Congratulations Julie - do you cover New England?

Alinosi:
I checked the system and your check for the shops you completed between 15 Oct and 19 Oct was printed on 13 Nov and mailed out on 16 Nov, so you should be receiving it soon if you have not already. Please let us know if we can help with anything else. Thank you~

Erika Wooton
Vice President, Operations & Project Management
ACE Mystery Shopping
www.acemysteryshopping.com
866-240-7324

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2015 07:27PM by ErikaAce.

@pheatley wrote:

Congratulations Julie - do you cover New England?

We do have some shops in New England - and working on a deal for some more. We would love to have you apply at www.acemysteryshopping.com.

@Spotnnotfarm wrote:

Do you have shops in. The Atlanta Metro

We do on occasion! We would love to have you register with us!

I am a Canadian shopper and hate US cheques. My credit union holds any US cheque for just about a month which can be a real hardship if the cheque is for a large amount or I have more then one to deposit. I love direct deposit and PayPal even though it can take 3 to 5 days to get the PayPal monies transferred. Anything is better then Hyperwallet, Payquicker or any other payment system like that.

@JulieACE:

Julie, I don't have an issue with checks myself, but I have to say that I, too prefer PayPal. I understand why you chose to do away with Dwolla and PayQuicker (thank goodness) but I am curious what issues, if any, you were having with PayPal?

They have to pay a fee for Paypal.

quote=stormraven73]
@JulieACE:

Julie, I don't have an issue with checks myself, but I have to say that I, too prefer PayPal. I understand why you chose to do away with Dwolla and PayQuicker (thank goodness) but I am curious what issues, if any, you were having with PayPal?[/quote]

I love getting paper checks! I scan them and take them to the bank and deposit directly to my savings account. Somehow to me, it seems safer. Who's to say PP can't be hacked and my money just disappear?

Besides, anything in the mail that isn't either a bill or junk mail just makes my day.

LOL!

@JulieACE/@ErikaAce ----------->Thank you for returning to checks. I stop shopping for ACE when you took on the PayQuicker and Dwolla clients. Last thing I wanted was my money floating around in cyber space. It really seems like no one was accountable. I will re-up my application because You did have shops in my area and I need to see if they still exist or more. I will email you if there is a problem with my application.

@stormraven73 wrote:

The price of cutting a paper check and mailing it.... less than $1.00
The price of a bounced direct deposit.... $10.00

The price of electronic deposits when people don't give bad information to the MSC: almost zero.

@audrialyn30 wrote:

They have to pay a fee for Paypal.

I understand that part, and there are many MSCs that deduct the fees from our pay. What I meant was were they having any technical issues with PayPal that made using it significantly more of a hassle than issuing checks? For example, I know that Julie had said they were getting lots of pay inquiries every month. Was that just with Dwolla, or did that include Pay Quicker and PayPal as well?

I'm not saying that I have an issue with checks, just trying to explore the options. I understand why they want to go with checks right now, and under the circumstances I think I would also. But perhaps down the road there is room for the possibility of adding other options? If so, I would be curious to know what, if any, issues they had with PayPal.

Anne

Yes, I guess Im experiencing confusion also. Since when do you have to "claim" your payment in Paypal, Ace? I get 3-10 payments per month from shopping companies, and they just deposit themselves- Ive never had to claim anything. I find the paper check payments inconvenient, even with mobile deposit. With 5-10 days mailing time, I was sometimes waiting up to 2 weeks after mailing to receive a payment, from companies that paid me that way.

Congratulations Julie! It is exciting to hear that you will be implementing new ideas and strategies. I have one question, though, if I may. Have the photo requirements for the "menu photo" shops changed since the first of the year?

In January of this year (2015) I performed two different restaurant "menu photo" shops for ACE. One of the restaurants menu was so big and glossy that it was impossible to get good photos (while in a dark stall in the women's restroom) with the flash on my phone. To get "readable" photos of each food item, I had to take several close up photos of sections of each page. When I uploaded the photos in the report I had over (hard to remember the total) 50 photos and I was so frustrated that I have never done another shop for ACE.

Now that you have done away with Pay Quicker and are under new ownership I would love to start up again ..but am shy about taking any more "menu photo" shops if the requirements are the same. Will you shed some light? Thanks!

Do you have any shops in Jacksonville NC? I think my ACE account is still open.

I personally didn't have a problem with PayQuicker and certainly don't have any problem with PayPal or Direct Deposit. Never had a problem with Dwolla so far, I'll even take a check as long as it good and mailed. All my banking is done online anyway, I deposit checks online or through the mobile app.

I'm sending ACE an email about a payment I never received, I think it fell through cracks during the move from PayQuicker to Dowolla.

Direct deposit is almost the standard for employment type payments. Very few companies don't use it, but I can see where a smaller company would continue to write checks.

@DNinCA wrote:

Congratulations Julie! It is exciting to hear that you will be implementing new ideas and strategies.

Paper checks are not new ideas or strategies.

ShoppingDad - I wasn't aware that you were answering on behalf of ACE. As I read it, your reply has no positive merit as it relates to my comment and question to Julie at ACE. For all you know the new strategies and ideas I was referring to when directing my congratulations to Julie had nothing to do with payments for shoppers.

I love getting Checks. The only problem I have with them is that most of them say Whomever MYSTERY SHOPPING. Which makes it really hard to do a deposit at one of the Banks that I mystery shop. BUSTED!!!

@DNinCA wrote:

................................................Have the photo requirements for the "menu photo" shops changed since the first of the year?

................................... of the restaurants menu was so big and glossy that it was impossible to get good photos (while in a dark stall in the women's restroom) with the flash on my phone. ..........................................
Now that you have done away with Pay Quicker and are under new ownership I would love to start up again........................................

Why you are in the women restroom taking pictures is beyond "convert". Although I see ACE as still offering the "menu pics", I don't any reason why one needs to be in the restroom to take the pictures I hope we do not have to take menu pic in the restroom because I would think that that is not saying much for the Client Retail.

Other than taking the menu outside of the restaurant to take photos of the entire thing where else in the restaurant could I have "covertly " taken so many photos of it? The instructions also asked for photos of all table top display of specials and window clings! Oh, and the outside sign. On the second menu shop I did for ACE I actually did take the menu with me (it was a paper menu) to photograph in my car.

@stormraven73 wrote:

@JulieACE:

Julie, I don't have an issue with checks myself, but I have to say that I, too prefer PayPal. I understand why you chose to do away with Dwolla and PayQuicker (thank goodness) but I am curious what issues, if any, you were having with PayPal?

It looks like I've gotten a bit behind during the holiday weekend. Glad the topic is generating conversation and I'll try to answer all questions.

There are several reasons we are not comfortable with PayPal.

1) We used PayPal several years ago for a brief time. When someone does not have a PayPal account, the payment comes back to us. While I agree that it's not our job to chase shoppers around who do not set up an account, it is something we have to do anyway. It creates an audit trail nightmare. Believe me - I'm still auditing the records from the buy out. It's not a walk in the park.

2) PayPal is not FDIC insured. When a business does a batch payment via PayPal, they can't do an electronic check where it pulls from their checking account. We have no choice but to transfer the money into our PayPal account first. As I've said, we are a small company. If we were to deposit our shopper payments into PayPal, then our PayPal gets hacked, we would be in all kinds of trouble in 2 seconds flat. Our shopper payroll could be as much as $60,000 or more, depending on the projects we have that month. I'm nowhere near comfortable transferring that kind of money into an online account that we can't walk into the bank and access or speak to someone about.

3) When I took over the company and hired a CPA, we were advised that it would be in our best interest to pay by check.


Julie Simbro
ACE Mystery Shopping

@DNinCA wrote:

Congratulations Julie! It is exciting to hear that you will be implementing new ideas and strategies. I have one question, though, if I may. Have the photo requirements for the "menu photo" shops changed since the first of the year?

In January of this year (2015) I performed two different restaurant "menu photo" shops for ACE. One of the restaurants menu was so big and glossy that it was impossible to get good photos (while in a dark stall in the women's restroom) with the flash on my phone. To get "readable" photos of each food item, I had to take several close up photos of sections of each page. When I uploaded the photos in the report I had over (hard to remember the total) 50 photos and I was so frustrated that I have never done another shop for ACE.

Now that you have done away with Pay Quicker and are under new ownership I would love to start up again ..but am shy about taking any more "menu photo" shops if the requirements are the same. Will you shed some light? Thanks!

The menu audits have not changed much. We recommend that shoppers use MOBIAudit to put the shops in. That way, you can upload them right to your report while you are there and won't have to transfer them from phone to computer. That may save you a bit of time if you think about doing another.

Julie Simbro

Julie, that makes perfect sense to me. Thank you for the clear and reasonable explanation. While your choices might not be my choices, they are perfectly reasonable and legitimate in light of the concerns you have highlighted above, and I totally understand.

@JulieACE wrote:

3) When I took over the company and hired a CPA, we were advised that it would be in our best interest to pay by check.

How does the CPA feel about direct deposit or ACH?

@fuzzymo wrote:

@JulieACE wrote:

3) When I took over the company and hired a CPA, we were advised that it would be in our best interest to pay by check.

How does the CPA feel about direct deposit or ACH?

We didn't ask - because it's not something we are interested in doing. I'm sure it would be okay with her - because she wouldn't have the daunting task of having to collect financial information from the shoppers. ACH/Direct Deposit did not work well for us in the past. Too many shoppers gave wrong financial information, closed accounts without remembering to tell us, etc. Checks are working very well for us. Maybe "old school" but at least it's a "school" everyone's been to!

Julie Simbro

Good grief people. No wonder shoppers get the rep for being annoying. It's Julie's company & she can make whatever rules she wants.If you don't like those rules go work for someone else.
The individual posts asking if there are shops here & shops there is ridic. Just like any other msc, you register w/them & check the job boards, If there aren't any jobs there now, another shopper grabbed them already or they don't have shops there right now. 3 months down the road they could have shops in that area. Time for some to put their big girl & boy panties on.

Ninja, when Julie came to the forum I have to believe she meant to communicate with a somewhat different group than if she simply emailed shoppers registered with her company. She came here with a subject of contributing to Wounded Warriors and several members responded with suggestions and objections. I don't see why anyone, Julie or shoppers, should be criticized for participating in the thread. Thank you for the instructions on how to find shops. That's very helpful as I had no idea. Too bad I can't find those panties, guess I'll have to shop commando.

@JulieACE wrote:

Checks are working very well for us. Maybe "old school" but at least it's a "school" everyone's been to!

Fair enough. I have a couple other MSCs which only do checks as well, so I felt it couldn't hurt to ask.

From my perspective, as long as the checks keep arriving in my mailbox, I remain quite happy. Sadly, it doesn't look like you have any shops in my area (Eastern NY outside of NYC) yet, but I'll keep ACE on my list to check periodically.

@MSNinja wrote:

Good grief people. No wonder shoppers get the rep for being annoying. It's Julie's company & she can make whatever rules she wants.If you don't like those rules go work for someone else.

Sure. I can also ask questions on a forum intended for such questions, even if some other forum members happen to not like what I ask or how I ask it.

@MDavisnowell wrote:

Ninja, when Julie came to the forum I have to believe she meant to communicate with a somewhat different group than if she simply emailed shoppers registered with her company. She came here with a subject of contributing to Wounded Warriors and several members responded with suggestions and objections. I don't see why anyone, Julie or shoppers, should be criticized for participating in the thread. Thank you for the instructions on how to find shops. That's very helpful as I had no idea. Too bad I can't find those panties, guess I'll have to shop commando.

what on earth r u talking about? I don't see anything about Wounded Warriors in this thread. It's about ACE under new ownership & changing their form of payment. I didn't think you were a new shopper but I;m glad you liked the shop instructions.