If you are doing an audit for gas stations and there is a route. Should all of the destinations be posted before you accept the shop? I signed up for one only to find that there were some in another state that was not disclosed. What would you do?

Contact the scheduler. State that the ones in the other state were not previously disclosed and you are not available for them. (Or you are with a distance bonus).

I did contact them. She said that the other one was always in that package. I told her that it was not disclosed when I accepted the shop and that I really had to see if it was doable. I asked if it was posted anywhere on their site and she said no.
I was affraid to make to much wave because I really enjoy doing them.

I have never been offered a pre-made route and always had to pick and choose the shops I wanted, so realize that my advice may be suspect.

First off, do you have any of the original route in writing. This would best support your assertion that it was never there.

If it was via phone only, is there a possiblity the city was mentioned in the original list, but you misheard the name of the city. For example I live near West Town A, but there is another place just named Town A also in my state. They are nearly 250 miles apart, but if you didn't know that you would think these are close together, but they aren't. Also the city names could sound close to one another. If this is the case and you can blame it on yourself while apologizing profusely they might be willing to let that one go.

After that you need to do the risk/reward analysis on this shop. Is there a bonus attached to successfully completing all of them? I know I once had a route that I offered to do and pick up a bunch of shops that had been laying around. Was offered a $100 bonus to do all of the shops, but couldn't complete one of the 8 (the address they had was wrong) and the entire bonus went away along with the profitability of what I have done. You also need to consider if turning down this shop will effect your ability to work with this MS. If they will hold it against you, it might be worth it to find a way to complete by picking up a few extra shops along the way if possible.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2012 12:52PM by Shelly.

Thanks Shelly.

I am new to this company. From recent experience, they will say, "see you." I really would not like that happening. The scheduler did admit that the address was not on the spread sheet that she sent. I did ask her how was I supposed to know that one in another state was attached. She just said, "It always is." That left me in a very bad position. Especially on the first go round. There is no bonus offered. So I guess I will have to take the suggestion of planning a route, as we all know, those will wear you out.

Actually if you have the spreadsheet that she sent you, I would think they should honor it or offer you a bonus. If you have never done the route before, how would you know it is attached. According to the agreements we sign we are never supposed to share information about shops we do.

Unfortunately, too many companies are willing to work with shoppers and lay the difficulties at our feet. I do enjoy mystery shopping and the benefits it brings to my life, but it seems that the shoppers can get short changed or have to do extra work because of errors that others make too often.

It is your choice, but if you want to post the name of the company, people might be willing to tell you the likelihood of getting completely cut off from the company by refusing the one shop. But even then, there are no guarantees.

"It always is" is not a fair, reasonable or professional response, in my opinion, when you are new to this company AND the scheduler admits the address is not included in the spreadsheet. I agree with Shelly about doing a risk/reward analysis of some type. I would also remember this incident.

Good luck.

I think its a really bad idea for independant contractors to accept jobs without knowing what they are accepting for the money.

Before accepting a route I would want to know exactly where I was going.

How can you work out possible costs without this info?

How can you negotiate costs?

It bothers me that some MS just accept jobs without giving much thought to your personal costs.




rsa Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I did contact them. She said that the other one
> was always in that package. I told her that it
> was not disclosed when I accepted the shop and
> that I really had to see if it was doable. I
> asked if it was posted anywhere on their site and
> she said no.
> I was affraid to make to much wave because I
> really enjoy doing them.

I understand what Dwater is saying, however, I accepted the shop based on the infomation that was provided. It was not until the final schedule did I know that there was another site. So, it was not accepted blindly, the MSC failed to disclose all the information.

I give a large amount of thought into all of my costs. I do this as a second job so if the MS's are costing me, they simply are not worth it. I ususally can make a route and a day of it. However, this one too me by total surprise.

BusyBeeBuzzbuzzbuzz - I agree. I will work out a route and see what I can do.

Shelly - R&A

If it was not disclosed I would contact the MSC straight away.

I negotiated a fee to build 3 walls...... you want another wall built.... thats extra.



rsa Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I understand what Dwater is saying, however, I
> accepted the shop based on the infomation that was
> provided. It was not until the final schedule did
> I know that there was another site. So, it was
> not accepted blindly, the MSC failed to disclose
> all the information.
>
> I give a large amount of thought into all of my
> costs. I do this as a second job so if the MS's
> are costing me, they simply are not worth it. I
> ususally can make a route and a day of it.
> However, this one too me by total surprise.
>
> BusyBeeBuzzbuzzbuzz - I agree. I will work out a
> route and see what I can do.
>
> Shelly - R&A

rsa did contact the MSC/scheduler right away and was told the extra location was always there.

The OP did mention getting a spreadsheet with the shops listed and that the shop in question was not on that sheet. Seems like they did their part in checking, but scheduler did a switch.

Update:

I was able to put a line of shops together to do this. I am so glad that I did. I not only had fun, but saw some very beautiful country as well.

A great lessoned learned however, in the long run, it paid off.

Glad to hear it worked out for you!