Everyone has told me nooooo!!! The reports are way too long! I agreed from the moment I did my first report, but I needed the work. Hour long reports for a 30 dollar job adds up right? Wording the same question over and over and requiring a different answer worth it?

THE LAST STRAW was when it seems like 2 new editors seem to return every report back for the past month. It seems so petty to me the things that they are dinging. Now not only are the reports long, but you have to do them twice. Is anyone else having this problem? I just want to know that im not crazy.

I love the company because they always have work but the reports are way too long. Even the video reports take forever to fill out, when there is video to support it.
Please someone give me some inspiration, insight, experiences, something.

By the way im not new Ive been a member since March. My user name was my first and last name, so you could see why this would be a problem. I could not find a way to change my user name so I started another account. If anyone knows how I could change my user name please let me know.

To change your user name just PM Jacob, who owns the forums. He is the first poster on many threads, so you should be able to find him!

The reports get easier as you get used to them. Just consider this a learning curve.

Ive gotten used to them my biggest problem is the new editors who keep sending everything back.

Parts, have you done any work for Remington? They will give you a true appreciation for EPMS.

I keep getting EPMS emails for bonus shops at $50. Worth it for shops? There are 4 in one area that I could hit in a day but the reporting process sounds long and tedious. I'm out to snag up some cash this week while on leave from the regular 9-5

I would recommend doing one to see how easy the narratives are for you. They bonus their shops as the months come to an end, so you will see the bonuses again.

wow there is someone with longer reports i dont believe it lol.

parts, wait until you submit the report. That's when the fun begins.

Honestly, I've done nearly 30 shops for them since I found the company last July. During that time, I have never had one report sent back and recently I've gotten a few emails thanking me for my detailed report. I can't help but wonder if you're not providing enough detail about your visit or maybe you're missing a something small?
Hopefully, I will continue to not have reports sent back but they have never dinged my work or sent back a report so far. All of my dealings with them have been fair and they are fairly patient when I've forgotten to enter in my follow- up stuff or update them on a shop.

There are many things that are inconvenient for me with this MSC, however I love the ability to earn $300+ per month without too much fuss or issue. I like their regular shops if they are near for $35 and I'll do bonused shops for $50+. They pay quickly and on time every month. Good company to work for and, their reports are much easier than Coyle. I've never tried Remington (they don't seem to have shops in my area) but they have a reputation for being murderous.

Meg, I think you are the exception. I'm happy for both you and the company that you're such a great fit for them.

Would you say the shops would be worth it for $60 or $65? There are four shops near me that are all around this price point now due to bonuses. I do not know how many shops they allow per day, but I debated on taking all four of these in a day or two and making a week of it. I'm satisfied with making $200-$300 a week right now. i used to be happy adding an extra $100 a month but I'm depending more on shops now that I've let me second job go. My first job earns me enough, but I need some holiday cash to buy gifts with I know it's not about the presents, but it's kinda about the presents too hahaha. We all like to unwrap stuff together.

Clin, i do EPMS shops that are close to me for $40. Anything out of my way, I do for $65.

If you are okay with the scheduling (targets) and narratives, go for as many as you can stomach.

The pay on the 22nd like clockwork.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2016 01:26PM by HonnyBrown.

That is why I love them. I have been working with them for a while the returned reports just started when they got 2 new editors.

@clinen11 wrote:

I keep getting EPMS emails for bonus shops at $50. Worth it for shops? There are 4 in one area that I could hit in a day but the reporting process sounds long and tedious. I'm out to snag up some cash this week while on leave from the regular 9-5

Often with EPMS four in one close area means they are all for the same company or the same facility, and often you can only qualify for one or two at a time. So you'll sign up for one, and the others will vanish off the map. Or they are for the same shop, but with a different target, and you can't do two shops at the same place.

EPMS is tough. The OP is right, the reports are tedious and you have to answer the same question over and over and over, of course, each time you have to say it differently. If writing or staring at a computer screen for extended amounts of time gives you headaches (like me) it's probably best to stay away from EPMS. I used to work for them, but it got to be more than I could handle. 2 of them in one day was more than I could deal with. And I shopped all of the available jobs in my area out to about 2 hours from my home and ran out of work that I could do for them.

I stopped getting job offers from them for nearly a year, then the emails started coming every day again as my rotation time cleared. But I didn't go back, I did sign up for one, but when I looked at the form all of the bad memories of bad headaches came back and I asked to cancel it. I don't mind doing the same type of shops for other companies because the reports are FAR more reasonable, and the tiny bit less money is worth it to not go to bed with a stress headache every time.

Hmphf. Firefox says EPMS website not configured properly, and wouldn't let me access it!

I love working for EPMS.... Though, admittedly, I don't mind narratives. they are honest, responsive and consistent with their expectations. They will give modest bonuses when asked and extend deadlines when reasonable. My only real frustration with them is that they limit you to 4 self-assign shops.

To be successful with them, though, you do have to have access to multiple phone numbers and email accounts: If you do too many shops with the same client, you have to have different identities with different contact information. A couple of their bigger clients track potential customers and their managers will flag you as a shopper if you show up too frequently in the system.

I hope to do three or four of their shops today.

Firefox recently did an update with Windows 10. It's completely compatible with the EPMD site now!

@ceasesmith wrote:

Hmphf. Firefox says EPMS website not configured properly, and wouldn't let me access it!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2017 12:06PM by HonnyBrown.

I wouldn't say the reports are easy or difficult, rather somewhere in between. There are requirements that must be met. Generally, phone calls to reach the target take me less than ten minutes. A "shop anyone" is a timesaver. The onsite visit should be less than thirty minutes. The report takes me an hour, or less. That leaves drive time.

Four in one day would cramp my style.

I can't even comprehend four apartment shops in one day!

I have been thinking abut doing video shops for EPMS but I was under the impression that with video shops there was little to NO narrative because it is all on video. what narrative is there?

I was doing several every week for months, I didn't have a lot of problems with the narrative and they do pay regularly and on time, but my issues were different. I would travel up to 75 miles to do their shops and I would stack them and only travel these distances to get the heavily bonused ones. But I just had too many problems with jobs that went south and then I didn't get paid. What do I mean by this: for example. I am supposed to shop a particular person. I call in the morning and make sure she is there, get in the car and drive the 75 miles into Denver which has so much congestion and always at least one accident on the freeway enroute so it always takes at least an hour and a half to go less than 60 miles so a 75 mile away shop is about a 2 hour drive for me there and back. I get there and my target agent is there. She shakes my hand, and then says she is feeling under the weather so she is going to hand me off to another agent, but she wanted to meet me. I have no choice if I don't want to reveal myself to be a shopper. I take the tour by someone else and then don't get paid. Now trying to reach your scheduler or anyone who can help you at EPMS is nearly impossible in a finite period of time. The last time this happened to me was last summer and I was really screwed because my husband had dropped me off and was going to run some errands. My agent had been there when I called in the morning and then just left by the time I got there, even though she knew I was driving an hour in and out .I had made in plain that I only wanted to tour with her because she came so highly recommended, so when I got there and she was gone and I just knew that I wouldn't get paid. I had another agent cancel on me that morning so I lost $150.00 for my two jobs, after traveling $150.00 roundtrip miles in a truck that gets 11 miles to the gallon in 93 degree heat in a truck whose air conditioning had just broken. I had a mini meltdown in the lobby of the apt complex and a hizzy fit where I told them I could never live somewhere that was so disrespectful. In twelve years of shopping this has never happened to me I have never lost my cool- but this was one of those straw that broke the camels back instances as I had a number of weird shops that didn't pay me that week. That was the last straw for me. At the time all my income came from mystery shopping. I just told them ( EPMS) to stop sending me emails. They had someone call me and give me their phone number and she said SHE would be available to me if I had problems and that I would have been paid if I has just done the the tour with the replacement agent, but I had been burned too many times. I said I would only do agent only apartments if it was in my town or the town 6 miles over. SO they just stopped sending me emails. Can't say I was sorry. I lost my pay on about a 1/3 of the jobs due to me because of these kinds of glitches that were beyond my control.

I live in an odd area where there are four to six universities within an hours drive and about the same amount of community colleges. There seems to be tons of housing shops nearby. It says 18-26 when I click on them, but I'm 27. A scheduler keeps sending me emails so I guess I'm on a blanket list. Bummer too because I was debating taking one! I may email her and check just to be sure. I could easily be a grad student looking to stay on campus and the facial features/changes of me at 27 vs me at the college age of 18-26 are really minimal.

As long as you contacted the target that day and confirmed she would be there, you would still be paid for the shop. Anything after that is considered out of your control and it is written on the website. It definitely inconvenient for a target to cancel on you since you reserve time to do the work that day. I hate target shops but that is what most of them seem to be in the area I live.

Ellis has editors rejected my completed shops for reasons beyond my control: made phone call over 6 times 3 times per day for a "targeted" agent that I found out after spending 3 days calling 3 times per day that the agent no longer worked there. Ellis refused to pay me anything for my work for their incompetence. This happened more than once! When I protested and billed them, (interdependent contractors bill people) they terminated my account_ GOOD RIDDANCE ELLIS!

They pay for your phone efforts. Did anything else happen?

@HonnyBrown wrote:

They pay for your phone efforts. Did anything else happen?

Agreed. When this happened to me they added $5 onto another shop for my phone efforts.

My second video road trip was almost all apartments. 32 in six days. Three days had six and one day seven and there were an additional seven shops sprinkled into the mix. Granted, none of them were targeted and none were for Ellis, but it did cross Tennessee from Memphis to Knoxville before moving into Alabama all the way south to Montgomery.

@HonnyBrown wrote:

I can't even comprehend four apartment shops in one day!

Where have you been?!

I can't even do apartment shops on consecutive days! My hat goes off to you!