I'm not mystery shopping right now; too busy with tax returns. I open a few of the emails but mostly I'm deleting everything and not looking at job boards. So imagine my surprise tonight when I get home and find an email from Bestmark informing me I have been assigned one of those "national drug store" shops from hell that I have steadfastly avoided since the first of you to do them described them here.

I did that "contact us" thing, and chose "cancel shop" as my reason for writing and basically asked them what the hell they thought they were doing assigning me a shop I never asked for, never would ask for, and can't do right now even if I wanted to. Went to hit "send" and the button is grayed out. And at the top of the screen is a message about rescheduling instead of canceling and there's this nice prominent Reschedule button. So I changed my reason to "other" and lo and behold the "send message" button is now clickable.

But is this a new trick of theirs or has this happened before? I told them that if this is how they plan to assign jobs that I will not work for them again. We are not employees who can be told what to do and when (oh, yes, this job is assigned for March 31 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. specifically); we are independent contractors who get to choose what jobs we do.

Not even an offer of a bonus -- $13 and $1 reimbursement. Not going to happen. Maybe for $25 I might think about it. Maybe.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2014 06:26AM by dspeakes.

Speaking of Bestmark, why is it that people jump all over Intelli-shop for their $17.00 car sales shops, and never a peep about Bestmark's $14.00 car sales shops? Is the Bestmark report that much easier to fill out? (I haven't done any car sales visits yet.)

No, Bestmark reports are NOT easier to fill out. I've only done one car sales shop, back when I was new and nieve (it's too late to look up how to spell that correctly!) and it was for Bestmark and paid $25. I doubt I'd do it again for $25 and NEVER for $14.

I haven't done a ton of shops for Bestmark, because they don't have a ton in my area to begin with. They do have one shop I like to do, but it doesn't come up terribly often for some reason. But every job I *have* done for them, the report is rather tedious and detailed.

Also very short turnaround time. Forget exactly how long, but as I recall pretty short.

They do pay quickly and reliably. Also I've had quite pleasant contact with the people who work there, in the past. They even complimented my reports!

Thank you for hijacking my thread, Ishmael. :-) Yes, I was speaking of Bestmark, but the subject wasn't fees.



Bestmark states that the job was self-assigned yesterday at a time when I was 100 miles from home and not online at all. I've asked them to see if they have the IP address from which the shop was requested. I don't know if their system hiccupped or if someone hacked my account (why would anyone do something like that?) but there is no way it happened from here. They are removing the shop.

Since nobody here responded to my question, I'm guessing this is an isolated system glitch on their end. I'm relieved this wasn't done deliberately (or if it was, they're not admitting it and would be unlikely to try it again).

I've never had this happen.

Just saw your post. I've never had this happen to me. It might've been a glitch like you said.

The bestmark car shop that I did was by far the easiest car shop I have ever done and you did jot need to go on a test drive. I could do the shop and report in under 40 minutes. I choose not to work for them a couple of years ago because of another issue, so things may have changed.

Mystery solved..... duh..... I gave a new shopper one of my old laptops, not remembering I had used it once or twice in my first few months as a mystery shopper. Apparently she tried to sign on to claim that shop and the computer auto-filled my ID and password.

I'm very relieved.... but feeling a bit stupid for not doing a proper wipe of that computer before I gave it to her. I only used it for traveling and I must have had it with me when I went to do one of my first car shops and must have signed in from the road and saved the password. I had deleted all my email info from it and thought that's all I'd ever used it for and didn't even think there might be a few saved browser passwords.

So....... "nebber mind."

My first -second-and third shops were car shops for BestMark. Little did I know the surveys would be soooo long and soooo detailed. UGH!! Thinking back, that was a lot of work and stress, for little pay. It was a learning experience, but also good to know what I was signing up for. I have done several shops since then, for BestMark and other companies. I've gotta say that BestMark pays the fastest.
Happy Shopping!

I will second that notion!! Best Mark does pay on time!!

I have done quite a few car shops for Best Mark. They are pretty easy and I can usually get a route with some extra travel cash added on. I did a couple of shops for them that you had to actually make an appointment. I won't do those any longer because they are long and involved and don't pay enough to do them. The shops where you just stop by and ask take maybe 15-20 minutes but the report is somewhat detailed. I wish they would relax their car brand needed for their oil change shops though. There is about $2000 in oil change shops sitting out there in my area that I would love to take but I don't have the right brand car. They are fantastic about paying.

I have been shopping for 6 years and only not been twice. Once was Freeman Group and the other was Bestmark, so I disagree with the great about paying. I had a couple of partial payments or covering reimbursement where there was an error that was partially attributable to my error, so I don't count those.