I only did two shops with them. Both were credit union shops. The first one went great, awesome. The second one was the following day and went horrible. The teller failed miserably. I was instructed to not force the discussion. It was to the point where I was literally standing there in a bunch of awkward moments waiting for the teller to do more than hand me brochures. Eventually I left and put everything in my report.

Part of the instructions said the teller was supposed to offer to take me to a desk to sit and discuss the perks of credit union membership. This did not happen. However, the branch challenged my report claiming that I refused to be seated and that I was unprofessional because I brought a soda with me to the shop. I admitted that I had brought my fountain drink with me as I did the shop right after I ate lunch at the Subway next door. I told my scheduler that I accepted that portion and if it made the shop disqualified that I understood. It was the accusation of them offering to seat me that pisses me off. She never offered and I told my scheduler that and told her that I wanted her to review the video and audio of the shop to prove it as I didn't appreciate being called a liar. I emailed her on 6/13/2014 and have not heard back from her, which is very disconcerning. Is this standard for this company?

IN my email to her, I explained that I was not challenging the shop for payment as I should have known better then to bring a soda with me and was willing to chalk it up as a lost. I apologized for it. But I explained that I didn't appreciate my ethics being questioned. She never wrote back.

Needless to say, I have not done another shop for them. Hmmmmm, I should double check that they paid me for the first shop.

Ironically, after the first shop I was so impressed I was planning to go back in and open up an account. After the second one, nevermind.

Private Eyes is an independent scheduling service. They schedule shops for multiple companies. Do you know which company you performed the shop for? The payment for your first shop would probably have come directly from the MSC for whom the work was performed rather than from Private Eyes.

I don't believe that bringing a beverage makes you unprofessional, and should invalidate the shop. A normal customer would do that.

In Arizona, *not* bringing a drink with you would make you stand out in the summer. I consider that a cheap shot. We don't leave our drinks in the car because the ice will be melted in 10 minutes if we do. Most of the banks I shop offer something to drink, so faulting you for bringing your own is stupid and petty.


I've done CU shops where the teller tried to handle the situation instead of either handing me off to a "banker" or whatever they call them or at least sitting down with me. Stand your ground, and if they'll void the shop because of what the teller didn't do, and then lying about it, I wouldn't shop for them again.

I used to carry a soda around with me everywhere. You're not doing exit interviews. That is ridiculous!

The more I think about this the more incredulous I am that they would even comment on your "professionalism." Mystery shops are not for the purpose of measuring the professionalism of the shopper; they are to measure whether the employees are professional and doing their job correctly, no matter who is standing in front of them saying, "I'd like to know about your accounts. I'm thinking of changing banks."

They're making it sound like they think it's okay to give poor service to customers with sodas or (if it had been true) customers who don't want to sit down. How idiotic is that?

mysterious_in_sanfrancisco- Please email me at Lysa@privateeyesonline.net or send me a private message on this forum to advise what company this shop was for. We would like to assist, but please understand that we are a scheduling company, not an MSP. We have little control over the MSP's job requirements.
Likewise, MSP's, schedulers, and shoppers have little control over the actions of the client/location.
What I do see as a concern is that you state a scheduler did not get back to you, and I would like to know more about that.
Please advise exactly which job, who it was for and the name of the scheduler you communicated with, and I will try to help you personally.