I work for over 30 mystery shopping companies; rarely do I get calls from any of them. 95% of the time I just work via e-mail. Not so with Purple Portal MF! I get sometimes as many as six phone calls a day in broken English from the Philippines. It is so obvious they are reading from a script. It always starts like.....

"Hi this is.... (Fill in any American sounding first name) i.e. Bubba, Billy Bob, Sally, Bill, David, Betty, etc.) from Market Force! May I speak with Ed? Hi Ed, how are you doing? (( Please consider for a moment how bizarre it is to be getting so many calls from 9,000 miles away from people I do not know who always want to know "How I am doing!”))

Then they launch in, I have available assignment HST439 at location W348 can you do this? WHAT??!!!?? Tell me a name or a City, not this crap!

As for me, I am getting these calls sometimes while on another mystery shop for another company or while driving up some mountain highway in the Blue Ridge or Great Smokey Mountains. Often this involves going up 14% grades or executing 360 turns on windy mountain road (when I have any cell phone coverage at all). It is not like you can call any of these Filipino people back if you miss their call.

One time I had three different MF Purple people calling me at the SAME TIME for different assignments.

Yesterday I had one of them calling me for a Blue Portal assignment, a simple drive through restaurant that I have done hundreds of. This person was going to drag this out for 30 minutes, reading me all of the qualifying questions, etc.

Then they always end with the same monologue about MF's toll free help desk number and their website, as if I am not there every day anyway <sigh>.

The cultural disconnect and wasted time dealing with these nutty calls is causing me to seriously consider cutting myself off from MarketForce totally, both Blue & especially Purple Portal (you could say it is even more annoying than that other purple beast....Barney the Dinosaur).

They also have a rather deranged supervisor (purple portal) at the Scheduling desk who suffers mad bouts of delirium and deletes accounts when one shop was not done by deadline (The one time when this happened to me I had 16 other shops successfully completed that same week). It took someone over there several hours to rekey in all of my permanent assignments, pending jobs, etc.

Is anyone else having these issues? Does anyone intelligent at Market Force realize just how out of step they are with the rest of this industry?

How about letting the calls go to voicemail? You aren't obligated to answer the phone. You can also block specific phone numbers through your cell phone account.

A little off the subject but how do you get to the blue and purple portal of MF? I have only one portal and I have no idea what color it is?

Market Force has a large number of ex-Wall Street executives, including several refugees from Bain Capital.

Their corporate philosophy is "Outsource, drive down shopper fees, maximize profits for us."

What you're seeing (and hearing) is the manifestation of this mission statement.

I don't shop for them any more, I got out after they treated me like crap once too many times.

If enough of us ignored MF, we'd see fees rise and the end of this outsourcing idiocy.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Instead, I'm finding it more profitable to concentrate on my "A+ Companies" and ignore the greed heads at Market Force.

jpgilham Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A little off the subject but how do you get to the
> blue and purple portal of MF? I have only one
> portal and I have no idea what color it is?


[www.marketforce.com]

Mystery shopping is Blue portal/Theatre and Merchandising is Purple.......like Alice in Wonderland, see which door your key (password) fits......

Market Force used to be several different, self respecting companies. They were bought up by Market Force. Since then, they have posted low paying, mediocre jobs. I too get phone calls as you described. I don't do as much work for Market Force as I used to. The Purple portal is a joke. The purple portal is simple merchandising jobs that pay about $8 an hour, but you need to spend $4 printing off the paper work. Not for me.

MissyH71 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Market Force has a large number of ex-Wall Street
> executives, including several refugees from Bain
> Capital.
>
> Their corporate philosophy is "Outsource, drive
> down shopper fees, maximize profits for us."
>
> What you're seeing (and hearing) is the
> manifestation of this mission statement.
>
> I don't shop for them any more, I got out after
> they treated me like crap once too many times.
>
> If enough of us ignored MF, we'd see fees rise and
> the end of this outsourcing idiocy.
>
> But I'm not holding my breath.
>
> Instead, I'm finding it more profitable to
> concentrate on my "A+ Companies" and ignore the
> greed heads at Market Force.


BRAVO Missy

Ignore the calls and continue with whatever you're doing. These nuisance callers will tire eventually.

Although I do not work for Market Force and I'm not getting their calls, I'm speaking in general. You can choose to block phone numbers which you do not wish to get a call from. I do that whenever I get a telemarketer calling me. I also report their phone number to Callercenter.com for phone call harassment. Serves them well.

I just recently applied, checked out the board and jobs, read the 13 page instructions for one fast food place, looked at the pay and quickly unapplied!

I did some checking and it's true..... Marketforce leadership did come from Bain Capital. Gotta give them credit, Romney has been against the minimum wage and they found a way to do it....

Outsource their "call center" to the Philapeans (no one else uses call centers, most other companies in our field use the web & e-mail. Then have independent contractors who actually loose money with every assignment they take.

Here is a typical call I get and the translation for anyone who wants to see Bain Capitol trickle down economics at work.

THE Philapeans Phone Call.....

"Hi this is Billy Bob calling for Ed..... Hi Ed how are you doing? Good! I have assignment BAL49398 at location W3849 can you do this?

If I say yes I get to hear a 30 minute diatribe giving me their help desk toll free number, the Certified Field Associates / Market Force website, a verbal reading (in broken English) of everything I need to do, all of this burning up my cell phone minutes and more than likely interupting a mystery shop I am doing.

Remember that "assignment BPL49398 at location W3849"? What they really want to know is will I print off 30 pages of instructions in color ink, drive 80 miles round trip to the middle of no where Big Box Mart where I have an hour to do an assignment for which I will be paid $8 as an independent contractor. So after I chase clueless Big Box Assistant Managers around the store, have to go over the hour to get the job done (for which I will not be paid extra), then drive home and spend 20 minutes entering the results and uploading photos of everything I did......

I am making far LESS money than those people working at 3am in the Philapeans. In fact I am not making money at all. I AM LOOSING MONEY!

Considering the gas, printing, Five cell phone calls a day from the Philapeans, uncompensated time reading instructions and printing off all of their paperwork WOW, I have just lost over $50 doing their assignment even with the $8 compensation.

Is this what Romney wants for all of us? Tax us more, pay us less (even less than workers in the Philapeans) make sure that no independent contractors like us ever get any type of Health Insurance (unless we move to Taxachusetts).

I am parting ways with MF, I am a Republican but I am going to reconsider my vote for President this November. This is exploitation pure & simple.

FYI, they're called FILIPINOS, not Philapeans.

If you don't want to deal with them, let their messages go to voicemail and then delete them.

Or on the website, go to "My Information" and erase your phone number. Replace it with another number that you hardly use or an old phone number. I replaced my home phone number with my cell number, which I rarely use and is currently out of service. I haven't heard from MF in months, lol.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2012 03:37AM by HeatherC.

Just ask them for their home phone number and tell them you will call them back. Or, if you have a 2 year old that is learning to talk, let them answer the phone and get all the practice they want. I use this as a fun trick from time to time. The strange, unsolicited calls are starting to diminish.

OMG, makes me wish I had a toddler......well, almost

Yes, LisaSTL, be careful what you wish for!!! I would not trade mine for all the gold in China, but these terrible two's are wearing me to a frazzle. At least now, I can funnel my frustration to an unsuspecting customer...I mean caller!!!!

Honey, at my age I can wish all I want, but it ain't happening!

FYI, the country is The Philippines. The people from that country are called Filipinos. I have no idea where the "Philapeans" are.

I really think this thread is making a mountain out of a molehill. There are options if one doesn't want to receive these calls.

aw, Mtl, don't you enjoy beating dead horses?

Got my first text message from MF last night...That's a development I'm not too happy about.

AustinMom Wrote:
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> aw, Mtl, don't you enjoy beating dead horses?


LOL! Apparently, I do. Sorry, it's a slow day for me.

Is this horse truly dead now?

Geez, the things people @#$%& about ...

I have never gotten a single call from Market Force....hmmm...... I do not do a ton of work for them, due to low pay on most assignments. But, they do shop several restaurants that I really like so I snap those up to have a quick and free meal while on the road doing shops that REALLY pay!

I have a different problem with MarketForce. I and my wife both were recently dropped by Marketforce as shoppers without any reason given to us. We were not doning a lot of shopping for them but did have a good rating with them. I feel that maybe it is an age problem. I think we got to old for the company, Not that we tried to get any jobs that had age limits on them. Has anyone else found this to be a problem?

Market Force has a large shopper base. Because it is so easy to sign up and because there is self-assign, easy jobs, and the reports are very quick and easy, Market Force is an excellent training ground for new shoppers. They get a lot of newbies signing up all the time. They appear to have more shoppers than they need, so they frequently cut shoppers. Their reports have very little writing and are mostly question and answer, geared to be very easy reporting for a new shopper, so Market Force seems not to value experience.

There are good things and bad things about working for Market Force. The good things are that it's easy to pick and choose among shops, easy to self assign, payment is like clockwork, instructions are usually easy, and report are fast and easy. There is also a downside. Part of the downside is that most shoppers are eventually dropped. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with age. IMHO it has more to do with the value Market Force puts on its shoppers: we are a dime a dozen to them.

Bain Cap and trikle down econ. How is that working for the 99%ers?

The same as the 5 TRILLION dollars in debt in less than 4 years that the current idiots in DC have passed on to future generations...which starts with the community organizer at the top.




mnmfong Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bain Cap and trikle down econ. How is that working
> for the 99%ers?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2012 04:56AM by r@inyDayZ3.

Oh yeah, cause that has nothing to do with the previous 8 years or a hundreds of others there that are feathering their own nests on a daily basis. And let's not forget their proposed leader's admitted animal abuse and gay bashing.

I'm going to agree to disagree - but simply put, I cannot stand the person in the WH who has done NOTHING for the economy. HIS words, "If I can't fix the economy, then I'll be a 1-term president". Who has no problem telling the other side off for calling women nasty names, but then takes lots of money from "his side" who has the gall to call women nasty names (hypocrite). Giving handouts to ILLEGAL immigrants (who, BTW, want to drop the term "illegal" - because they say they aren't "illegal". Sitting in listening to his - by his OWN admission - preacher who damns America - oh, and in his book admits to pushing a little girl because she was bothering him.

My suggestion: Hillary Clinton & Colin Powell. Those two would make an awesome team!

And for heaven's sake Congress - no "vacation" until you come up with a freakin' budget. FOUR YEARS and NO BUDGET. (and TWO of those years were a completely controlled Dem Congress)

I'm zipping now.. fingers have been tied behind my back.

r@inyDayZ3 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The same as the 5 TRILLION dollars in debt in less
> than 4 years that the current idiots in DC have
> passed on to future generations...which starts
> with the community organizer at the top.
>
>
>
>
> mnmfong Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Bain Cap and trikle down econ. How is that
> working
> > for the 99%ers?


How much of this amount was from putting the wars on the books vs. keeping them outside of the budget? As for the "Community Organizer" (as though that is a bad thing!), is he not also a JD? And former IL Senator? And former US Senator?

Susie - His voting record while a US Senator: [www.govtrack.us]

..."From Jan 2005 to Oct 2008, Obama missed 314 of 1300 recorded or roll call votes, which is 24.0%. This is worse than the median of 2.4%. The chart below reports missed votes by calendar quarter (every three months)."...

And in answer to your question regarding war budgets - I personally think that the War was NOT right. The men & women who are still over "there" need to be brought home. Quite frankly, let the citizens of those countries fight each other and keep our noses out of it. The US citizens would not appreciate other countries coming here and telling us how to do this or that and what they think is the "right way".

Like I said in reply above yours...

My suggestion: Hillary Clinton & Colin Powell.

Now that is one heluva team! With the exception of NAFTA, President Clinton did a great job, and I think Hillary would do the same. Add Colin Powell in there and between Hillary and Colin, just maybe they would start getting those career politicians to do their jobs - or get out of office.

Your Democrats and your Republicans are flip sides of the same filthy coin.

Let's talk religion next. =)