I laid out over $1500.00 for a three night stay and was required to turn it in by 8:30 AM the following morning. Did the best I could, got it in by 3:30 and the editor returned it for multiple revisions and I missed one interaction completely. My wife had a great time, the stteak diiner was one of the best I ever had and the golf was golf. Illegal or not, record the interactions, to get all the details, timelines and quotes, then delete.

But you are Ok shedding out that kind of money without any guarantee that you will be paid?

OMG! If you have $9,000 to give up with no guarantee of getting paid back, you may as well buy your own vacation and enjoy it fully rather than slave away at the report.

@abclaudia wrote:

OMG! If you have $9,000 to give up with no guarantee of getting paid back, you may as well buy your own vacation and enjoy it fully rather than slave away at the report.

That's absurd. You are sounding more and more like someone who doesn't like hard work...or work to support themselves.

You turn in that report with even three days of work and it's $3,000 per day you earned! How long do you think it takes to earn $9,000 at a 'normal' job?

@abclaudia wrote:

OMG! If you have $9,000 to give up with no guarantee of getting paid back, you may as well buy your own vacation and enjoy it fully rather than slave away at the report.

I'm pretty sure my report is going to be accepted. I've been doing this for a little over a decade - started in college. You don't get assigned this level of report/client/property without first proving that you are able to provide a well-written, well-substantiated report. Why would I, or anyone for that matter, pay $9,000.00 if the client and the MSC are happy and willing to pay for my services?

If you include days spent at the resort, travel to and from, and actual writing of the report after check-out, it comes out to over $1,500.00 a day. Don't know about you, but that's a significant chunk of change, especially if you consider that you're not paying taxes on the amount reversed. I didn't make that kind of money even when I was working in tech (not including the ESOP). When you take into account your tax bracket, let's say 28%, then the value of the $9,000.00 increases to $11,520.00. For SIX days!

I particularly like slaving away on the deck of my overwater villa, enjoying cocktails with my guest, that the Guidelines instructed me to order, worrying about what time I need to schedule my massage and still make it to watch the sunset at the bar, and then have dinner at the second of three outlets I need to evaluate.

Looks like I was typing my response when you were posting, Steve.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2018 05:56AM by Professional Guest.

I'd like to clarify something, it's not really $9K earned, right? Isn't much of that just reimbursement? - which puts you back at even, except for any fee you earned? what would a typical fee be for a three day assignment? those do sound like nice surroundings to work in, provided one stays caffeinated

@Professional Guest wrote:

Looks like I was typing my response when you were posting, Steve.

You got the overwater villa? I'm not even talking to you right now....

@BarefootBliss, if you pay for the vacation, you have to earn the $9k. When you sho it, you relieve yourself of that responsibility, so the point was in answer to the question about why a shopper doesn't just buy themselves the vacation. It's less work to do the shop than to earn the money almost any other way.

In that case, to me (and everybody views this differently I am sure) - it is a vacation for the guest, but at least a working vacation for the shopper - when I retire, if I continue shopping, my point of view may change lol.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2018 12:05PM by BarefootBliss.

@SteveSoCal wrote:

@BarefootBliss, if you pay for the vacation, you have to earn the $9k. When you sho it, you relieve yourself of that responsibility, so the point was in answer to the question about why a shopper doesn't just buy themselves the vacation. It's less work to do the shop than to earn the money almost any other way.

Don't forget tax! More like you have to earn at least $12k to have $9k in cash.

@Professional Guest wrote:

@abclaudia wrote:

OMG! If you have $9,000 to give up with no guarantee of getting paid back, you may as well buy your own vacation and enjoy it fully rather than slave away at the report.

When you take into account your tax bracket, let's say 28%, then the value of the $9,000.00 increases to $11,520.00.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2018 02:40PM by Professional Guest.

What is so absurd? That I may not agree with you? That I do not enjoy working under such pressure that I have no time to do anything but write reports?

That has been my experience so far. Work like a maniac, zero time to stop and enjoy the property, $50-100 reimbursement, and paying upfront $1000+ of more of my own money for the privilege.

I concluded that, for me, this was the worst job in the world.

I felt so trapped but needed to go on with the evaluation if I wanted my money back. I started wondering how this could even be legal.

I wanted to hear other opinions. Before you start labeling me with unkind words, consider that there are other points of view in the world. ;-)

The first time I did a two-day fancy hotel ($3000 initial outlay), I made a mistake right off the bat, and then spent the first night barely able to sleep because I was stressed that I'd blown the whole thing. My scheduler's response the next morning was basically, "Ha ha, no, it's fine."

Since then, generally I've found that there is a lot of leeway on these giant, long hotel assignments. I don't do any really fancy ones at the moment, but I pick up a lot of mid to high end hotels with initial outlays of $400-$1000, and enjoy them. Obviously it's very to each their own and YMMV, but once you get a good note taking system in place, reports are much easier to do, either at the time or later.

@abclaudia wrote:

What is so absurd?

It's absurd that your negative reaction to the pressure of performing a shop has colored your opinion of its value. It's absurd that you question the legality of a contract you freely entered into and knew all the details of before undertaking the assignment.

It's your opinion that luxury hotel shops are not worth the work (for you), but then you went on to tell others that they should just shell out thousands of dollars instead of performing a shop. You started to blur the lines between fact and opinion, and that's when it became more absurd.

It is fact that many here, including myself, find time on these shops to enjoy enjoy ourselves. It's a fact that a significant majority of shoppers would have to work MUCH harder to earn that experience outside of shopping.

While there's no guarantee that any shopper will get paid for any particular shop, there IS a high likelihood they will. With multiple shops under their belt, that likelihood increases.

I have seen more of the world as a shopper than most people ever see in their lives. I have taken once-in-a-lifetime experiences into the realm of a few times a year. Yes, it was hard work at times, but outside of being denied an overwater bungalow (thanks @Professional Guest for giving me a new goal to work toward) I have no regrets about taking any of it on. It has transformed my life and your harsh words about my choice for how I choose to shop diminish that, so please consider that your experience is not the same as others before telling people how to manage their goals in the name of just seeking opinions...

@SteveSoCal wrote:

I have taken once-in-a-lifetime experiences into the realm of a few times a year. Yes, it was hard work at times, but outside of being denied an overwater bungalow (thanks @Professional Guest for giving me a new goal to work toward) I have no regrets about taking any of it on.

Steve, don't kid yourself - those beachfront "bungalows" ain't nothin' to cry about either. If it's the same resort I'm thinking of, the beachfront accommodations are actually more expensive.

Sidenote: My life is complete - SteveSoCal is envious of my mystery shopping experience (albeit one experience).

I look at it like this:

* If you are going to enjoy the stay at the hotel and whatever experiences are involved, despite the work during the stay, it's like having a $9,000 (or whatever) shop.
* If you are not going to enjoy the stay or experiences involved due to the the work, it's like having a brutal $100/day shop and not worth the trouble/stress.

Reading this thread (and some others), I am convinced that I would not particularly enjoy the process of doing shops like this and that they are totally not for me. However, I can certainly see how another person might have a fabulous time.

Well...I think it's a staple of lifestyle shopping that you should enjoy the experiences you sign up for.

If you don't like pizza, chances are that you won't find pizza shops a good value. If you don't drink, same goes for bars.

That said, I think it's a key element in the enjoyment of any job that you can manage the requirements without being too stressed out by them. Part of that comes from experience and another element is personality. When I worked as a scheduler, I was incredibly stressed out from the job and found myself jealous of all the great experiences others were having. When I worked as an editor, I was under stressful time constraints and eating frozen dinners while reading about other's fine dining experiences. I happily traded all of that for the stress of having to report how long my room service meal takes and being able to eat on the patio of my beachfront bungalow...

I have to say that I look at the individual hotel shops, read the requirements before accepting. There are different types, some you will enjoy, some you will hate. Examples:
One hotel shop I did required me to see if the registration clerk mentioned something specific, and if so what did they say. It also required that I see if something specific was posted in the lobby, if so what. For this I got: 1 free hotel night and points. Dinner (not free) with a neice and nephew that I rarely see. A good nights sleep. As for the report, 30 minutes. The hotel clerk did not mention what she should have and I took a picture of the one posting and uploaded it.
On the other spectrum, I did a fancy hotel that required lots of pictures and specific interactions. I had to order too much food. In the end, the report was about 4 pages of mostly specific narrative. I have declined to do that shop again even though I have been asked to do it several times. Unless they up the pay siginificantly, I will stay away from it, and by significant I mean $$$$ not $$$.

Just my input on the topic

Which company is that? I will NEVER accept Buckalew and TrueGuest hotel reports again unless they offer something substantially better than $50-100 for 15-18 hours of miserable report writing in a hurry while at the hotel.

15-18 hours?! I don't spend that much time in a day for my grad school class.

Neither did I in Grad school.

Who the hell spends 18 hours writing a report? I've done several TrueGuest properties and, although I don't like working for them at all, the reports are practically done within a half hour of leaving the property. It's an incredibly irritating report, but it's certainly not an incredibly LONG report.

For me TrueGuest was extremely time consuming and I had NO time while at the hotel other than write the report and work on the items needed for the report.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2018 03:15AM by abclaudia.

@abclaudia wrote:

Which company is that? I will NEVER accept Buckalew and TrueGuest hotel reports again unless they offer something substantially better than $50-100 for 15-18 hours of miserable report writing in a hurry while at the hotel.

I agree with you completely. I said that on page 1. Nobody responded. The guy with the weird name is an a hole. Others here would agree.

I haven’t worked for them in months but yeah, he’s 100% of the reason I won’t work for them again. It’s like talking to a 12 year old who struggles to complete a thought and can’t formulate a sentence to save his life.
When he’s gone maybe I’ll try again.

Doesn't this tend to present a problem keeping shoppers on board or getting shops completed? the MSC keeps going somehow?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2018 11:25AM by BarefootBliss.

@BarefootBliss wrote:

Doesn't this tend to present a problem keeping shoppers on board or getting shops completed? the MSC keeps going somehow?

One would think. They don't have a lot of clients. It seems like a very small company working like one. He is definitely a barrier to growth and progress.

That is exactly my point. If articulate shoppers like us refuse en masse to do shops that pay slave wages and offer very little perks, we may go somewhere. We really need a union! Or at least a unified voice.

As long as there are shoppers out there willing to work for $ 2/hour, or advance thousands of dollars in a hotel evaluation that will work them to death, and risk losing the $ if their report is not accepted, this treatment of shoppers will continue.

Don't you suppose that some of these MSCs are counting on a continuous flow of new shoppers who aren't experienced enough to say no? How many (or which ones?) really want to hire seasoned shoppers?

MAYBE this conversation will discourage inexperienced shoppers from accepting these crappy, frantic shops, and the company will come begging the experience shoppers to return for extra $/perks?

I did tell TrueGuest that if they want me back they need to offer one extra night at the hotel for the same amount of report. If everybody did this, they will be forced to bend.

Maybe in a parallel world?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2018 05:41PM by abclaudia.