International shops

I will be traveling to Rome in a couple weeks. Does anyone know of any companies that offer shops there? Any in Canada?

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I would check Albatross, AQ, Bare for shops in Europe

Thank you

ISC ( International Service Check), Coyle (their reports are detailed and long, I am not sure of I would do their shops on vacation)

I am signed up with Coyle and I keep reading about how detailed and time consuming their shops are.. I will check it out, but you are def right about not being a vacation shop. Thanks again.

ISC does airport shops, I like those because you are at the airport anyway! You may need to email to the scheduler or Support and let them know that you are travelling and where (their scheduling system is weird and they dont have a job board so email would be appropriate)

Seelevel has some airport shops in US

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2018 02:19PM by MikiNV.

Customer Service Experts also have airport shops.

Thank you, ill check it out.

Do you have Canadian and EU citizenship, residency, or work visas? One cannot accept fees for shopping when in either the EU or Canada on a tourist visa. If you are a US citizen, you might explore entering Canada under NAFTA. Consult with an immigration lawyer in there to see if you may accept reimbursement-only shops without right-to-work. Not only might you face fines, but potentially deportation and exclusion from future entry.

Good to know.. guess ill just enoy my trip.

I have been traveling internationally for work for 20 plus years. My last employer had operations all over the world where we ocassionally had to travel to, and do the work. This is very common for many companies, that employees need to perform work outside of their US office.
For example, MSC has an international client with locations across the globe. MSC pays you to do the work. They will also report your income no matter where the work was performed, location-wise. Please correct me if I am wrong but neither me or my company bothered with immigration lawyer every time I had to travel for work.

Yes, this is true I was offered several shops when I was in the UK, booked them and since it was an English company I could not work for them.

Any companies shop Aruba?

I've worked with Bare in Italy before, AFAIK, the entity that pays you depends on your address, not the place where you perform the shop. So for example, if you have a US address, they will pay you like if you had done the shop in the US and probably report it the same way for tax purposes (US HQ will pay you). If you have an Italian address, their european branch in Belgium will pay you... As for the legality of working there, if this is an American MSC, you're performing a job for your MSC at home, you're not being employed in Europe, so you should be fine.

AQ also works there, but they take more than 3 months to pay so I don't recommend them. Ipsos also has a branch in Italy and I used to work for a Polish company named lagom, which is based in Poland... I had Italian residency at the time but they would send me sometimes to other countries (mainly switzerland) when they needed shops to be done and there was nobody to do them, I didn't have a trouble with those either... Also, they won't bother for the couple of hundreds euros you might earn at the most...

edit: most of the shops require local language skills, although not all of them.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2018 01:46AM by aldoman.

@MikiNV wrote:

I have been traveling internationally for work for 20 plus years. My last employer had operations all over the world where we ocassionally had to travel to, and do the work. This is very common for many companies, that employees need to perform work outside of their US office.
For example, MSC has an international client with locations across the globe. MSC pays you to do the work. They will also report your income no matter where the work was performed, location-wise. Please correct me if I am wrong but neither me or my company bothered with immigration lawyer every time I had to travel for work.

The difference is that when you were an employee based in the US, your employer sent you on business trips to overseas destinations. You entered those countries for business meetings, & etc. as part of your regular US based work, it was not work that could have been completed by a local person. The mystery shopper, however, is not an employee. The shop is work wholly done in the overseas county, work that could be contracted to a local.

You work for an American company who pays you to the work, and you pay taxes in US. If you were, in this case, residing in Rome for more than (usually) 6 months, you would be subjected to pay local (Italian) taxes too. If you work for Coyle, you could notice that some of their shops say US Citizens Only to avoid the confusion and issues.
Big chunk of my MS income is from doing shops internationally. Often, it is very difficult to find a local shopper where MSing is not very common or even heard of. I would not be advising another shopper to seek advice from immigration lawyer as they usually deal with immigration issues; no one is immigrating here. Maybe a tax advisor.

Edited to add: just though of something - I spoke to an employee/contractor (not sure exactly of the job status) of one of the European companies some time ago and I asked if taxes are paid in US. I was told somethong like Don’t ask, don’t tell. So yeah...in this case, it is kind of not right...living and working in US for European company, and not paying US taxes...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2018 10:00PM by MikiNV.

Two issues are being conflated: taxation and the right-to-work. Rob a bank, one must pay taxes on the loot. Wack someone, one must pay taxes on the hit fee. Work illegally, one must pay taxes on the wage/fee. Just because one pays one's taxes properly, doesn't mean that one earns the money legally.

Nah you are taking it to another, wrong, level. I think I will retire from this topic lol it’s gwtying sensless for someone who has lived and worked in 4 different countries, 3 different continents...

these are simple and straight-forward things in life. Relax

@MikiNV wrote:

Nah you are taking it to another, wrong, level. I think I will retire from this topic lol it’s gwtying sensless for someone who has lived and worked in 4 different countries, 3 different continents... these are simple and straight-forward things in life. Relax

Trust me. Canada is no joke. Their border entry (at the airports) is crazy. If they even think that you are there to work, you'll be in secondary inspection in a heartbeat. I had less issues in about every other country in the world.

I made the mistake many years ago when I first started of telling the Canadian officials I was entering to perform a hotel inspection. Now...I'm just there on vacation

Turns out that they found it legal for me to review the US owned properties as a US worker getting paid in the US...but that also took almost 3 hours in immigration to figure out.

@MikiNV wrote:

ISC does airport shops, I like those because you are at the airport anyway! You may need to email to the scheduler or Support and let them know that you are travelling and where (their scheduling system is weird and they dont have a job board so email would be appropriate)

Seelevel has some airport shops in US

Signed up with them recently and experienced first hand indeed that their job board does not quite work - have not received any emails from them either. Does anyone have a tip on how to see what jobs they've got open?

Canada is one of the trickiest countries to deal with. I also worked for a multinational company for 30 years, and I was always paid by the US entity. But when entering Canada, I had to be careful to say that I was attending a meeting. According to Canadian immigration, I could not do a plant inspection, I could not teach a course, etc. About 20 years ago, I was invited by a Canadian University to give scientific talk. No pay, but I was reimbursed for my direct expenses. I spent 4 hours (yes, 4 hours) explaining to Canadian immigration why a scientist would agree to spend a day at a Canadian university and give a talk without being paid. Quite an ordeal.

Going to Europe or Asia or Mexico did not cause the same level of scrutiny. In some countries, I got a business visa and still did not have any problems - which is why they issue business visas (and often charge hundreds of dollars for them). I am currently a consultant in Thailand (off and on). The only restriction is that I spend less than 180 days total (business + tourist days) otherwise I owe Thai income tax on my worldwide earnings.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

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