Hi: I am new to mystery shopping and am excited to have two assignments already. One is bigger and more exciting. The other one is one that I got an e-mail asking if I was interested and it gave an overview of the shop. I responded saying that I was interested I could do it in the next day or so. But when I got the details I really am not interested because you have to identify yourself afterward to the sales person and do several other things all depending how they answered my original mystery shopping question. Maybe when I have a bit more experience I would feel more comfortable doing this but not for my first! Should I still do the assignment? Will not doing it now give me a negative impact with this company. It is one of the, I believe, larger ones. Not sure what to do.

Unless the email was deceiving, honor your commitment. If you are going to cancel the shop, do it quickly. Canceling will sometimes have a negative impact.

You should still do the assignment unless you were misled about what it required. If you glossed over the particulars and didn't check the website for guidelines, I'd say you have to take responsibility here. It would be better for you not to cancel the first assignment if you want to work for this company in the future.

That said, it wouldn't hurt to call the scheduler and/or company and explain your situation. They might be understanding and let you cancel with no penalty, or they might be willing to provide a little tender loving coaching to get you through.

My opinion is you can make this work. Just think of it as the first day of school. Always a little scary, but nothing you can't handle and come out grinning.

I'm going to go against the flow here. IF there was no mention of a reveal and you were forced to accept the shop in order to find out, do what you feels best. I'm finding the lack of information more frustrating as time goes on and no longer feel comfortable with rewarding the bad behavior by advising other shoppers to "honor their commitments." Yes, we all have the option to never take another shop of this sort, meanwhile the MSC is really getting over on us.

I agree with Lisa that if the information available to you from the email and on the website did not mention the reveal until AFTER you accepted the shop, it's their bad monkey. If the information was there and you overlooked it, that's different. There have been a lot of times I've missed details skimming through guidelines and wished later I'd been more careful. It's a good idea to always go through the whole song and dance on the website because the email is going to be abbreviated.

If the shopper had access to information about the reveal portion of the shop *before* she accepted the shop, then the shopper had an obligation to complete the shop even if she misread/misunderstood the information. If the MSC did not make available such material information *before* the shopper accepted the shop, then the shopper was not obligated to complete the shop. If information on the website was available to the shopper only *after* the shopper accepted the assignment, the shopper should not have to do the shop unless the shopper did not read the online information promptly. Again, cancellation should be promptly communicated to the MSC.

I am going through that now with a company whose name will not be mentioned. They refuse to let me see the guidelines or survey until after assigning the shop so I confirmed, in writing, the shop could be immediately cancelled without penalty.

Thanks everyone for some great feedback. No I did not have access to this information until I accepted the assignment. I have been toying with the idea to do it or not but just feel uncomfortable doing it. Thank you for all your feedback. I now feel more comfortable with the decision I am making and will contact the scheduler.

In this case I would definitely take the time to explain to the scheduler you are new and not comfortable with announcing yourself. Who knows, she may be able to give some advice and boost your confidence. Those things do happen

In my experience the reveals have never been a big deal at all.

However, I am another who *hates* when you can't see the full details of the shop until *after* you've accepted it. I love Lisa's solution.

salsashopper Wrote:
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> Hi: I am new to mystery shopping and am excited
> to have two assignments already. One is bigger
> and more exciting. The other one is one that I
> got an e-mail asking if I was interested and it
> gave an overview of the shop. I responded saying
> that I was interested I could do it in the next
> day or so. But when I got the details I really
> am not interested because you have to identify
> yourself afterward to the sales person and do
> several other things all depending how they
> answered my original mystery shopping question.
> Maybe when I have a bit more experience I would
> feel more comfortable doing this but not for my
> first! Should I still do the assignment? Will
> not doing it now give me a negative impact with
> this company. It is one of the, I believe, larger
> ones. Not sure what to do.

A lot of my first mystery shops were a shop combined with a revealed audit. I can understand why some people hate revealed assignments but at the time I felt it was easier to do an assignment where I did *not* have to stay covert. The only reason I prefer covert audits/shops now is because on most assignments that involve a reveal you have to dress up and I have a very limited amount of my wardrobe with me (and most of it is casual clothes).

If they did not mention the reveal in the original email I'd more than likely feel justified in backing out of the shop. I feel this is something the MSC needs to be up front about from the beginning. The only reason I might take it anyway is if they have other more desirable shops I might want to take in the future.

I have my first assignment coming up. I hope I was given all the information and don't have any "new" information come to the light. What ever it is, next to something illegal or immoral i think I would still finish my job and then voice how I felt afterward.
Good luck,
Bonitace

I think you should go for it as have agreed first.