I know I will probably blasted for asking this but why do we have to keep our mystery shopping secret from other MS? We all know the code names for stores and companies so what is the big deal? I understand we signed a contact saying we would not discuss with family, friends or those being shopped but what's the deal with secrecy on here?

I quite agree with you Rucker. I wish we could share because it would save me time looking through multiple MSC. It's one of the rules of this forum and plus some of us feel that we spend SO MUCH TIME looking for the shops and registering with multiple shops that we just don't want to make it easy for others who haven't done the work!

"OMG! HELP US FILL THESE SHOPS!!!! WE CAN'T FIND ENOUGH SHOPPERS FOR THESE SHOPS!!
But we will CUT YOU if you tell ANYONE who our clients are!!"

So stupid.

"Hey Karen. You should become a mystery shopper too! I'll get a referral bonus if you sign up!"
"Wow, that sounds like fun? Can I shop Starbucks? Target? BMW?"
"Yes!!!"
"Awesome, who do I sign up with???"
"I can't tell you."

It's a defense mechanism that is mostly ineffective. When I was in corporate America, we proudly told people who our customers were. But we had the best product in our market and none of our competitors could touch us, so we had nothing to fear. We wanted people to know who did business with us.

The mystery shopping world has become so commoditized that MSCs do everything they can to prevent competitors from bidding for their clients' business.

Sure, the MSCs will claim it's to keep the client's employees from signing up their friends to shop them. Hogwash. If someone is willing to stoop to that ethical level they are willing to dig around until they find out who shops them. Besides, many mystery shopping reports list the name of the MSC on the report.

The contract we signed saying we "would not discuss with family, friends or those being shopped" is probably more important here - on an open internet forum. This is not just a small, private community of shoppers. Anyone who can read and who has an internet connection can read here. If they register, they can also post here - without proving who they are - and they could be anyone - shoppers, schedulers, editors, MS company employees ...... we have several schedulers and MS company owners who read and post frequently. ......and a couple of MS clients. In some cases we have had participation from the employees of MS clients - - looking for the name of the company that shopped their employer! Over the years, I have gotten PMs from posters who had no luck in open forum after asking who shops XXXX, so they PM'd me to say they were just an employee of XXXX and just wanted to know which company shopped their employer. Of course, I would not have known they were employees of the client if they had not told me ..........on an anonymous internet forum, how do you ever know who is reading what you write? Or who is PM'ing you for information?

The fact that ANYONE can sign up with any of these companies and find out all of this super secret information is what makes the whole secrecy thing pointless. Sure, it's more work, but it certainly can be done.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2014 01:51PM by Hoju.

Rucker13 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I understand we signed a contact saying we would not
> discuss with family, friends or those being
> shopped ..."


This is why. If you wanted to name names you shouldn't have signed that contract, nor should you have signed up for this forum.

The contract you signed when you registered with an MSC says you can't/won't. Rules of this forum say you can't. So get over it. You can't.
What is it about guidelines/rules/laws that says: 'If you don't agree or understand why, then you don't have to comply'?

To snarky? Sorry, but today this just rankled my last nerve

eveb Wrote:
________________
> This is why. If you wanted to name names you
> shouldn't have signed that contract, nor should
> you have signed up for this forum.
>
> The contract you signed when you registered with
> an MSC says you can't/won't. Rules of this forum
> say you can't. So get over it. You can't.
> What is it about guidelines/rules/laws that says:
> 'If you don't agree or understand why, then you
> don't have to comply'?
>
> To snarky? Sorry, but today this just rankled my
> last nerve



Oh, calm yourself. People come here to complain just as much as any other reason. The fact that the policy does or doesn't make sense is a perfectly reasonable topic for discussion here. Save your self-righteousness.

"People come here to complain just as much as any other reason."

Yup, and I'm complaining. I have as much right as anyone else.
So save your self-righteousness.

Actually, I was just pointing out that the OP answered their own question.
I did apologize if my tone was to snarky.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2014 01:57PM by eveb.

Interesting, all this.

But..I know because I signed something legally, I won't reveal anything.

That's me. That's what I do.

At least my mailbox here is empty now. No one is asking me anymore.

This has been discussed ad nauseam. To me contracts are a big deal since not all of us have cutesy little aliases to hide our identities. The other big deal is we are members of a forum owned by someone else and our host does not want us revealing who shops who. If you don't want people smoking in your home and they did it anyway, would you invite them back?

Something I have discovered that goes along with this - one can google what mystery shopping company shops (blank) - fill in the blank with whatever company - and sometimes you can find out who shops who this way. The information may no longer be valid due to companies switching MSC's but it's a good starting point I think and I have had a little luck just doing this.

eveb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I did apologize if my tone was to snarky.

Pre-apologizing for making self-aggrandizing comments is not a get out of jail free card.

It's the vain equivalent of "I'm not racist but..."

Hoju Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Pre-apologizing for making self-aggrandizing
> comments is not a get out of jail free card.
>
> It's the vain equivalent of "I'm not racist
> but..."

Thanks for letting me know.

Holy crap. Complaining because somebody has yet another complaint about ICAs and the rules of the forum is now the equivalent of being a racist? A similar thread was just started about a week or so ago. The real question is how many times do we have to read the same thing and just how patient are we supposed to be? And before you say we didn't have to read the thread take another look at the subject line. Eve made excellent points. If you don't like the terms of the ICA don't sign it and if you don't like the rules Jacob set forth don't become a member. Doing either and complaining after the fact is just useless.

Rucker:

If you wanted to light a cigarette in the Church pew, should you?

It's not just the "contract" we signed, it's just "doing the right thing to protect the client"

Clients have "proprietary" information, that is the DEAD ON reason why Burger King does not want to know McDonald's business going public. It is the "competitive edge" and if you understand business, AT ALL, you know you don't reveal.

That is why ALL your paperwork says to not share the information that you have. It is private. A client paid you to shop his/her location. Honor that.

The client hires a Mystery Shopping Company (such as one you might be contracted with) to represent them, to contract with them for a certain period of time. They want things done a certain way and they are paying for that.

Did you ever actually REALLY read what your ICA meant?

Perhaps I read it wrong but I don't think Rucker was complaining. He/she was simply asking why. Seemed like a valid question to me.

Perhaps I read it wrong also - but when I read "Fire Away - I know I will probably blasted for asking this," I assumed Rucker had read previous discussions and wanted a more in-depth answer. Otherwise - why would he believe he was asking a question that would not be welcomed? I certainly think it is a valid question, and I think he got some valid answers.

I think everyone has the right to ask a question and that everyone else has the right to respond and to comment. I was offended by only one comment in this thread - the one that said "calm yourself - save your self-righteousness."

Everyone has a right to ask a question. Everyone has a right to express an opinion. Suppressing opinions - even if one believes the opinion is self-righteous - is bullying behavior. Differences of opinion are healthy and make for an interesting forum.

How did racism get into this post? I must have missed the train!

snorkel, Because I apologized, mostly acknowledging, that my original post was snarky, it got extrapolated from there.

Hoju Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> eveb Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > I did apologize if my tone was to snarky.
>
> Pre-apologizing for making self-aggrandizing
> comments is not a get out of jail free card.
>
> It's the vain equivalent of "I'm not racist
> but..."

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2014 03:00AM by eveb.

I have to side with Rucker on this?
Why is it a big deal about "so called" confidentiality?? ??

AND this is the reason I say this.

When you shop an apartment the MSC tells the leasing agent WHO THE SHOPPER was and gives them your name and contact information. YOUR identity was not held confidential and the leasing agent is not bound by confidentiality to not tell other agents who you are. .

When you do a car shop the sales agent has your ID and is told who the shopper was.
YOUR identity and personal info was NOT kept confidential.

And the Big MSC that shops all the sunglass huts
Well your report, with YOUR NAME and your receipt is sent DIRECTLY to the store in an envelope with the MSC name printed on the outside of the envelope.
The sales clerk knows who YOU are and who the MSC is. THERE IS NO SECRET THERE!

Again YOUR identity and INFO as the shopper are NOT being held as confidential to the person that was shopped.

And how about the banks and cell phone shops that have you shop "competitor locations"

A true confidential agreement is TWO WAYS
The shopper is the only party here that has to remain confidential .

So, have fun getting bent out of shape over why someone asks whats the point.

The only reason MSC have you sign this is to prevent the shopper from trying to start your own MSC and steal the client.

OOOOOOOO MMMMMMMM GGGGGGGGGGGGG

No one is going to tell you who is who or who shops who so sit down and do some research. When I stated mystery shopping, in the day of the dinosaurs I was able to find everything I needed to start a viable business in 3 months time. I still spend HOURS a month researching and scheduling my work.

Put the effort in and you will get all the work you can handle.

Now I am going to quietly close the door behind me as I leave the thread.

I'll say what nobody else here is gonna say.

People don't give out who shops who because they don't want to. Yay the forum rules say we can't. Yay the ICAs say we can't. They're excellent cover for the fact that, really, we don't want to say. Sure some people may really care about the ICAs (I'm not commenting on who may or may not), sure some people care about keeping the forum owner happy, but really, they just don't want to tell you. Me included. I don't won't to tell you any of them. For instance, I don't shop Bahama Breeze. I don't shop Bahama Breeze because we don't have one near me, when I shop out of town I shop by myself, and the shops require 2 people. But I'm not gonna tell you who shops them. For one, it took me a shitload of work to find those. It wasn't my goal, but finding those found some other things for me. Why should I give up that because someone wants to know who shops Bahama Breeze? On top of that, some other shopper, who put in the same shitload of work, actually loves those Bahama Breeze shops and I would be shitting on them by giving out that information. Just like if there was some shop that I absolutely loved and that shopper gave out the same information. Sure, we all know who shops McDonald's. If you don't, and you've been doing this longer than 3 weeks, you should find some other way of making money. But we're not gonna say who shops McDonald's. We're not gonna say it because by saying it, we take away the right to say, OMG we can't tell you who shops Bahama Breeze because we're not allowed.

Put in the work. Sign up for the companies, learn how they work, learn about the companies you're shopping and the companies you're shopping for, and then pay close attention to what's said in here. If you do that, I totally just told you who shops Bahama Breeze.

*no I have no idea why I picked Bahama Breeze as an example.
** no, seriously, whoever is about to reply, I wasn't talking about you when I said some people don't really care about the ICA's
*** I promise, stop the reply button, I know you love your ICA and would never break it, I wasn't talking about you
**** excuse the overuse of the word @#$%&
***** Yes, I know YOU would love to tell but can't, you're the 1% I wasn't talking about.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAA What bgriffin said........... I AM the one that will admit I don't tell because I don't want you taking my favorite jobs.

PS I still don't know who shops Bahama Breeze but I have never heard of it and don't have them near me so I won't be taking your jobs LOL

Having 30 years of legal experience, I find the terms and conditions of the ICAs questionable. So much so, I consulted with my attorney, my dad, when I first began this journey. Dad read one of the ICAs and agreed with me on a few arguments. I am signed with three MSCs that advertise who their clients are on their websites. I find it interesting that I am bound to not disclose names of clients according to an ICA, when the MSC itself identifies its clients on their own website. I am not here to give legal advice; rather, I am simply voicing my thoughts. In any event, I respect and will abide by the terms and conditions of the ICAs, as well as the rules of this forum.

I also understand and respect the reasons why shoppers do not reveal who shops who. This is hard work and I am having a blast! I know for myself, I have spent countless hours signing up with MSCs, checking job boards, reading this forum, etc. Not only that, the time and energy spent building relationships with schedulers is worth mentioning. A couple of my friends want to be a mystery shopper and asked me to help them get started. So, I told them about this forum and the list of MSCs. That was three months or so ago and neither one of them are interested anymore...LOL.

the "confusing" part to me is when the MSC begs you to get your friends, family to join so they can help with xxxx shops....right there they are allowing you to discuss these items.....

For me, the only reason I protect the information is because I signed the ICA. I don't really mind telling people info about mystery shops etc but I will not because I signed the ICA. I do not know if it is written legally but I am pretty sure the largest companies can afford and have a team of lawyers looking everything over. It is their right to decide what they want to reveal or not reveal. Just because they decided to reveal on their website that they do business with xyz does not mean they want you to make that decision for them. Next week they might be hired by abc and they do not want that revealed. Had you not signed the agreement, they could not change their mind on that point as you, the shopper, would be legally able to blab about it. As to having friends and family join, you can mention the company, speak about what jobs are like in general and not mention who does what to your friend.
This does not mean I see the point but this is the reality right now of the business. The OP was asking a logical question. Not agreeing with something does not mean you walk away from it. If that was the case I guess my kids would never have gone to school as I do not totally agree with all their rules. And I certainly would not have home schooled them as I do not agree with all my own rules. I probably would not be able to work anywhere as I doubt there is a company out there that I agree 100% with their work rules on. And no this is not taking the discussion to a school issue.

rsglenn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not only that, the time and energy
> spent building relationships with schedulers is
> worth mentioning.


So much truth there. I recently (like last week) found out who shops Ferrari. I found out only because I have a fantastic relationship with 2 of the schedulers for that company. Otherwise I would have never known.

Well now that you found Ferrari, can you at least tell us who shops Bahama Breeze?

HA! Looking back at my post I realized that I edited out some detail that would have told someone paying attention who shopped them. But then again, the people who would have understood the hint probably already know.