I just couldn't say no the end-of-month bonus of $28 in addition to the $25 fee...I don't shop for less than $30 when it's a car dealership.

MBShops Wrote:
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> So much about nothing! 9 or 10? Please put this
> in perspective. I've done a variety of shops for
> them and as long as they pay their (tiny) fees, I
> don't care what my score is. Otherwise, just say
> no.

Oh dear. I'm concerned because I am quite confident that ggeorge deleted her posts for a very good reason. Please consider deleting yours, Bill.

(heart)

(fanning myself) Thank you, Mod. I just received a PM from Bill, saying he was going to delete it.

Life is good. People are good.

(heart)

I just stumbled across this thread and it would have been nice to be able to see the comments. My Intellishop scores seem to have no reason or rhyme to them. I did finally get a 10! AND that was the report that I was thoroughly convinced, would be completely rejected. Go figure.

BUT, I'm also not going to sweat scores, overly much. The way I see it, perfection deserves to be paid well. I also think that if an editor takes the time to try to offer advice, ...

... Don't go snarky. From the sounds of it, they get given slave wages too. Does anybody know what types of prices are gotten from the various clients for mystery shop services?

I've been doing this for only a few months, and "my, oh my". This is a strange industry.

There's only one shop I do for IS, and I only do it for an extra large bonus. The first time I got a 10 and the subsequent times I've gotten 9s. As long as they continue to assign me these $30-45 shops, I don't care what my scores are.

I do shops for Intellishop and their schedulers and staff have always been very helpful and cooperative. Their editors however, are another matter. A number of them get very picky and critical and will often downgrade you to an eight but never give you the opportunity to question their judgment. It seems to be their way or the highway. Also, after you do your very best to give them a blow by blow narration of what happened in a shop you'll hear nothing from an editor for many days. Then they want you to remember every word that was said even though you have done dozens of shops since then.

I get quite frustrated with Intellishop and their "numerous grammatical error" comments. The way they grade shops is very subjective. I think it totally depends on the editor. I have also asked on many occasions what grammatical errors I made with no response. I have been mystery shopping for sixteen years for over thirty companies and they are the only company that has cited me for grammatical errors.

I recently had this Intellishop MSCs editor (proofreader) email me but with the autonomous no-reply email. They were requesting I submit a receipt... a cash register receipt for an oil change shop. I suspect they are new and did not think to look at the one I already submitted. The shop uses computers and have maximized their invoice by making it a combination: it is an invoice, receipt, maintenance schedule, checklist of items they examined plus a box for comments. It lists my name and contact info, date, amount tendered, change back, etc. It is the receipt and it was submitted on time uploaded to the report at the time it was due, fully legible with an invoice number.

No cash register receipt was generated nor given to me, just this computer printout invoice/receipt. I signed an identical copy for their records and paid cash. When I got this from proofreader, I called two of the same shops in the region (on my own) with a scenario of being a interiors salesperson who has to submit a travel expense report to my boss. I asked if there was a register receipt. They said no, if paying with cash since the invoice is a computer receipt. However, if one used a credit or debit card then an additional receipt is generated for that. I made it crystal clear at the time of upload that I paid in cash and noted that next to the invoice number question.

But besides the email, the proofreader has these comments that she/he did not receive a receipt. I am concerned if this is not removed will lower my rating for self-assigning future shops. Over the past few years I cannot recall even having an additional (cash register tape) receipt to submit for this particular oil change shop. I must not be paying with credit or debit cards.

Hey curiousone, I always pay with credit cards but only upload the invoice. There has never been a question about it, and I have done at least 40 oil changes for IS.

MDavisnowell Wrote:
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> Well, they don't make it easy, do they? Sounds to
> me like since the instructions were conflicting,
> you could go either way and they should be willing
> to honor your decision. I'm hoping for the very
> best for you. Let us know how this turns out.
> Perhaps your experience will result in those
> instructions being tightened up.

They accepted the shop. I only did these end of month shops because the bonuses made the payment double what they normally pay. I haven't done another and probably won't for awhile, so I have no idea if they fixed the guidelines or not. Remember how I wrote about how they dinged me for giving information to back up all of my "no" answers on a previous shop--the editor for the first shop wrote that in the future I should only tell them what actually did happen during the test drive and not about what the sales person did not do. Well, for this shop they dinged me because I only told them what did occur, LOL. No grammatical or spelling errors to lower my grade...

Hi JASFLALMT , thanks for concurring that they can sometimes be a bit Cray, Cray...

It is probably a newb, so I'm not going to sweat it. But I'll post back if they try not to pay me. They
listed their fax and also left my shop in the finish shop status , so I could go in. I went in there, lookedat the invoice that was originally uploaded in the Sassie report. I clicked to zoom in.

Looks sharp, clear...lower right corner shows amount charged, cash tendered, change given...its all there on one invoice.

Intellishop, please consider training your Proofreaders, please!

The editors at this MSC are CYBER BULLIES. (SERIOUSLY)

I stopped shopping for this MSC for this reason.
On three occasions the Pussy as* cyber bullies that hide behind a no reply email with no name
rejected shops ( NOT sent back for corrections) stating I did not follow a guideline that was no where stated in the instructions.

How do you communicate with a punk that hides behind an email you can't reply too?????????????


In all three instances I contacted the scheduler that after review stated the editor was WRONG and had the shop reversed and accepted.
I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS HASSLE

especially considering the WAY below market rate of fees they offer

Name calling here won't make it better. You're right, you shouldn't have to go through the hassle and only you can decide if you want the work enough to go through the hassle. We all get upset, but please help us keep the forum clean and well mannered.

jackaroe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>How do you communicate with a punk that hides
> behind an email you can't reply too?????????????
>

I do agree it is hard to communicate with someone who sends everything out with a no reply email but wants you to change something but will not talk to you. And if the scheduler does not reply either then you are out of luck.

But calling them names lowers your argument. Can't we just play nice?

I started this discussion about 2 and 1/2 months ago with an innocuous comment about IntelliShop and their picky editors. This discussion then morphed into a much wider-ranging discussion about IntelliShop (IS) and their overall scheduling and editing procedures and policies.

It apparently brought into sharp focus (by the many negative comments about IS) long-simmering resentment and dissatisfaction with IS for their high-handed bullying practices.

Yes, that is exactly what it is...bullying. Bullying by treating us, the "boots on the ground" as indentured servants who can be talked down to, down-grading shop scores (as silly as that is) with trite comments about grammatical errors and the like but refuse to clarify what they were and so forth. Constructive criticism is great but without explanation? WTF is that all about?

It was then, in my humble opinion, that IS after reading the way this was going, decided to send a representative (by the so-called name of ggeorge) as an apologist to try to justify the way their editors go about their job(s).

ggeorge tried to curry our favor by whining about the low pay that editors receive (this should have no bearing on our performance) and the challenges that editors face as justification for how they go about their job(s). This was done in a nice, warm-and-fuzzy fashion and some of my fellow members of this community bought into the kool aid that ggeorge brought to drink.

It is evident that ggeorge's postings were nothing more than the efforts of an IS apologist (editor employee) attempting to justify their tactics by posting a multitude of self-serving comments.

What followed was a firestorm of negativity towards IS along with a few supporting comments but after further reflection I think that IS and their so-called editor (ggeorge) decided that it was not in their best interest to continue trying to explain away their bullying tactics and ggeorge deleted all his/her postings.

We, as independent contractors, are not indentured servants, and are free to accept any and all assignments which we choose and I hope that each and every one of us have the cajones to be selective as to whom (or is it who?) we choose to crawl into bed with.

I, for one, who have done many, many assignments for IS (and refuse to do any more) am very particular who I sleep with and IS does not fit the bill for this guy.

There are many, many MSC companies out there who treat us with the respect and professionalism that we deserve and it doesn't make sense to be involved with companies that don't value our body of work or arbitrarily denigrate that body of work.

If each and every one of the members of this community take the time to register with all the companies that are listed on this site you would be inundated with offers from companies who value your contributions in a respectful and professional fashion.

Sorry about the length of this novel and many run-on sentences and/or grammatical errors but in the parlance of IS..."Thank you for your report. It has been given a score of 8 out of 10 because of a few grammatical errors".

Brian, I'm glad you've decided to move on from Intellishop. They haven't worked out for you and in your case that's a good decision. But, I don't believe the company sent ggeorge to us. Trying to be helpful and make a bad situation better, she did her best to explain and it didn't go well for her. It would have been much better for ggeorge if she hadn't tried to help us and I regret the responses she got. It's too bad her efforts to help us met with so much animosity, but the venom factor was already cranked up before she joined us.

The company didn't work out for you and I gather from your post you will no longer be accepting their shops. Although there may be problems from your point of view and according to many who support you, they are a reputable company, they have been in business a long time, and they pay their shoppers. It is everyone's personal decision whether a company is a good fit. Stating problems that exist so that others may be aware is a positive action. Continually running down a company after those problems have been stated is not helpful. Hostile attacks are always disturbing and do not help us or help the reputation and standing of the forum, but just my opinion and to each his own.

Personally, I think Intelli Shop editors are no worse then any other MSO. If you call the Intelli Shop office for questions on shops, ect they at least answer the phone and will help you. I personally think the worst MSO is Second to None. When they reject your shops, they will not even tell you via email you have to learn on the website and in my opinion they do it for unjust reasons. If you look at Second to None website, they scream how proud they are about having <a certain pizza joint> as their client, we all know what that means....



Mod note: Hey now -- watch out for ICA violations!

I haven't had the terrible experiences people describe with IntelliShop. I've shopped with them for almost a decade and have maintained a steady 9 rating. There have been a few editors who were terse in tone, but, like others have said here, if I get paid and keep getting shop offers, it's all good. I do think their fees are too low, and consequently I don't do much for them unless it's video shopping or bonused written shops.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2014 07:54AM by TechSavvy.