Advice needed

I was sent an invalid report email from a company recently. They said my report was being thrown out because they tried to contact me regarding a discrepancy and that I ignored them. I check both my inbox and spam box several times a day and I have not received an email from this company regarding this report. This morning they are now claiming that they also left a voice mail for me!! Both my house and my cell phone have records of incoming calls, missed calls and missed voice mail. They simply did not contact me.

Aside from being out the shop fee and the money out of my own pocket for this shop, I am upset that my record will have a mark on it when it is the editor who is lying about contacting me.

Should I offer to re-do the shop? At no charge? I really want my name cleared.

Create an Account or Log In

Membership is free. Simply choose your username, type in your email address, and choose a password. You immediately get full access to the forum.

Would this perhaps be the large company that bought out one in Georgia and one in New York?

Not exactly sure of locations, but I think I get which company you are hinting at and YES.

Not worth my time? Just move on? Or fight for my good name?

Because this company has been your useful company, I would contact their Help Desk and indicate a concern that the shop was rejected because of non-response. Mention this as a concern for future communication rather than as an attempt to salvage the shop. Ask them for suggestions to keep this from happening in the future as you have checked your profile and the phone number is accurate, as is the email address, and you never got a voice mail and you have thoroughly checked both your Inbox and your Spam and find no notice. Ask them if, by any chance, they got the email returned to them as rejected by your email provider.

I would just eat the loss on the shop in question. The expenses you had in connection with it (but not the lost fee) is tax deductible against your shopping business. Be very clear your concern is for the future of your working relationship with them, not to dispute the past.

Be aware that if your email provider is AOL or Yahoo, these services have designated many of the shopping companies as "Spammers" such that emails are completely filtered and do not even make it to your spam folder. This is a major reason for suggesting that your shopping emails go through gmail.com

Thank you all for your sound advice.

Since you didn't mention the client I will ask if it's Marketforce. If so, they used your report, shafted you on the fee and basically you got screwed. With them there is no clearing your name. I learned about their tactics the hard way.

Her Serene Majesty, Cettie - Goat Queen of Zoltar, Sublime Empress of Her Caprine Domain

Cettie, you know your experience is not the same as most of us. You certainly got shafted from what you mentioned, but my experience with them is that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing there rather than being a malevolent or vindictive force. It certainly isn't like a company I can think of that deactivates you because you disagree with their owner in open forum.

Sure, there are a couple shops I did that I didn't get paid for--one because I followed their specific instructions without questioning them (???) and one because I felt I had to choose between doing something that I felt would reveal me to be a shopper or skip it and hope for the best. I chose to not advertise I was a shopper and the shop was rejected. Overall I find them pretty easy to stomach because they mostly stay out of my hair and pay me regularly. And considering they seem to be taking over everybody else's clients (albeit at reduced fees), they seem to be a company worth staying on good terms with.

Flash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It certainly isn't like a
> company I can think of that deactivates you
> because you disagree with their owner in open
> forum.

Hahahahaha....a good laugh to start the day.

**********************************************************************
“Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
~Gilbert K. Chesterton

Yes, they do seem to be getting everyone else's clients. And I keep finding the pay going down..depressing. I don't hate this firm, I don't love this firm, I just mind how automated and impersonal they are. But I have never had a shop rejected and they pay like clockwork.

Flash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Be aware that if your email provider is AOL or
> Yahoo, these services have designated many of the
> shopping companies as "Spammers" such that emails
> are completely filtered and do not even make it to
> your spam folder. This is a major reason for
> suggesting that your shopping emails go through
> gmail.com

I agree that gmail has the best ability to detect spam. I have had very few problems with yahoo also.

Jamie
Editor and shopper

Q: I haven't seen the job relisted on the company's job board. Would it just not be visible to me or do you think they submitted my report anyway?

They stopped emailing me back when I told them that I was sorry we were having communication problems and I hoped to resolve them but that I simply had no record on my phone's caller ID that they had called.

I am still on their shopper list I guess... I can see current shops. I do have previously scheduled shop with them tomorrow, though. We'll see if I get cancelled right after I submit my report. I really hope not. Despite this issue, I do use this company a lot. They have lots of shops in my area and their reports are fairly easy to do.

Meanwhile, I've signed up for gmail and am in the process of switching my email on all my MS accounts. Thanks for that advice (although I still believe they just never bothered to email me in the first place).

I messed up a shop with them a while back and did not see it relisted. I suspect that I was just not eligible to see the repost. There have been valid reasons why they could not use the shops they have rejected from me and where it was 100% their fault, they did reimburse me after discussion, though they did not pay the fee (which I felt they should have because I followed exactly their instructions but their instructions were wrong and they made noises about how I "should have questioned it". When they pay me for their job and for mine I will question.) Their system does bounce you from seeing jobs--for instance if there are two posts for the same location at different times of day and you take one, you won't see the other any more. If you see 6 of a particular shop at different locations, once you have taken some limit of them, you won't see the rest of them.

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login

Advice needed

Create an Account or Log In

Official List of Mystery Shopping Companies

Mystery Shopper Magazine