Termination by MARITZ

I have been a shopper for 16 years. I have worked for MARITZ for the past nine..I have done every type shop they offer. I live in KY and a little over a year ago they asked me to make a route through WV. That route consisted of <gas station> shops, <fast food> shops, <shipping> shops, and 2 <Client> bank shops. Needless to say I was at the first <fast food shop> during the first few minutes allowed.

Anyway, just giving an example of how much I have worked for them. Last November I had rotator cuff surgery, in the spring I had pneumonia, and about a month ago I started having gallbladder trouble and had to have it removed.

I have not been able to accept many shops in the past year and one of them I had to cancel, but sent an email in advance.

Wednesday of this week I received an email advising me that my contract with MARITZ had been terminated. No reason, no complaint, just terminated.

I have sent emails and attempted to locate someone to talk to on the phone about this to no avail.

I don't need their work,but I am a young 64 yr old and have never been "terminated"!

Has anyone else had this happen to them?

Mod note: Hi Nana, you're understandably upset, but as a mystery shopper of 16 years you should be well aware of the confidentiality aspect of your ICAs. Even though Maritz has terminated their ICA with you, not directly linking clients with MSCs is one of the few things we ask on the forum, too. Thank you for being more careful in the future, and we hope to hear more from you.

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I haven't heard of this happening. Perhaps there was some problem with the last batch of work you did for them. Can you think of what might have gone wrong in regard to the last few shops you did?

Mary Davis Nowell. Based close to Fort Worth. Shopping Interstate 20 east and west, Interstate 35 north and south.

I know Maritz can be very unforgiving.

I agree that this is v-e-r-y unlike Maritz. What happened when you "attempted to locate someone to talk to on the phone"? I would encourage you to continue calling until you can talk to a supervisor.

(heart)

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

jpgilham, my experience has been exactly the opposite. What has happened to you that makes you say that?

(heart)

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

By the way, even if you feel that your Independent Contractor Agreement, (ICA) is void, since they terminated you, the rules of the forum still apply, and you're not supposed to reveal clients of MSCs.

Having performed numerous shops for Maritz, I've found them to be anything but heartless. Perhaps you were canceled simply due to inactivity. Anyway I agree with Mary that you should contact them, preferably by phone.

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.
Benjamin Disraeli

They've been very forgiving to me, (knock on wood.) And, they've been very responsive to phone calls.

cpburt Wrote:
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> Having performed numerous shops for Maritz, I've
> found them to be anything but heartless. Perhaps
> you were canceled simply due to inactivity.
> Anyway I agree with Mary that you should contact
> them, preferably by phone.

I agree with Mary, however my name's not Mary. (It's Princess Still Stompy Foot according to my fans.)

(heart)

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

I am having a different type of problem. I took four shops off the link with incentives. When I received my check it was for the base pay and no bonus. Has this happened to anyone else. I have called three times over four weeks and all they say is they will check on it.

It's so rare that they have shops paying over $10 in my area that I have only done a few shops for them. I wouldn't miss them. But being thrown out with no explanation after 16 years seems unusually harsh. Maybe their system is set to eject shoppers after long periods of inactivity. I hope you can straighten this out!

I have also scheduled shops off of the incentive link. I always check that the incentive has been added to the base pay as soon as I schedule the shop. There have been a couple of occasions in which I was not given the bonus. I immediately called them and they manually added the incentive.

shoppingisfun4me Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am having a different type of problem. I took
> four shops off the link with incentives. When I
> received my check it was for the base pay and no
> bonus. Has this happened to anyone else. I have
> called three times over four weeks and all they
> say is they will check on it.

I had 1 1/2 years of inactivity due to an illness and was never deactivated. The only companies that deactivated me due to inactivity was MF and STN.

Definately call them and speak to a supervisor. They are much more receptive to phone calls than emails.

I have trouble even understanding the paycheck stubs. They are odd so I never know if I have been paid properly. For example, I was told I would get five extra dollars for doing gas shops after darkness. I did numerous shops in the dark (foolishly because it was bad neighborhoods) yet I cannot tell if I was paid the incentive or not. When the invoice is sent in, there is no mention of this bonus promise. Any hints? I called several days ago about this, but still have not heard back.

FYI, on invoices with bonuses you ADD the bonus amount to it manually. The field is blank and you physically enter the bonus amount. It then totals it to be the fee and bonus. They should already have the correct amount in their system, but I don't know what happens if you don't add it when submitting your invoice.

*****************************************************************************
The more I learn about people...the more I like my dog..

Mark Twain

Don't know about the bonuses for discretionary visits after dark, but all other bonuses I've ever agreed to have been automatically added in by Maritz. I've never added one manually.
Re. seeing a bonus on a pay stub... it's on the fourth column, "Other."
Re. not seeing the bonus payment after completing the shop, submitting the invoice, and getting paid... you can no longer check your bonus online after you've been paid. Keep calling daily until you get an answer, and in the future be sure to check your incentives as soon as they're assigned to you.
Re. being deactivated... Call daily until you get an answer. Secondarily, did you try signing up for them again?

Yes, like elcarev, it has been my experience, at least since 2008, that the reimbursement amount must be added to invoices, but the shop pay and any bonuses have already been added and the amount shown cannot be manually changed. There have been a couple of times that a bonus amount was not shown on the invoice and I had to call to get it changed. It would be simpler if the shopper could change the invoice to show the amount of payment and any bonuses, but I have never been able to do that. I also have never done the discresionary after dark visits, and those invoices may allow a bonus to be added.

I do not wish to seem doubting of your predicament. However, I find it odd that after all those years of dealing with Maritz, you chose to send an E-mail and and have found it difficult to speak with someone. In the time that I've been working with Maritz, I found very sympathetic people who I know I can talk to or ask for by name - even their receptionist is responsive. By now, you should have a good working relationship with one of their numerous reps.

Make sport of them all you wish, but it certainly is much easier to speak to someone than to send an E-mail and await an answer. Why? E-mails, I have found can be read and then slipped into a convenient folder of categorisation never to be re-read again. How do I know this? I've been on the other end of this. In my previous work experience, I dealt with an overwhelming amount of E-mails - too numerous to answer in a given workday. That's because the telephone calls I was getting took precedent (as dictated by management - don't allow phone to ring more than twice!!!!).

So, as others have said, keep calling until you get an answer you feel you deserve.

Others have mentioned this, but seriously, after so many years of working with Maritz, you know how they work. Pick up the phone and call them, and if you can't get someone right away, speak to the receptionist or someone on a team with whom you have worked in the past and leave a message for a supervisor. The human (not voice mail) on the other end will handwrite your message on a Post-It and walk it over to the supervisor's desk. You should have a phone call back before you know it.

I wouldn't even bother with an email, ever, unless you have a payroll question. Just call them.

Before you accept a job with a bonus from the link, make a copy that lists the incentive. Same thing happened to me recently on one job with a bonus. It's aggravating to do yet another step when dealing with this company. However, most of their employees try to help with your problems and the bonuses are decent. You need a spreadsheet on your jobs with them, and list the visit number with the fees. The check stubs will list the visit number as well, and you can reconcile it.

Just to add to the check stub comments: I keep a hard copy folder for each month of the year. in those folders are my own "cheatsheets with the visit number, date of the visit, address and the receipts for that visit stapled to the sheet.

When I receive my check, I take the pay stub and reconcile the visits, checking off each visit accounted on the stub. I then staple the stub to all the visits recorded on the stub.

By doing this, I have found a few visits for a particular day (was in a hurry, I guess) that were never invoiced to Maritz.

Sorry for my confusion. I know I need to add something to the invoice manually. I guess it's the reimbursed amount and not the bonus amount.

*****************************************************************************
The more I learn about people...the more I like my dog..

Mark Twain

Odd, I picked up three bank shops on Friday. The first I did at the normal rate, then found their email, clicked the link, entered the ID, found two more shops within blocks of my first and self-assigned them. I did the legwork, entered and submitted the report, then when I went to submit the invoice, It listed the regular rate only, no bonus.

Now the bonus are more than the regular rate. I am incensed. As I do not have a team number, I sent an email. No response.

I am holding on completing the third shop until I get this matter resolved. After reading this thread, I'll call tomorrow to see if I can get it resolved. May complete the last shop tonight.

I didn't keep a copy of the incentivized list.

Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.
Richard Feynman-- letter to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, published in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005) p. 230

Update, good thing I came here and decided to submit the last shop. It was one with an incentive attached. So one of my previous shops was correct, the other was missing a $10 incentive.

@whosear:

Incensed!! More likely you became upset - not extremely angry! Those bank shops are fairly simply - not enough to get your bp up.

I have found that it is much easier to pick up the phone and call rather than becoming upset and just sending an E-mail.
Even if you do not know the team number, you can ask the receptionist or simply try any team number. Either way, they will direct you to the correct team and re-direct your phone call.

If you have read any posts on this forum regarding Maritz, you should know that they are much more responsive to a telephone call than E-mail.

Always, always, ALWAYS keep the email with the "incentive" link. I archive all my emails relating to any shop I have ever completed - especially those with bonuses or special incentive. All my emails first go into an Assignments in Progress folder once I have them in my schedule, then once they are completed, I move them to my Completed Assignments folder. I can't tell you how many times I have had to refer back to an email with a promise of a bonus that got missed when payment time rolled around.

Maritz is always a better company to call than to email. They have taken on a lot of new projects and a ton of new staffers who may not know who you are. Some of the supervisors have left or been promoted to new positions but there are enough of the old hands around to search out. Find one of your frequent schedulers and talk to them directly. (They have probably changed teams and projects but they are still out there). I have had illness issues and still gotten a ton of work from them. They called today and asked for more when I have 392 jobs on their board right now...

Good luck.

Meritz is a puzzle to me. I signed up and they started calling telling me to check the board. They are doing a bank that I'm doing thru another MSC. They are substantially lower in pay for the same work. Now when I try to check in their site my id and passwod do not work. Yet they call and leave messages begging me. I know many of you love this company but so far I'm not impressed.

MB

MB, if you call Maritz they will assist you with your sign in problem. Yes, they pay less on the banks.

Mary Davis Nowell. Based close to Fort Worth. Shopping Interstate 20 east and west, Interstate 35 north and south.

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