I have completed over 3500 shops in the past 10 years so I'm not a newbie. I have a great reputation, am gold certified, and always turn in a well written and accurate report. I have taken those "what on earth was I thinking to take this" type of jobs, as well as those jobs that turn into so much more than you would have expected. I muddle through and get it done and then say "never again" for that one. I've also done hundreds of phone shops. I took a job that required placing 3 phone calls to 3 different lawn care companies and getting quotes. The forms were near impossible to complete because the quotes were varied; each company had different packages with various options, discounts, treatments, etc. The job required asking a list of questions in addition to what they offered voluntarily. I spent over two hours locating companies, placing phone calls, waiting for return calls and taking lengthy notes. It took me almost two hours two dissect the notes from the first company into an understandable manner on the form and it was so frustrating that I just "quit." It wasn't that the form was terribly long or anything; in my opinion the form should have been redesigned. I wrote a note to the scheduler that I had put in 4 hours so far for an $8 phone job and simply could not complete the remaining two reports, even though I had made the phone calls and taken the notes. I hit a wall I guess. I submitted one job and said I realize I may or may not be paid for it. I wonder if they will drop me. I have not shopped for them specifically before as they are a new company that has combined with a few other companies. I have shopped with one of the companies in the past. Has anyone done this before? I basically told the scheduler what I stated here.

Those sound like nightmare shops. I wouldn't call it quitting. You completed and submitted the first report. That gave you the justification for returning shops that were under-priced for the amount of work that was expected. Returning the shops was a business decision. The MSC did not fully inform you of what the job entailed. If the MSC doesn't assign you more shops, have you lost anything?

I accepted all three shops, confirmed them and only completed one of them. They were due today. I took them yesterday. I guess you could say I flaked? Although flaking is probably simply not doing them with no notification. In any event, they won't be happy I'm sure. There are pages of this same shop on the job board. But, yes, I like your idea that I "returned" the shops : )

Oh, thank you so much for you post. I am so sorry that happened to you, but you have solidified my rationale for not taking one of those shops. It sounds like you had a terrible ordeal. I know which MSC you are speaking of and I hope that they don't drop you because it sounds like you are a great shopper to go as far as you did with this. Don't be upset about it, I bet they have lots of shoppers who don't get as far in the process as you did.

I am thinking that perhaps this is a new client and that they do not have the correct type of report forms. It was difficult to take the information I received on the phone and answer "yes" or "no" questions without another option - in some instances, the answer was neither yes or no. But in order to proceed and submit, you had to pick one or the other. I picked one and then had to explain in the comments below why that answer was not applicable. Or, "Did they offer a discount or any other special?" Yes or no. Yes, they offered 2 free treatments with this particular package. The only option was "What percent discount?" You could not proceed without putting in something, so I put in 10% and then had to write below that there was not a percent discount but a special offer of 2 free treatments. This went on throughout the report. All companies I spoke with offered many options, yet the report is designed as if you only were given one, yet they want to know everything you were told. It's just a poorly designed report that requires explaining and reexplaining, OR, just doing a lousy report and fudging your way through, which I don't want to do. It was late, I am tired and I just ran out of the oomph to do this.

Do not feel bad. I understand that any shopper with integrity wants to finish a shop once they assign it. But, then I feel there are companies that are dishonest about the work entailed in a shop. I have had my share of these shops. I do a lot of phone shops as well and some have been a nightmare. You were right in not completing the report. Let this be a lesson to them for taking shoppers as naive and gullible. The guidelines should be able to state what is expected. I do some shops that always specify how much time it could take. I do $2 phone shops which are very rare but then the call is finished in seconds and the form can be completed in a minute.

You did the right thing.

Mum, I don't think it's fair that you said the OP was naive and gullible.

And one more thing. I took this job and another one with this MSC yesterday morning. The other job was to download one of three apps on your phone and you would use that app to order an entree and beverage of your choice from any one of the participating restaurants to be delivered to your home. I lived in the correct zip code so I accepted the shop. It said it was very easy to complete with a photo and short report. I downloaded all 3 apps and only one of the apps had restaurants in my zip code area. There were 4 restaurants; two pizza parlors and two Chinese restaurants. So, after looking at the menus and deciding what I would order later in the day, I read through all the job requirements (which you can only get after accepting the job.) It said you could NOT order from a pizza parlor or Chinese restaurant but ANY other restaurant was okay. I called the company directly and spoke to someone, explaining the dilemma and sending a screen shot of the 4 restaurants that were available. I got an email some time later saying I could not do the job. I wrote back over a day ago asking them to remove the shop from my job log and they replied saying they did. The job is still sitting there in my job log. Maybe this company is poorly run or is it that new and they haven't worked out the kinks yet?

She didn't say I was naive and gullible; not to worry. She said the company should learn not to take the shopper as naive and gullible. I wasn't either.

I was wondering about those jobs, and again, you have saved me some time and trouble. Yes, the concept is new and they haven't worked out the kinks yet.

@JASFLALMT What I meant was some companies THINK or TAKE us to be naive and gullible. Not that any of us are. Those shoe compare shops that no one took speaks volumes. Now, they increased the fee to $20.
Some companies either do not know the fair rate or expect us to take the job at a lower rate not detailing what the job means in terms of labor and report.

@JumpForJoy wrote:

And one more thing. I took this job and another one with this MSC yesterday morning. The other job was to download one of three apps on your phone and you would use that app to order an entree and beverage of your choice from any one of the participating restaurants to be delivered to your home. I lived in the correct zip code so I accepted the shop. It said it was very easy to complete with a photo and short report. I downloaded all 3 apps and only one of the apps had restaurants in my zip code area. There were 4 restaurants; two pizza parlors and two Chinese restaurants. So, after looking at the menus and deciding what I would order later in the day, I read through all the job requirements (which you can only get after accepting the job.) It said you could NOT order from a pizza parlor or Chinese restaurant but ANY other restaurant was okay. I called the company directly and spoke to someone, explaining the dilemma and sending a screen shot of the 4 restaurants that were available. I got an email some time later saying I could not do the job. I wrote back over a day ago asking them to remove the shop from my job log and they replied saying they did. The job is still sitting there in my job log. Maybe this company is poorly run or is it that new and they haven't worked out the kinks yet?

I cannot speak for the company. But I would continue to vent here and give the company time. Are they experiencing issues from storms? Are they handling many changes involving shoppers whose work is affected by storms? Is there some indirect storm effect for them? Patience now may help your situation with the company when they are working with your shop log.

Cool, Mum, point taken.

Thanks all. Much appreciated; really.

I am very sorry this happened to you. FWIW, I think you did the right thing.

I'm pretty sure I know which company and projects you are talking about. I didn't apply for either.

I shop for this company quite a bit, but their shops are definitely a very mixed bag.

Sorry to hear about your experience with the lawn companies. When i read the description for a shop, if it sounds too involved for a few bucks (ten or less), I'm out. By involved, I mean one hour or more of time. That is just my criteria. I'm ready to do a online or phone shop for under 10 when i know it's definitely a half hour or so of total time. It's good you found out what these shops are like and know to stay away. It does say something about the MSC though to put out this kind of shop with convoluted report.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2017 12:09PM by 7star.

I tried to do the food delivery shops too and had the same problem. Only restaurants that delivered to my house was 2 pizza, 1 Chinese and 1 other one. I have eaten at the other one and do not like it, but was going to order from it anyway, but the other qualification was you had to live within 10 miles from the restaurant according to Google Maps. It showed me 10.5 miles. I called the scheduler and she said I was not allowed to do it. Good!

Are these shops used as tests for a new aggregated shop map?

After giving an explanation as to why I was only completing one of the three shops, and asking to be removed from the other two, I got an email this morning saying.... You stated "I was given multiple quotes from each company for various treatment options".Please enter the information on the forms... This was stated in context that the form did not allow for multiple answers and required much explaining and re-explaining in the comments section and was just too incompatible with the guidelines. When I took the time to include all information given to me on the bottom of the (Sassie) report, I was only allowed half of the amount of letters I used. I had to rewrite, condensing and leaving out information. For example it asked if any other discount or special offer was made. One company offered two free treatments if I chose a particular plan. I had to enter a dollar amount only and a % amount. I had to put "0" in those boxes and below I had to explain that there was no option to state the actual special offered. I personally found this to be a consistent problem. For this time of year there are special end of summer/pre winter options, but the following year when you start in the spring, the basic plan is different. So, what is the "basic" plan, what I would do this year or next year? Yet, they want to know everything presented. Its just too convoluted for me. I have taken more time to write about this on this forum but I am hoping that maybe somebody else has done these and can share if they had the same problem. For some reason, this shop just got me to the point of saying, "If they let me go and it hurts my reputation, so be it." Maybe at another time I would have muddled through and just dug in and just made sure to never do that shop again, but this was somewhat misleading or ill planned or something. I wish I knew if this was a first time shop or if its been done several times before.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2017 03:49PM by JumpForJoy.

They are new shops.

As I said, I spent two hours on the phone yesterday afternoon, after locating addresses and phone numbers for the three companies, making calls, receiving return calls, and taking detailed notes. I had three pages of notes; one for each company. When I sat down last night to do the reports, I did not expect to have to dissect the report and figure out how to transfer this information in a cohesive manner and play the "try to figure out this report" game. I threw out all of my notes and I keep detailed records of all my shops. I really do NOT want to proceed with this at all. But I do wish they would accept my request or at least pay attention to my concerns instead of sending out an email that disregards what I said. Aaargh......I did, however, learn a lot about lawn care!!

I know these jobs. I was bummed I couldn't do them because I live in an apartment complex. Sounds like I dodged a bullet. I've done two jobs for this MSC and while both jobs had unexpected issues they weren't the MSC's fault. I think I just got paid for both of those shops as well but would have to double check. I hope this resolves well for you.

And I too agree about stating that you are returning the shops. I like that phrase!

OP - If you haven't done it already, maybe you can state 'I are unable to proceed with the report because I have 15 sets of pricing with these 15 additional services, etc and the report format doesn't allow me to enter it in. I can only enter in 2 sets of prices. Your report form only allows 2 sets of prices to enter. Please confirm that is all I need to do to complete the report. Any additional prices/services requested outside of the report format IS OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF THE REPORT FORMAT.' Hopefully they agree to that and you can be done with them forever !

Whoa! Sounds like the original email for those phone shops must have had, "Quick and easy!" in the subject line. I'll bet the body of the email said something like, "Simply call" and, "Simply answer a few questions."

To update where things are; I got two cancellations for the two jobs I "returned." Just the standard notification. When I logged in to my account, I see they are removed from my job log, along with the restaurant job. It appears they accepted the one report I did submit and it says I have a rating of 10/10. This is my first job with them so I have nothing else to go by. I just wish they had communicated with me about the concerns I had with these jobs. I will not write them off yet, and may try another shop at some point. I may call them and talk to somebody personally to see if I can have a better understanding of their position. Maybe they also found this job to be a problem. Who knows.

Sounds like it turned out good for you. It'd be interesting to see if those lawn shops are still listed available.

Sounds like they appreciated all you efforts and thoroughness in describing the problems. Maybe they will improve the forms based on your input. Glad you're getting paid although it doesn't compensate adequately for your time and frustration. Thanks for warning the rest of us.

They removed the lawn service assignments AND an unrelated restaurant shop? That does not sound like they appreciated your efforts or there will be any opportunity for you to try another shop.

@LisaSTL wrote:

They removed the lawn service assignments AND an unrelated restaurant shop? That does not sound like they appreciated your efforts or there will be any opportunity for you to try another shop.

Hey Lisa, JumpForJoy mentioned (somewhere in this thread, I just can't find it now) that they also picked up one of the shops where you download an app and order from a nearby restaurant. But only after taking the shop do you find out the apps and that you can't order from Pizza or Chinese Food restaurants. Those types of restaurants were the only ones listed on the apps in their area.

Just want to say thanks for posting this. I was just looking at the lawn care shops and thinking about taking the 3 in my zip code today since I have no jobs scheduled for the day. I saw when they were first listed at $5 each, and they are now at $10 each, so figured they were worth it. Wow, they are now on my 10-foot-pole list!

JumpForJoy, save a copy of your shop log that shows "received" status and payment amount for this job. A few years ago I did a phone job for this MSC, and they accepted and marked my report for payment. A few weeks later the payment was changed to "0.00." It took a few days to get ahold of someone to find out why the payment was changed, and to make a long story short, they said I didn't follow the guidelines because I was supposed to cancel an appointment a few days after the call. I let them know that I certainly did cancel it, but because the report was due the day of the call, I checked the "no" box instead of the "yes" box for the question that asked if I had canceled the appointment. They did reverse the decision and pay me for the shop, but if I didn't pay attention to the amount column in my shop log and check it every few weeks until it said "Paid," I would not have noticed they had "excluded" my payment.

EDITED to add:

Also, just want to add that I still do jobs for this MSC and find that most of their shops have a fair rate of pay. So, I would agree with others that they are probably still working the kinks out of this lawn care one. But it is painful to be the shopper that has to help them work it out...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2017 10:45PM by xenshopper.

Yes, xenshopper is correct; after discussing the restaurant shop with the MSC that I was only able to order a meal from a pizza parlor or Chinese restaurant (and those were the only two exceptions where you could not order a meal) they said that I could not do that shop, and they did say that hopefully there will be more restaurants using those apps in the future and I could try again. So, that is not a problem. I do want to say though that I feel somewhat responsible for turning a lot of people away from trying the lawn care jobs due to my post. I was not trying to slam the company by posting. I was actually quite surprised that I actually threw in the towel and basically said, "Screw it. Drop me, do what you want, but I can't put any more time or effort into this job." Its just so unlike me because as I said in the first post, I will dig in and complete a job and then never do it again if turns out to be a nightmare of a job . Perhaps being well armed would have been better. Perhaps if I had called the lawn care companies and asked only the questions about a basic plan (but that's hard to do when you are calling them in September and the basic plans all start early spring) and funneled everything else out, I could have found it less frustrating. They wanted a date when they would make the first visit, and they were all willing to come out now and start a pre-winter type treatment and resume a full plan in spring. But then again, they did want to know everything they tell you. It required lots of explanation with little space to do it, in addition to having to explain all the reasons your "yes" or "no" answers were not quite accurate, but were the only choices.

The other thing I would advise to anyone taking the jobs is to speak to one company at a time, fill out the report and then move to the next one. I made all the calls first, because you do have to look up the nearest address and phone number yourself, and then often wait for a call back. I didn't want to be in the middle of a report and then get a call from a second company and have to take that call. So, I called them all, got all my information and then later in the day, sat down to do the reports. It was late and I was tired. Rest assured I have had my times of burning the midnight oil and staying up very late to do reports, sometimes until 2:00 AM, but can no longer do that as I am up with my mother several times a night. I have cut way down on my shopping (which is why I thought this phone job would be easy.....NOT.) If somebody does try these shops and finds them to be far less of a hassle than I did, please do post about it and let us know. I'd hate to think that nobody would want to try them now. On the other hand, the MSC seems to have accepted my reasons for returning the other two shops and still has agreed to pay me for the one I did. I have not had communication with them.

One last thing; I had not done a job for them before as this seems to be a new company of recently combined MSC's, so when I saw the job posted, they were self assign jobs. I did not have self assign status with them so I wrote to the scheduler and told her about myself and asked if she would assign them to me. She did. I checked today and I see I now have self assign status with them so unless that changes for some reason, it seems that they are okay with me.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2017 07:04PM by JumpForJoy.