I paid for a month of Shadow Shopper a few hours ago and was enjoying looking through the listings. There was one for a restaurant. I clicked on the link and it said it was Restaurant Evaluators. I went to apply but the link was broken. [www.shadowshopper.com] I sent a nice email to the owner, letting him know it was a broken link, and also wondering why they would be listed as having shops in my Canadian city, since they apparently did only US shops. I also let the owner, Johnathan, know that they seemed to have a bad reputation.

He replied:

Please use this link [restaurantevaluatorsonline.com] or the link in the ad to get to register at their website. We have had no member complaints for this company our members have been paid on time and in full.


Then about 20 minutes later I received this email:


>Dear xxxxx, this email is a confirmation that your ShadowShopper account has been >disabled on 03/04/2012. No further action on your part is required.
>
>ShadowShopper Member Services
>[www.shadowshopper.com]


Keep in mind, I've only had the account for around 4 hours! I replied:


Huh? Why was it disabled?
And what about the money I paid for the month?


OMG! Here I was thinking that site was going to be a really good resource, but I dared express a concern and he's taken my money and banned me! I will pursue it with Paypal, since he did not refund my money. I'm really shocked.

(edited because I had the order of the emails from him backward, they came in around the same time)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2012 06:55AM by Misteriosa.

Holy Crap!

I would definately pursue PayPal as well. Some companies...Shadow Shopper, Volution, a company owned by a man named Dave, Trendsource, and more need to get over themselves.

I would be totally ticked! Good luck getting your money, hopefully PayPal sticks up for you.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2012 03:41AM by SecretAgentMom.

That'a terrible! I have been hesitant to pay for Shadow Shopper. I don't believe we should have to pay to get work.

Apparently he got the email from Paypal because I'm allowed to use the site again! I don't want to now.

Ask for a refund. This company has a horrible rep. You are right do not pay to shop. If you do any shops for them let us know the outcome.

The fact that you used PayPal worries me. Unless it's for an eBay purchase, they don't always make it easy to get your money back. Let PayPal know he terminated your access and you want your money back. Unless you went back to try again, how would you know you had access? Did he email you?

I'm sure the reason you got banned is because you hit a very raw nerve when you said his company has a bad reputation. I know schedulers use it and I've heard it's gotten better over the years. However, it used to be a place where schedulers would go out of desperation because a warm body was better than no body. The reports were awful, the people didn't know what they were doing or how it was expected to be done. From my understanding, these were people who had no experience shopping, did a search online for MSing and Shadow Shopper came up. Schedulers have mixed feelings about Shadow Shopper.

Obviously, there are always exceptions to the rule and I know a number of experienced shoppers on one forum some years ago who felt they had access to shops not posted elsewhere (doubtful) so they signed up for the free trial that was offered. What they didn't realize because it was buried in the fine print or they weren't observant enough was that Shadow Shopper AUTOMATICALLY charges the annual fee at the end of the free trial. Many shoppers went into an uproar to find that they'd been charged and Shadow Shopper wouldn't refund the money. They had to go through their credit card companies.

I do NOT know if the same practices are still used with Shadow Shopper. Just make sure if you don't get any satisfaction and a closed account through PayPal, that you check the Shadow Shopper site to ensure you're not enrolled in automatic payments. I would wait and see if PayPal refunds your money. If you sign in, he might have a log of it and can use that to fight your request for a refund by showing when you last logged in.

Good luck!

I didn't mean to say Shadow Shopper had a bad reputation. It was when the link for Restaurant Evaluators did not work I told him the link was broken and mentioned that Restaurant Evaluators had a bad reputation for not paying, and wondered why they were advertising a job here in Canada since I'm unaware of them having jobs here. Maybe he took it that way! I actually thought the Shadow Shopper site was quite good, at least in the 4 hours before I was banned.

I did go back to check later to see if I was still banned and was not. He hadn't emailed me. At that point I made sure to delete my information and made sure I was not signed up for automatic payments.

I've gotten my money back from Paypal a couple of times that was not Ebay. It was no trouble at all since the other party did not bother to respond.

Always Angie,
I have notified Paypal on several occasions concerning refunds and have never had a problem with them. It usually takes 48 to 72 hours for them to check out the situation, but then the funds reappear in my account and I get an email stating that the dispute has been resolved in my favor.

Has anyone else had a problem with disputed chares on Paypal, and if so, what sort of problem?

The few disputed charges I've had have been settled in my favor very quickly, with the money being returned to my account almost immediately after my complaint.

He just sent me this email:


It looks like you went in and changed all of your information, and cancelled your account. We did not cancel it, but rather you clicked on the button that said Close My Account.


That's not true at all! It was only after I had asked the question, about an hour later, that he disabled the account and sent me the email saying my account was disabled. I had not even known that option was available. When he then got the email from Paypal he reinstated me, after which I deleted my info from the site. Even at that point I did not cancel the account. I guess he really does not want to pay back the $4.95! This guy is really dishonest.

walesmaven Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Has anyone else had a problem with disputed chares
> on Paypal, and if so, what sort of problem?

No. I have had issues with eBay items not being as represented and submitted copies of emails where I had attempted to contact the vendor to sort it out myself. When the emails stopped or were never answered it was turned over to PayPal. It then was a week or so while they tried to get the vendor to respond to them before my money was credited back to my Paypal account.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2012 03:09PM by Flash.

I got my money back today. That was easy.

Gotta love Paypal!

Yes, I've had problems, friends have had problems, and others I know in the business have had problems. Most of it is buying/selling related, though. Only a couple issues with MS-related fees, thankfully. I believe I mentioned a few of the issues. Maybe not on this thread? I've been fortunate that mine were relatively minor and I did get them all straightened out after a bit of headache, save one but it wasn't worth the battle.

At one time, PayPal had a warning about non-eBay purchases not having the same protection as eBay purchases. I'm sure some of that was to encourage eBay use but I know there's a little truth to it, too. I expected Misteriosa to have to offer up all sorts of proof before being given the refund. I'm relieved that wasn't the case. I used to LOVE LOVE LOVE PayPal, but now I'm cautiously undecided.


walesmaven Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Always Angie,
> I have notified Paypal on several occasions
> concerning refunds and have never had a problem
> with them. It usually takes 48 to 72 hours for
> them to check out the situation, but then the
> funds reappear in my account and I get an email
> stating that the dispute has been resolved in my
> favor.
>
> Has anyone else had a problem with disputed chares
> on Paypal, and if so, what sort of problem?