Hello, Last year I registered as a MS with LRA by Deloitte but when I login and look at the job board, nothing comes up. I've fully completed my profile and passed all the bits I need to do, so I am a bit confused. I cannot find any specific contact number or email address to ask anyone, so I just wanted to find out what everyone else's experience was when they first registered with this MSC? Thanks

Hi mc! Welcome!

I'm not familiar with LRA, but that happens. Sometimes there are no shops in your area.

At the bottom of this page, you will see a link for mystery shopping companies. Sign up with as many of those as you can.

This is a firm that likes to use a small team of shoppers to do ALL of their shops on each long term project. New shoppers only get called when there is a vacancy on the team. In addition, some of its projects are for clients that require, for instance, a number of years of management experience in a particular sector of the hospitality or transportation or health care industries.

I've done hotel shops for LRA from time-to-time in the past, but nothing since 2012 for some reason (even though I received a high score on the shop). Whenever I did these hotel shops, they were not on the job board. I was contacted directly by someone from the MSC with an invite to do the shops.

Coincidentally, I just received an email this morning from LRA inviting me to do some local consulting work for them for 15+ hours a week. That will interfere with my vacations, as I sometimes leave town for 2-6 weeks at a time.

I got the same email and cannot accept that project due to other commitments.

It did sound interesting. I like to choose my commitments from month-to-month, and it's cold, wintery weather out there right now! I am committed to cleaning and maintaining the interior of my house and venturing out when the weather is above 30F (which is not today, LOL). We are having a few warmer days next week, but being winter in NE Ohio, it's likely there will be more days like today (expected high of 17F, not including windchill). Then it's time to head to Mexico in February.

This would be a nice spring and summer thing. Oh well.

I am just too, too busy for several months to come.

That's a wonderful thing.

To expand on what wales said:

LRA does a majority of their shops through two means, direct hire full time employees do a huge majority and almost all of the rest is outsourced to other MSC's. They have many of the huge hotel chains and many times (not half but still a considerable number) the shops you see on other MSC's boards for hotels are ones the franchisee is having done to make sure they do well when the LRA auditors come in. Additionally they have a lot of sports clients they outsource to one of two other huge MSCs. Did the local big professional sports team, you've very possibly done work for LRA. They do have some projects they keep in house but from what I can tell it's not a major portion of their work. But I could be wrong.

Hi Bgriff. Thanks for the explanation. Where you been?

Decided to leave when I was accused of being the person not making a positive contribution

The forum would be almost empty if we all left because of that.

Oh? As far as I know I'm the only one who has ever been called out publicly by Jacob for it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2017 09:23PM by bgriffin.

I'm glad you're back!

@bgriffin wrote:

Decided to leave when I was accused of being the person not making a positive contribution

@HonnyBrown wrote:

I'm glad you're back!

@bgriffin wrote:

Decided to leave when I was accused of being the person not making a positive contribution

Me too. Welcome back!

Wow. Both posts welcoming me back are getting thumbed down? Guess I shouldn't have bothered.

How weird. I too am glad you are back. I wonder if I will get thumbs down as well. Why in the world? You aren't any more contrary than many others in this forum. I have enjoyed your wit and reason (most of the time, LOL).

Because there are children here.

I wonder how @JacobJ feels about such childish use of the dislike button. There were obviously no acceptable reasons to dislike those posts.

bg, please ignore the children and continue to post.

Agreed. Welcome back, @bgriffin!

Adding to the discussion that it's important to be registered in the LRA system, even though you don't have to necessarily check the job board there. Just be an active shopper with them and you may receive offers.....

Yup, I'm glad you are back also bgriffin!

@bgriffin I almost always appreciate your posts. You don't get riled up easily and have a keen wit. Let the kids be kids.

I know they do airport shops in some areas. I was badged with them for a period of time. I have also done some hotel shops for them.

Well apparently the posts have been thumbed down to oblivion. This forum has become controlled by the wrong type of people over the last year or so and @JacobJ and his moderator XX have not only condoned it but encouraged it. As nice as it has been for some of you to welcome me back, it does nothing to change the fact that the 4 year olds are allowed to rule. As long as that's how things are I will no longer post. It would please me to no end to see others stand up and do the same. Or stand up and voice their concerns to @JacobJ, but it seems no one else is doing it and I'm tired of fighting alone.

I am free to chat via PM by anyone who would like.

**Why do I think this you might ask? When the mention function was first added to the updates notification at the top, I logged in one day, hit the drop down, and saw "XX mentioned you in". It did not give a thread name and when I clicked on the notification it sent me back to the home page. I've played around with forum software enough in my time to know that the odd behavior indicated that XX mentioned me somewhere that I did not have the user rights to see. This would seem to indicate that either it was in the moderator forum that all message board software has and only moderators can see, or there really is a super secret forum for the special people. Take your pick.

Mod note:
- Member name substituted by XX at the request of the named non-moderator.

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

I agree with bgriffin's point. It seems like a poor design idea to create a button where if anyone has a dissenting option from the majority, their post will disappear.

The concept of the forum members being able to mitigate trolls was good, but BG is not a troll. @JacobJ; Couldn't there be a modification where members that have attained status to vote posts down on their own would take a larger majority of dislikes before having a post go away?...or perhaps at least have them be balanced against likes?

Remind me when I am a guest at your house to disparage everything about your taste, lifestyle and aspirations. Methinks that BG's posts have disappeared because they were rude to our host.

I don't really find anything that bgriffin said particularly harsh. I think the forum is at a crossroads that needs to be navigated carefully. We get closer and closer to a "Volition" situation if we aren't careful.........and uh, nobody is over there anymore, they are all here (for now).

Complaints about how Jacob chooses to run his forum are inappropriate. We are his guests. If bgriffin wants a forum to run, as it was pointed out, he can go start his own. There is no excuse for being rude to your host. If you don't like the hors d'oeuvres, don't go to the party or just politely bypass them. Complaining that they are not fixed to your taste but should be done ___________ is just rudeness that poisons the atmosphere.

I think that analogy is a bit off. The forum is a not a gift offered out of benevolence, nor is it a personal home for the owner. It's a business, which requires traffic in order to operate, and the relationship between the operator and members is therefore symbiotic.

Jacob regularly makes modifications to the forum in order to keep members happy, and has always been open to input when I have communicated with him, so I don't see how it's inappropriate in any way to suggest changes. Have there been specific attacks on Jacob's tastes, lifestyle and aspirations?