Hello Everyone,

I'm not much of a poster but I frequently read the boards and learn a lot from your contributions. I finally have something that I feel may be helpful to others so I'm sharing. I am not a full time mystery shopper but I have consistently been doing a few shops a month since I was in college (nearly a decade ago). I have done a total of 7 shops with Ath Power. The first was in December of 2014 and the last was in February of 2015. Until recently, every single one of my shops was graded and I had all 10's and one 9 I think. I mostly dealt with Jason Ladieu, who was always very sweet and polite. One day, I applied for a route of 3 bank shops. These were with a different scheduler, Katie Puglia. Ath Power does not provide clear guidelines or information about their shop limits. You can do up to 3 shops per day for some clients and only 1 for others. All three of my applications were accepted but for different days. I got the following email from the scheduler:

Hi there,

You were scheduled two shops on the same day. It is one shop per day, so I rescheduled one for the 18th. Please confirm if this works for you!

Thank you!

Katie


_____________

I immediately replied and explained that I was under the impression that I could do a route and if that is not the case, can they please cancel. I received cancellation confirmation from Mary Beth Crowley right away and I thought that was the end of this issue. On 2/21, I got an email from Katie Puglia asking if I was available to do some bonused shops. I logged into my Ath Power account to see if there was more information posted and that is when I noticed that all my shop grades had disappeared and my average rating was a 1 instead of a 10. I replied to Katie's email saying that I could do one of the shops but there was a problem with my account and I wanted to resolve it first. I asked her if she knew anything about it. She said she did not but promised to look into it and get back to me. When I did not hear back from her, I reached out to Jason to see if he could provide me contact information for someone that may be able to help. He was kind enough to forward my email to Mary Beth Crowley, who sent me the following email the same day:

Hi [my name],
I will have to look but ratings are usually lowered if there is a last minute cancellation and if a scheduler has to email you to ask you about an overdue shop. You will still get shops when you are rated a 1 but the scheduler will know to send reminders so that the shops are done and entered on time. If you last minute cancel a few times it will be noted and then you might not get as many shops.
Mary Beth

_____________

This was the reply I sent her on 2/22:

Hello Mary Beth,

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I do not think cancellation should be an issue with my account. I did cancel 3 shops last week but that is because I had applied for a route of 3 per day and was told that I could only do one. When I got an email from the scheduler explaining this, I asked to cancel immediately because I had applied without being aware of this rule (it was not listed on the shop information). To be honest, I think penalizing me or any other shopper is extremely unfair in this situation because a lot of times, it is only cost effective to do particular shops because they can be done in groups. For example, there are areas where I pay tolls of as high as $7.50 to get to and drive 60-70 miles. One $17 shop would not be worth it but 3 might be. When a shopper applies for 3 shops and gets 1, schedulers should be accepting of cancellations.

I have had to reschedule a couple of shops because of the heavy snow in the NYC region the past couple of months but I always completed them at the earliest possible timing and kept schedulers informed. Five of the six shops I completed had 10/10 ratings and the remaining was a 9/10. Even if I was being penalized, why would the scores of previously completed and graded shops be subject to change?

I realize that you are just informing me of the possible scenarios that may have gone wrong with my account and this may not necessarily be the case, but I thought I would take a moment to explain. Hope you had a wonderful weekend and are staying warm if you are in the Boston area!

_____________
When I did not receive a reply by 2/24, I sent out another follow up email to Mary Beth:

Hello Mary Beth,

I was wondering if you found out anything further about what happened to my account? Thank you,

[my name]

_____________
In the meantime, on the same day, I had gotten an email asking to clarify some things on a shop I had completed nearly a month ago. It had already been graded a 10/10 but that morning, I got an email (from Cheryl Bacon) asking for clarification. I was about to leave home for work so after a few emails back and forth, I decided to call her so we could resolve the issue. Ellen Barkhouse answered the telephone and and I asked for contact information for Cheryl and Mary Beth. She was able to provide it for Cheryl but not for Mary Beth as she was not working out of the office. She asked if she could help me with anything and when I explained the issue to her, she said she can see on her system that Mary Beth is the one who changed my shop ratings so she is the best person to speak with and she would try to get a hold of her. Next, I spoke with Cheryl. I was able to provide the information she needed about the shop and after that issue was resolved, I asked her about Ath Power policy regarding shopper ratings. I explained to her that mine had been lowered without explanation and although I was waiting to hear back from Mary Beth with a definitive answer regarding why, I was curious to know if it was because of the cancellation. Cheryl told me that based on what I had told her, I should not be penalized for canceling. Soon after hanging up with her, I got the following email from Mary Beth:

[My name],
Please stop calling people and emailing everyone about the ratings. You took shops that we close to you and then cancelled all of them because you could not have three shops. I also see that a scheduler had to contact you to see if a shop had been completed. We also lower ratings when shopper require too much communication, We have hundreds of shoppers and are on a deadline and we do not have extra time. You were booked a shop to complete now so you see that you will still get shops.
We need shoppers that take shops and complete them on time with a minimum of communication. It may sound harsh. But that is what we need.
Mary Beth

________________
My reply, which I copied Cheryl to as she is a manager:

Hello Mary Beth,

I am surprised with the tone of your email since I have been nothing but polite and professional in our email exchange. The reason I called and emailed "everyone" about the ratings is because it has proven difficult to get in touch with you. When I asked you why the ratings had been lowered, you provided a generalized answer and said you would have to look into my account to tell me what happened. I never heard back from you after that.

I have only been doing shops with ath Power since December so I am not always aware what the policies are regarding the number of shops that you can do per day. The limits are not posted in the shop information, which they really should be. As you mentioned, I did apply for three shops. I cancelled all of them when I was told that I could only do one. I do not see why this is an issue. If anything, when you or a scheduler sees a shopper apply for 3 shops and can not grant them, it would make sense to confirm they want just one. In NYC, there are tolls just to get in and out of certain areas, not to mention parking fees. One bonused $17 shop may not be worth the $7.50 I have to pay at times but 3 may be.

I also do not understand your comment about shoppers requiring too much communication. I had an average rating of 10 and you have lowered it to a 1. Do you honestly not expect a shopper to care about that? I work hard on the shops I do and take pride in them. My ratings reflected that. Even if you did decide to penalize me in some way, how does it make sense to erase ratings for shops that I have already completed? I always reply to emails as quickly as possible. As a [my job], I have other responsibilities throughout my day that do not allow me to be on the phone/computer 24 hours a day. I do not mind getting phone calls from schedulers but a lot of times, they email and then call right away. I always get back to them as quickly as possible. I have mostly worked with Jason Ladieu and more recently, Kathy Puglia. I have found both of them to be very pleasant and professional.

One of the great benefits of living in NYC is that there are more MSC's and job opportunities than I could hope for. I make it a point to work with the ones where I respect the schedulers and feel respected by them in turn. Until my interaction with you, ath Power topped my list. I understand that you have "hundreds of shoppers," but if you would like to keep them, please try to remember that there are actual human beings behind these numbers. They work hard for your company and are worthy of your respect.

Cheryl, I have copied you in this email because you are a manager. I have always enjoyed providing feedback on my interactions with different businesses so I thought you may be interested in getting some from a (now former) shopper with your company. After I complete the shop I have already committed to for today, I will no longer be shopping for ath Power. Life is too short to have to risk dealing with the type of behavior and lack of respect I have received from Mary Beth. As she pointed out, I can continue to be assigned shops with my "one" rating. However, why should I? It will only be a matter of time before something like this happens again. I am lucky that I have the luxury and option to walk away from the company. Another shopper may not and I would hate for them to be treated similarly.

____________________
Mary Beth's reply:

[My name],
While we are sorry to see you go, I have been polite and frank with you. Are you still going to complete the shop on your log? I will be happy to remove it from your log but please let me know right away so we can get another shopper for the location.
Mary Beth

____________________

Cheryl's reply:
Thank you! [I am deleting a sentence regarding a shop clarification to protect client confidentiality].
I appreciate your fast response and I would really love to keep you as a shopper.
I know we got off to a rocky start but I would like to ask for one more chance to prove that we are a great company to work for.
Please let me if there is anything I can do to encourage you to continue shopping for us.
Thanks,
Cheryl
____________________
My reply:

Hello Cheryl,

I am happy to see that you got this shop wrapped up. As for continuing to shop with you- I think there would be no point in doing that unless Ath Power decides to change how they treat shoppers. Mary Beth decided to delete my shop scores on what appears to be nothing more than a whim. My rating remains a 1 even though it was a 10 before. How is that justified? If I continue to shop with you, I have no reason to think that would not happen again. Neither Mary Beth, nor anyone else from the company has acknowledged the unprofessionalism of her email communication or her actions. In fact, in the email she sent me, she described her behavior as "polite and frank."

I was also disappointed to see that the shop I initially had scheduled for yesterday was cancelled until the [shop location] issue was resolved. It would be one thing if I had done something wrong. I had not- you simply needed further clarification. I have been asked for clarifications many times by other companies. They have never blocked me from completing other shops/cancelled shops in the mean time. This is especially troubling because as you acknowledged yourself, I have been fast with my responses. In fact, I had already responded to your email when I got the shop cancellation email. I always aim to be fair and professional when working with a company. In return, I deserve and expect those who I work with to treat me the same way. Unfortunately, Ath Power has utterly failed in this department.

Even though I have not received a satisfactory response to the issues I addressed, I really do hope you take the time to evaluate how shoppers are being treated. If you look up company feedback on mysteryshopforum.com, you will see that I am not the only one who has a problem with how the company interacts with shoppers.

___________________
I know this is a super long post but I always see members asking posters for additional details so I figured I'd provide everything up front. Feel free to skim.

I've been shopping with Ath for more than a year and have been treated consistently with respect and consideration and any questions I might have are answered quickly. I have nothing but praise for them. At the end of the month I'm offered shops with good bonuses (that I can't always accept, unfortunately.) Their guidelines are pretty straightforward, in my opinion.

I am not disputing the facts as outlined by the OP, but I want to note that over the past 7 years, I have completed 1111 shops for Ath Power and currently have 2 more scheduled. At least for me, the guidelines have always been clear. Occasionally, the limitations on shops (number per month, week, or day) have not been listed, and often a scheduler has contacted me to explain them to me. In fact, this happened to me just today - the scheduler even called me on the phone to rescind a nicely bonused shop schduled for Friday.

Regardless of the MSC, I always look at the assignment dates ASAP because they are sometimes different than what I had requested. Sometimes I have had to cancel due to the changes.

I am truly not trying to bash the OP in any way whatsoever. I have had an issue with a different MSC whom many other shoppers like, but I choose to decline to do certain shops for that MSC. The OP has in their opinion a reason to decline future shops for Ath Power, and I respect that. I am going to continue to do shops for Ath Power.

Actually, when I saw that I had done 1111 shops, I thought about stopping because I will have to do another 1111 before all the digits match again. Maybe I should play Pick 4 in the Pennsylvania lottery today? N0 - I'd rather visit a green bank and collect my bonus today. That is almost a sure thing. Sometime this year, I will complete another 123 shops, and then my total will be 1234. How cool will that be?

Pegc and and Myst4ua,

Until this incident, my opinion of Ath Power was similar to yours.

Myst4ua, I would have no problem if the scheduler contacted me to and told me I could not do more than one shop a day. My problem is that I was not contacted prior to being assigned shops on days that I had NOT agreed to shop on. When I contacted the company (the same day they assigned these shops to me) to tell them that I was not able to do shops, I was penalized. To me, this is a way to bully shoppers into doing what they never agreed to do.

I would not complain if Ath Power listed shop limits in the shop information available on the board. The problem is that they do not. It seems like both of you have done quite a few shops for the company so you are aware of things based on experience. How is a new shopper supposed to know?

I understand your dismay over the shop rating issue. The way the scheduler handled it seems harsh to me.

But when you apply for shops you aren't guaranteed to get every one you apply for. What if you had only been awarded one or two of the three? Would you still have cancelled?

Nooladoodles: I don't think it is appropriate for you to post those personal emails about what you and your scheduler talked about here on a public forum.

You are not only revealing who you are to her/them but if you have any strong issues with your scheduler, they have their own site and can pass along shoppers that have posted personal information on a public forum. It's just not a good idea all the way around.

You are absolutely in the wrong to post these emails verbatim. This all happened because you cancelled 3 shops. You should have done the right thing and finished the shops. After that, regarding routes, you could have worked out future routes with that company.

I have done over 120 of Ath's shops and never cancelled. And I had a solid 10 rating.

I think you should reconsider how you treat private information from your scheduler.

NumberThirteen, my problem was not just that I did not get all 3 shops; it was also that they assigned me shops on dates I was not available to shop on. I applied for 3 shops and they decided to split them up on different days. When I said I could not do that, they penalized me.

SunnyDays2, it is perfectly acceptable to post emails verbatim. I have not revealed the client or violated any forum rules. I have noticed several posters on this forum being told that they are not providing enough detail or a clear picture. The best way to provide the most accurate view of what happened is to post emails verbatim, without including my own biases or interpretations. It is what actually took place. Why should I not post it? I have also posted my own responses verbatim in an effort to be fair. I do not care about revealing who I am to the company since I do not plan to shop for them again. I was upfront and honest about my stance. I cancelled 3 shops because they changed they decided to split them up. That is not what I applied for. They should have checked with me before changing the dates/dynamics. If you apply to do 3 shops on Thursday and the schedulers decide to assign you 2 of those shops on Friday, how is it fair for them to demand you complete them or be downgraded? I have a full time job and responsibilities outside of MSing and am not at their beck and call 24/7. To expect me to be so is simply ridiculous.

Actually since MSCs often consider the application to be a contract, you actually were not in violation of that contract to cancel anything assigned on a different day than the one you chose when applying. A company can only tell an employee what day they must perform a shop and penalize them if they do not. Technically you did cancel one shop, justified or not and personally I feel it was justified so as long as the cancellation was also timely you should have been fine. My suggestion for the future would be to either make a note in the application that you require all of the shops to justify any trip and to immediately send an email to the scheduler reiterating your conditions. I've found Ath to be fine to work with in general and have cancelled a shop after finding the requirements were not clearly outlined in the shop description. This was years ago and I'm not aware of being penalized at all.

I have completed 84 shops for ath power since 2010 and have never seen a rating. ASAIK they do not publish their ratings. That being said: I have never had a problem with them and always found them easy to work with. In my experience their guidelines provide less detail then other MSC's; however, I never found that to be a problem and it gives me freedom to mold the scenario as needed.

Hmm....I have done more than 30 shops for ath over the past few months and my experience thus far has been very positive. The schedulers I've worked with have been great; it sounds as though the OP and the scheduler had a miscommunication that never was straightened out.

I reckon that the guidelines vary depending on the client. Thus far the guidelines I've had have been pretty straightforward.

I have never received a rating for any of my ath shops, so I find it interesting that some people have been rated. Wonder why that is, but won't dwell on it because whatever my ratings may be, they're good enough that I'm assigned every shop I apply for.

I'm happy to pick up those bonuses when the end of the month rolls around, and I'm naturally pleased that my direct deposits appear earlier than expected every month.

Sometimes thing just don't work out with an MSC. There's one that a lot of folks here like but it annoys the heck out of me. So it goes....

Ath Power rates some of the shops, buy not most of them. I have never tried to figure which ones.

Thank you, Lisa. I completely agree with what you said. Making a note in the application is a great idea. I'll start doing that in the future.

@LisaSTL wrote:

Actually since MSCs often consider the application to be a contract, you actually were not in violation of that contract to cancel anything assigned on a different day than the one you chose when applying. A company can only tell an employee what day they must perform a shop and penalize them if they do not. Technically you did cancel one shop, justified or not and personally I feel it was justified so as long as the cancellation was also timely you should have been fine. My suggestion for the future would be to either make a note in the application that you require all of the shops to justify any trip and to immediately send an email to the scheduler reiterating your conditions. I've found Ath to be fine to work with in general and have cancelled a shop after finding the requirements were not clearly outlined in the shop description. This was years ago and I'm not aware of being penalized at all.

I know we all have different opinions about MSC's and this thread is a perfect example of that. I understand and respect everyone's experiences. There are some companies I love that I have seen several negative comments about.

I honestly just made this whole post because I have benefited from reading other people's experiences and I thought they might benefit from reading mine. I'm not disputing that it is possible to have a positive experience with Ath Power. As I stated in my original post, until recently, mine was very positive as well. However, I found this whole changing my rating issue completely ridiculous. In all honesty, what really broke the camel's back for me was this particular response from a scheduler. I found it completely rude and unprofessional. To me, it says that she has no respect for mystery shoppers and the fact that the company finds this communication acceptable is shocking to me.

[My name],
Please stop calling people and emailing everyone about the ratings. You took shops that we close to you and then cancelled all of them because you could not have three shops. I also see that a scheduler had to contact you to see if a shop had been completed. We also lower ratings when shopper require too much communication, We have hundreds of shoppers and are on a deadline and we do not have extra time. You were booked a shop to complete now so you see that you will still get shops.
We need shoppers that take shops and complete them on time with a minimum of communication. It may sound harsh. But that is what we need.
____________________
I know many of you may think it is not all that bad or that I should develop thicker skin, but I disagree. I aim to treat everyone I come across with respect and expect nothing less in return. Nobody has the right to speak to another person this way and I really hope none of you accept this kind of behavior either. Until this point, I had picked up last minute shops for this company and had a 10 rating. If nothing else, my prior work should have earned me more respect that this.

I see posters that come on the board all the time and complain but they don't provide any real history or justification for the complaint. I also see posters that rant, rave and make all kinds of accusations against companies, without telling us the whole story.

In this case, the poster clearly laid out all the documentation for her complaint and explained her reasoning's. Regardless of how you feel about the company, like them or not, I feel the poster did a great job of explaining everything.

So Kudos to you noladoodles, for your thorough explanation of the situation. I can understand your frustration and I hope you don't have to deal with a situation like this again.

I think when you reached out to the schedulers manager and several co-workers before you exhausted every opportunity to get things sorted with the scheduler, you put her completely on the defensive and she shut down to anything you had to say. She might have been having a bad day and was up against a deadline.

What you did was escalate the situation prematurely. Nothing was time critical about your shop rating. I would have reasoned my case with her until she flat out said that she was going to keep you at a rating of 1 and only then emailed her manager the email chain and not other schedulers and let the manager handle the situation without involving the whole office.

I worked a corporate job for a fortune 100 company for 14+ years and learned to give people every chance to make things right and give them plenty of rope (email evidence) before discreetly taking the issue up a single step to the first level manager. This usually results in a swift and quiet resolution as the manager is forced to see the entire situation and must decide on how to handle the situation and knows that if they fail to handle it appropriately, that you then have not skipped a rung of the management ladder before going up one more step.

The calls to the other schedulers is fodder for office gossip. This never gets anything good accomplished other than allowing the person your trying to reason with time to formulate excuses and sometimes lies to cover their own bad actions.

EDIT: BTW, I have had no problems with ATH other than scanning the wrong document into a report. I corrected the report promptly and all was well. The editor was not rude about it.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2015 12:08AM by scanman1.

I'm gonna have to side with the OP on this one. Ath rarely has work in my area and while I am signed up I've never done a shop for them, so I have absolutely no opinion on the company. Personally I think the OP is 100% right and the scheduler is 100% wrong and quite frankly I think the OP is owed an apology for both the scheduler's rudeness and over reaction.

I think you were treated "badly" and totally understand your frustrations.

All I have to say is... I'm very glad this has not happened to me (yet). I'd be furious. I didn't know they could change past shop grades; that's just low down and rotten. I thought giving a 1 with a weight of 10 (1/10) was bad. This trumps that.

I pdf my shop log for my own record, and thought this was kinda neurotic on my part, but now I think maybe not so much. Talk about invalidating.

I'm so sorry you went through that, nolaD, but THANK YOU for posting. I was considering doing more work for Ath, now I'm straying away from them. If I do take any assignments, I'll be super vigilant.

Ath should be Fth in your book for this treatment you received.

There are some great companies out there with a few bad apples for schedulers. I have an ongoing situation with a company most people here like. I spent quite a bit of time attempting to contact a scheduler before going up the ladder. For me, the best way to resolve the situation is to ask questions rather than lay out what went wrong.

What is the best way to contact the scheduler? What should I do if I cannot make contact after several attempts? After leaving three messages over three days, how would I have known she was on vacation and would not respond if her voice mail was not updated? Does anyone else check her email or voicemails? How can I see the policy on ratings so I can better understand?

I definitely would not appreciate any email requesting I 'stop emailing and calling everyone.'

Spaztck, thank you for understanding that I wanted to provide as accurate and complete a picture as possible. If I had summarized, I ran the risk of being biased or leaving something out. As we can see, posters have many differing opinions about the company and that is fine. As Edmund Wilson said, "No two persons ever read the same book."

@spaztck wrote:

I see posters that come on the board all the time and complain but they don't provide any real history or justification for the complaint. I also see posters that rant, rave and make all kinds of accusations against companies, without telling us the whole story.

In this case, the poster clearly laid out all the documentation for her complaint and explained her reasoning's. Regardless of how you feel about the company, like them or not, I feel the poster did a great job of explaining everything.

So Kudos to you noladoodles, for your thorough explanation of the situation. I can understand your frustration and I hope you don't have to deal with a situation like this again.

Scanman1, you said:

"I would have reasoned my case with her until she flat out said that she was going to keep you at a rating of 1 and only then emailed her manager the email chain and not other schedulers and let the manager handle the situation without involving the whole office."

I did not feel like I had that option because she never admitted to being the one responsible for changing the ratings. If you look at her first email to me, she says, "I will have to look," and then provides a general overview of why ratings are lowered. I responded to her email the next day on 2/22. When she did not reply, I sent a follow up on 2/24. It was not until I spoke to another employee that I found out that she was behind it. I personally feel like that was ample opportunity for her to get back to me.

Bgriffin, nanabelle and Lexxycon,

I appreciate your supportive comments. It makes me feel better to know that experienced shoppers such as yourselves understand my position.

I have completed 0 shops for Ath Power, but would be quite ticked off to discover another MSC had lowered ratings on shops I had already done to 1. This is simply not how a reputable company does business!

I was assigned a shop to meet with a mortgage loan officer. I read the instructions and was prepared to shop when I entered the MLO's office. I have posted what happened when emailing my scheduler after performing the full shop. This is why I don't shop for them anymore. This is the second shop I have been denied payment on for similar tactics. Read on...

To S, my scheduler:

"I completed my shop with J R starting at 3:00pjm and ending at 3:46pm on Tuesday, March 10, 2015. I believe I got the information you requested in the report. She was very thorough and I understood what she was telling me. There is one thing that I think will cause my report to be unaccepted. My concern is that I don't want to find out again that I will not be paid because of a situation that arose during my visit that does not conform to your guidelines, I want to inform you and your manager first before I spend time on the report and learn that it will not be accepted for payment.

I chose scenario number 3, (specific shop details removed)

The first question J R asked me was my social security number. I tried to evade the question by telling her that my husband was very sensitive with the subject of handing out our numbers in any situation. J R told me that she could not perform her tasks unless she had my number. I do have a Home Equity Loan with ***********. After deciding that I had no choice but to give her my SSN or that was the end of our visit, I decided to give it to her because at that point I had no alternative other than to end the scenario very awkwardly or give her a false SSN which would probably violate someone's privacy if it was their number. So I gave it to her and she pulled up my home equity loan and that became part of the discussion I had with her about my "#3 (specific shop details removed)" scenario I had chosen initially.

I felt it was not in my interest to proceed with completing the written scenarios or completion of my written report since it didn't conform to your guidelines. I made sure to read the paragraph in the guidelines informing the shopper of how not to get paid for this shop. I already had one very recent report denied due to shopping the wrong person and was afraid I would again not be compensated for my time and effort. This is why I am asking for direction on this one.

I need to know if you will accept my report although the guidelines had to be altered because of the situation I found myself in. Will I be compensated for this report with these variations? I spent over 45 minutes with J R and she was very informative. If you choose to accept that the scenario changes due to these circumstances, I will gladly submit my report upon your approval.

Please let me know of your decision. I will proceed with my report and all the details I received in presenting my (specific shop details removed) scenario tomorrow".

Here is the response I received from S:

"Unfortunately, you are correct. We cannot use this shop, as the MLO probably knew they were being "shopped." Per the guidelines:

(specific shop details removed)

Unfortunately, I will be excluding the shop, without pay. If you have any questions, please let me know."

Thank you.

S
Scheduler, ath Power Consulting


So at this point I sent another email asking for the CEO's name and email address so I could send this to him/her. Of course, I received no response to my request. I will continue to pursue this matter through additional methods. Will be back to post any responses I receive if I can get somebody to tell me who the CEO is and how to contact them.

(Mod notes:
- Name of MLO removed as it discloses personal information of an uninvolved party and is irrelevant to the situation.
- The scheduler's name was also removed.
- The specific details of the mystery shop were removed as disclosing proprietary information of the MSC is a violation of Forum principles and probably also a breach of your ICA)

I think what they did, by going back in a changing the shops was in violation of the law. Wasn't there a big stink a couple of years back about records being changed. I'm thinking Enron and Worldcom. Unless they are private companies. Oh, wait they have to keep tax records to see who has been paid and how much. And aren't banks one of the most closely watched and regulated industries. Wonder what the bank inspectors would say if they knew that reports could be changed by some low-level employee.

I've had them assign me shops for dates I didn't apply for. It was no problem getting them changed but they shouldn't have done it to begin with.

"So at this point I sent another email asking for the CEO's name and email address so I could send this to him/her. Of course, I received no response to my request. I will continue to pursue this matter through additional methods. Will be back to post any responses I receive if I can get somebody to tell me who the CEO is and how to contact them."

Shellheller, if you go to [www.athpower.com] and spend a couple of minutes there, you'll find the CEO's name, phone number and email address.

@2stepps wrote:

I think what they did, by going back in a changing the shops was in violation of the law. Wasn't there a big stink a couple of years back about records being changed. I'm thinking Enron and Worldcom. Unless they are private companies. Oh, wait they have to keep tax records to see who has been paid and how much. And aren't banks one of the most closely watched and regulated industries. Wonder what the bank inspectors would say if they knew that reports could be changed by some low-level employee.

Every report you submit is a raw work product. The editor will drastically rewrite it to make the client happy. If this client only wants to hear positive things to be able to say that they have a high satisfaction rating to the board of directors, then all effort you spent to document negative experiences will be scrubbed from the report or toned down considerably.

I have had an editor kick back a report that was edited to the point I didn't think it was my shop at first and I clarified the question they had and ignored the fact that they decided to omit behavior that I would have fired the employee for that was now completely erased from the report.

As far as editing their notes on your past jobs, as long as they pay you for the jobs you complete within the contacted time, what they share or don't share about the way they feel about your past performance is up to them and is not a legal document and they can score it and change it as they see fit. Just as you can cease business with them at any time for no reason, they can do the same to you. No reason required.

@scanman1 wrote:

I have had an editor kick back a report that was edited to the point I didn't think it was my shop at first and I clarified the question they had and ignored the fact that they decided to omit behavior that I would have fired the employee for that was now completely erased from the report.

I had that happen once myself - with a very large MSC - and I was appalled. (I was younger and more naive . I emailed the editor relaying my concerns that not only had my report been zealously edited, even some of my Yes/No buttons had been changed to reflect a much more positive experience than the one I actually had. The editor was unimpressed and as far as I know, the report was submitted to the client with the editor's version of events. Made me wonder why they paid a 3rd party (me) when they could have just have asked the editor to make up a report in the first place.

Is this by any chance Cheryl Bacon is giving problems. She calls me a month later and decides not to pay me. She changed my report and then deleted me from the system for no reason. I know other shoppers having issues with her. I haven't been paid in 3 months and they owe me $100.00. We need to get together and complain. I wish I knew who is above her.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2015 09:49PM by gkshopper.

I have often admired shoppers who have terrific relationships with certain schedulers, complete with cheerful communication and good rapport, but I think it is better to keep a low noise communication.