IPSOS 'smartphone' shops

Who else performed some of these shops recently? I was contacted shortly after entering the reports for additional information. The email said additional incentive would be given with 'details to follow'. Haven't heard anything about that yet. The additional info needed was very limited, but I was just wondering if they are actually going to provide additional compensation. And, I'm a bit worried because I completed five of these shops. But when I log into the website and look at pay history, only three shops are shown as 'pending validation'. What happened to the other two that I submitted? I think completed shops are usually listed as OK for pay. So that has me concerned. Does anyone have a good contact at IPSOS for pay issues? Thanks!

Create an Account or Log In

Membership is free. Simply choose your username, type in your email address, and choose a password. You immediately get full access to the forum.

More Discussions About Ipsos Mystery Shopping (All Companies)

More About Phone Shops

I have done 2 of these and would gladly do more. Both were done recently, but I have not had any follow-up questions. Getting paid for these is still far into the future, probably early to mid-February. I have not had any payment issues with IPSOS. I just looked, and both of mine still say Pending Validation as do a bunch of other shops. I am not concerned at this point.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

I've only done work directly with IPSOS since early December. I just received my first payment from them and it was fine. I'm not overly worried, but just found it a bit strange that two of the five shops don't show as 'pending validation'. Maybe they're in editing or something where they don't show up there. I never received any communication that there was a problem with those shops, so we'll see.

i did 2 today, and 1 a few days ago. pay is a little low but i grabbed 2 today that were in the same mall, and the other one i took was 2 minutes from home. all my reports still say pending validation as well. i will say that the prepaid phone assignment i did for them got paid within a week which was great, i get assigned quickly for shops, and one of the account managers is quick to respond to all my emails. so at present time, i'm a fan of ipsos.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2016 07:56AM by jay225.

check paypal there is a name and contact number of someone in payroll.

Thanks. I appreciate that advice...I did find a contact by looking at Paypal and I emailed them. I'm not loving the help provided by the IPSOS schedulers. One simply never responded and the other did respond, but hasn't followed up after several days. Hoping I can get this figured out. I just saw a bunch more smart phone shops open up in my area. I'd love to do them but I won't until I'm more confident that I'll actually get paid.

what's up with these shops still "pending validation"? same for you guys?

I ate them like PEZ candy when the previous company had those shops if they are the purchase and return ones. I'm getting a 1099 from the previous company with the route they let me make and the bonus for doing more than 6 of them. They were no cake walk though.

No purchase is made in the course of these current shops. The report is much easier than when a previous MSC had them. Essentially no narratives this time.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

I performed a shop last week - followed guidelines, etc. Received an email I had shopped at the wrong location. Excuse me but the location I shopped was the one posted on my to do list and I did not dream that up. I tried to find the confirmation email but could not. From this point on I will keep every email and shop info til the job is accepted and paid. I find it sad a company would go out of their way to keep from paying $12 to a shopper whose main income in social security. I won't work for them again.

I do keep verification data on all shops including copies of my reports. Just in case.

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

cheryljane, sorry you had that problem.I print out something, sometimes just the first page of the shopmetrics job board and sometimes the first page of the report, on every shop that shows the date, the address, and the pay. I staple that down in the job folder. So far I've not had a problem going to the wrong address on the wrong date or any misunderstanding on pay.

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

There's a highly bonused smartphone shop IPSOS has on its board and for which I received one of those "urgent" e-mails this morning. I e-mailed the scheduler and said I could do the shop tonight, but I had a couple of questions, so I didn't actually apply for it. Wasn't sure I was eligible, since I'd done one not quite 90 days ago at the same location for a different MSC. And I had one other question. I haven't heard back yet, and, obviously, at this point, I can't do it tonight! Now I can't do it until Friday. I hope they can find someone who can do it before then!

If it were so urgent, one would think the scheduler would have responded to a shopper who could do it the same day!

It's still on the board, but I'm hesitant to apply because I haven't gotten clarification as to whether I can or not! Guidelines say you can't have shopped the location within the past three months, but do they literally mean 90 days, or three calendar months? Does anyone know how this is interpreted? I wonder if I should just go ahead and apply, then e-mail the scheduler again with my questions?

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

Stuff happens. A few years ago, I accepted a shop for a different MSC at a large department store. I recorded the address in my Excel file. On the appointed date, I drove directly to the store since I knew exactly where it was. I got a receipt and submitted it. A few days later, they rejected the shop because I went to the wrong location. I was fighting mad. Only when I compared the address on the receipt to the address in my Excel file did I realize that they had built a second department store of the same brand 3 miles away on the same street, just a different number. There are so many ways for thing to go wrong. I was chagrined.

@cheryljane wrote:

I performed a shop last week - followed guidelines, etc. Received an email I had shopped at the wrong location. Excuse me but the location I shopped was the one posted on my to do list and I did not dream that up. I tried to find the confirmation email but could not. From this point on I will keep every email and shop info til the job is accepted and paid. I find it sad a company would go out of their way to keep from paying $12 to a shopper whose main income in social security. I won't work for them again.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

Any idea when IPSOS pays? I don't see them listed.

I have nothing good to say about IPSOS. From my experience in completing one smartphone shop and never gotten a reply for why the report form is not accessible and the other smartphone shop being deleted I am lucky I deleted them. They are drowning in debt and going out of business. My mantra, mystery shopper beware. I have started doing research on these companies before I do any work. Many have questionable business ethics.

Many of us do shops for IPSOS, some of which require advancing funds to cover expenses. I have not had any problems getting paid by them, but if you have proof that "they are drowning in debt and going out of business", please provide a link. I can't find anything online that would substantiate that dire conclusion, but I am also not in a position to blithely ignore a warning in as much as in February my check from them was for over $1,000 So, please provide a link to site or sites that led you to believe this. Also, I have not had a single problem with their smart phone shops. Very easy to report, IMHO. The appliance shop form still has problems, however.

IPSOS is a publicly traded company on the Paris stock exchange, has a P/E ratio of about 10, and a market capitalization of over a $1Bn dollars. I don't see any red flags. Their revenue in 2015 was about $2 billion dollars. What issue did you find? I did not see any hint of questionable business ethics. Here is a link to their balance sheet on Yahoo Finance: [finance.yahoo.com], again, I don't see anything to suggest that "they are drowning in debt and going out of business."

@TGStew52 wrote:

I have nothing good to say about IPSOS. From my experience in completing one smartphone shop and never gotten a reply for why the report form is not accessible and the other smartphone shop being deleted I am lucky I deleted them. They are drowning in debt and going out of business. My mantra, mystery shopper beware. I have started doing research on these companies before I do any work. Many have questionable business ethics.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

@TGStew52 wrote:

I have nothing good to say about IPSOS. From my experience in completing one smartphone shop and never gotten a reply for why the report form is not accessible and the other smartphone shop being deleted I am lucky I deleted them. They are drowning in debt and going out of business. My mantra, mystery shopper beware. I have started doing research on these companies before I do any work. Many have questionable business ethics.

hmmmm...this rant/diatribe reads suspiciously like a former poster who cannot/will not adhere to guidelines and had a number of assignments rejected by IPSOS because of that failure. making blanket statements such as these with the absence of any substantiation does not pass the smell test. this is total, complete and utter.... B S

I dont know about drowning in debt; but, there is no question the shipper shops have dried up since January. Which is interesting because when they stopped posting new shops- (just some stragglers left) - is about the time that the payment was delayed. I wish someone woudl say what is going on with these shops - as I am tired of getting emails with all the same jobs daily. I may deactivate if the no longer are offering new ship shops

@likewhatido wrote:

I dont know about drowning in debt; but, there is no question the shipper shops have dried up since January. Which is interesting because when they stopped posting new shops- (just some stragglers left) - is about the time that the payment was delayed. I wish someone woudl say what is going on with these shops - as I am tired of getting emails with all the same jobs daily. I may deactivate if the no longer are offering new ship shops

ummmm....mscs & schedulers have zero obligation to keep us informed as to what their biz model consists of, which is certainly within their right. sorry your tender feelings have been bruised and you have thrown down the gauntlet of "disclose your biz practices or i will deactivate". i'm sure you will be sorely missed.

Wow! What a potent threat! Either tell me how you are running your business or I am going to deactivate myself so that you can no longer keep me in the dark. I am sure that they are just quaking in their boots.

Why do you think that you are entitled to know how many shops they have, when they will be assigned, etc? I havbe been getting the same email to take pictures at the same cheap hotel locations from a different MSC for months. All that has changed is that the income required for the shopper has slowly gone down from $80,000 to just $30,000, and the fee has gone from $30 (I think) to $45 for what the MSC admits is 80 photographs and 2 hours, and the people on this board say is much more photos and much more time. I guess you need to threaten that MSC also.

I hope that you are in my geographic area. I did over $1000 of shops ($675 in fees, the rest reimbursement) for them in January and got paid a day late in February. Work was down 75% in February, in part due to my schedule. I am doing a bonused shop tomorrow which I presume you would have rejected because you don't understand their business model?

@likewhatido wrote:

I dont know about drowning in debt; but, there is no question the shipper shops have dried up since January. Which is interesting because when they stopped posting new shops- (just some stragglers left) - is about the time that the payment was delayed. I wish someone woudl say what is going on with these shops - as I am tired of getting emails with all the same jobs daily. I may deactivate if the no longer are offering new ship shops

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

They do not seem to offer bonuses. They had the DIM weight shops priced at the same rate as Regular even though there was a higher out of pocket expense. They have increased it now by $3. But I've been waiting to see if they bonus shops in a remote city that have been sitting there for a couple of months. I may contact the scheduler and make an offer. Last time I did 4 in one day between two locations at double the pay rate for each.

Anyone have any luck with asking for bonuses?

Reg shops base rate is $12 and Dim Wt base rate is $15. That has been true from the start with this MSC. I completed a bonused Dim Wt for $20 earlier this week, and will do another one for $20 on Friday. In January, I did an out-of-the way Dim Wt shop which paid $50.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

So it was posted with the bonuses or did you negotiate them? I rechecked my log and in Nov 15 they priced their DIM weight shops at $12.00. Went up to $15 in 12-15.

They were posted that way. I did not negotiate for a bonus. It took well over a week for the $50 to actually be assigned to me, but I was willing to wait.

@whosear wrote:

So it was posted with the bonuses or did you negotiate them? I rechecked my log and in Nov 15 they priced their DIM weight shops at $12.00. Went up to $15 in 12-15.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

That's strange, the only $12 shops I've seen were reg., hazmat, and approved shipper reg/hazmat jobs. All dem weight around here were $15.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2016 06:17PM by wwin.

You and I are in agreement that Dim Wt is posted at $15. Whosear has been arguing that they get posted at $12 like the Reg and HazMat shops, and got bonused to $15.

@wwin wrote:

That's strange, the only $12 shops I've seen were reg., hazmat, and approved shipper reg/hazmat jobs. All dem weight around here were $15.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

My friend did five of them, I called him for you, he said he has heard nothing too." was that the big V company?

@whosear wrote:

So it was posted with the bonuses or did you negotiate them? I rechecked my log and in Nov 15 they priced their DIM weight shops at $12.00. Went up to $15 in 12-15.

When this msc took over the jobs they had the shipper shops listed together and you had to read carefully to see if it was a Dim Weight Shop or one of the other kinds. The clue was that the Dim weight ones had $15 at the end of the listing and the others had $12 at the end of the listing. I remember even getting an email from them early on apologizing for the way they were listed. Soon after it was fixed. It was confusing for about a month as I recall until they finally found a way to list each type of shop differently. Even now I have seen a comment about scheduler A for Dim Weight shops and scheduler B for one of the other shops at the end of each listing. If you scan the email list quickly without paying close attention you could easily just pick up the word dim weight by eye and miss reading the rest of the description for that shop that tells you which shop it is.

For a message board intended to foster discussion/help - I am saddened that your reply fostered such hostility.
Firstly - I did not throw down the gauntlet. My point is that every single day I get the exact same few shops. There were tons of them being added on a weekly basis and then just poof- nothing. I really only do the ship shops - so my saying I would deactivate was because if they are no longer using this client then no point in my getting the daily emails. Certainly not a threat and certainly not intended to bring on such a laughable response. I guess I thought maybe someone else could shed some light on what was going on. Which actually on another board someone did and with a whole bunch of kindness and courtesy - I may add.
So while I certainly do not expect them to tell me their biz practice; it is time consuming to keep logging in to their account to look at the same thing day in/day out. And since the payment was delayed almost 5 days last month and at that same time they stopped offering any new ship shops- just the stragglers - my point was that maybe this MSC is no longer offering this client. Since they were so quick to message when they took it back from the previous MSC - it would be nice to know if they are no longer offering any future new assignments.

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login

IPSOS 'smartphone' shops

Create an Account or Log In

Official List of Mystery Shopping Companies

Mystery Shopper Magazine