caused to me to steer clear of these shops, but are they really that bad? Due to lack of available shops around me lately(and loss of arches), I may need to start regularly doing these. I don't see how it would be possible to spend an hour at a gas station taking photos like i've read others have... i've done them for other msc's and i'm at the location 10 minutes. Are the different fuel station brands all the same level of difficulty? Can I get away with asking for $50 a shop?

these shops are fine if you are experienced with them. if one is not experienced, then they take an hour. you won't get $50 for them. maybe $17 apiece, but many are located in a small radius, several per town.

I don't think you will see anything close to $50 for a gas station shop unless its in a remote location and they really need to get it done. I can remember once getting $40 for a gas station shop from another MSC but it was on the turnpike with 25 miles between exits and there was no reimbursement for the toll.

I just did one tonight for 50.

I got paid $50 for a gas station on the NJ Turnpike 2 weeks ago. And $51 each for two Green and White in Philadelphia earlier this month. They are the exceptions, of course I generally want $20 or so for convenient locations.

I've skimmed through some of the posts here.

At first, the Maritz instructional books look disjointed. Once I performed a couple, it became easier. So I plan a unit of time to perform the shop. I have my own short sheet which saves me time. I'm going to do 3 Maritz gas station shops, 3 other gas shops and two bank shops for over $120. Should take four hours with maybe two hours max of report writing.

I tend to look at accomplishing goals. I perform two types of bank shops during the same visit for one company because i have a plausible scenario to make both be believable. So after an hour I have $80 in the hopper. I do bonused oil change shops by borrowing friends cars. I perform the oil change, do a car wash shop. I have $45 in fees then I do other shops in the area. I put gas in my friends car and save wear and tear on mine. Win-Win.

@whosear wrote:

At first, the Maritz instructional books look disjointed.

I noticed that the Q1 Red/Blue and especially the Q1 Green shops are FINALLY far better organized. You no longer do from question 1 to 12 to 4 to 23.

filling out the reports for red, white, and blue are annoying, and take way too long uploading all the photos, etc. I don't know how anyone could take these for base fee. Even if you're doing a route... that's even worse. You'd have to spend all day uploading reports.

jay, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to do one of those reports. If you try to upload pictures inside the report that will take longer. Wait until you submit all the data. Get everything in, then hit submit. After you do that you'll get a screen that lets you put in all the pictures on the same screen and you upload all of them at the same time. This will help you a lot on the time. If you have specific questions you are welcome to pm me.

@MDavisnowell wrote:

jay, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to do one of those reports. If you try to upload pictures inside the report that will take longer. Wait until you submit all the data. Get everything in, then hit submit. After you do that you'll get a screen that lets you put in all the pictures on the same screen and you upload all of them at the same time. This will help you a lot on the time. If you have specific questions you are welcome to pm me.

I've never really been bothered with how long the report took, but that is one heck of a good idea! Thanks!

if you can do the red white and blues in a few minutes, kudos to you. there's a lot of photos to upload, bunch of questions, and a narrative in there... i've done plenty of reports in a few minutes, but definitely not these. the free gas and peanuts is always nice, but still.... show me the money.

Took me a while to learn that one about waiting to upload photos but once I did the photos were a snap to uplad and coupled with the fact we now have fiber high speed it cuts my reporting time in half. Possible some of time folks spend on uploading reports is because of slow bandwidth and they beleive it is the MSC I did and found out I was wrong.. What i dislike is the reporting by some other msc in the food area require mind numbing narratives that seem to take forever and are never excatly what the editors are satisfied with. I love Maritz with the exception of one bad experience in four years. Now thats behind me I am working for them once again

A ten pump station takes on average sixteen minutes to input the data and upload. This does not include getting the pictures ready, such as picking out the better pictures and labeling them. Like Michshopper says, some of the problem may be your internet speed. Sometimes the Maritz website is slower than other times. It's rocking tonight after being down earlier today. No narrative is required on the red/white/blue station that requires a picture of each pump. That's the one I'm talking about here. The yellow station has a more detailed report, takes a little longer.

I am thinking about trying out a Martiz gas station shop. There is an assignment listed as a dark audit at the green and white station. Is anyone familiar with this "fast and easy night time non reveal" assignment? I normally ignore the words "fast and easy" when the MSC is describing a shop. I fell for those two words rather often when I first started shopping a few years ago.

All these but one brand is easy after you've done 4 or 5 of them. One brand is a lot of work as they try to combine 2 shops in one, and it pays the least and takes the most time.

The green and white night audit is pretty easy. It requires maneuvering around to each side of the station for photos, so I've avoided the highway locations. I pretty much remained in my car and took photos from the car, pulled around the corner to an adjacent parking lot and took more photos. You don't have to even go on property.

I agree thats these are easy if the geometry of the site is such that you can find a parking lot opposite the station and on each side. The fee is too low to justify driving very far. I have only done a few close ones, and even then only ones for which I know that there is a parking lot and I will not have to count on "stopping" on a 6 lane highway to take photos at night. Some locations simply do not have convenient access, and have such a small lot that you can't do it from on the property. So far, I have done 4, and all have been non-compliant to some extent.

@MsJudi wrote:

The green and white night audit is pretty easy. It requires maneuvering around to each side of the station for photos, so I've avoided the highway locations. I pretty much remained in my car and took photos from the car, pulled around the corner to an adjacent parking lot and took more photos. You don't have to even go on property.

The only part that is a total PITA is having to load just 2 photos at a time and getting only 2 tries to get the uploads done. Otherwise it times out and says error code 500.

When I can get a route going, and I can set it up the way I want it, it works.

I had them just call me asking if I can do two shops, both in different geographical directions. I told them to look to see if they had any shoppers in those areas, and I gave them the biggest cities that is closest.

Cettie, are you loading photos inside the report? On the stations I do for this company, I load no photos inside the report. After I enter all the data and hit submit, I get a screen where I can load all the photos at one time. Maybe you are doing different brands and the reports work differently, but I am doing four brands and on all of them I can upload all the pictures after entering the data and hitting submit. This saves a tremendous amount of time.

Thank you for the feedback regarding the green and white night audits. The location that I was thinking of trying would have difficult access on both side. The location is also on a major highway.

I have a naming convention.

YYYYmmddBRANDnnnnnnnDescription

nnnnnnn is the shop number

So, for example:
20160120Company1234567overall1exterior
20160120Company1234567overall2PID
20160120Company1234567Q33

Q33 is a violation photo

@Dandydew wrote:

Hello everyone. My new forum name is Dandydew (formerly "Shopperfest" which some people did not like.) Quick question: Does anyone take time to rename the photos for the convenience of the editors. Is it even necessary to rename photos? I have done a few gas station shops, and renaming/uploading the photos is what take's the most time for me. I do not do many because the fee is so low, but mostly because the bathrooms are so disgusting!

Why is it that on here one can describe the logo of the business, but not state the name?