This has not happened to me in the past 6 years or so but I have been banned from 2 MS fine dining clients and one casual place where you get breakfast, lunch and dinner items. The latter just disappeared from the MSC's job board with no explanation although I knew they were still shopped in my area. It was right after a gave a report that I had to wait XX number of minutes. Received some questions about that and no more for me. No explanation from the MSC.

One fine dining shop client did not like that I reported we had to wait 50 minutes for our entrees where our phantom server was no where to be found but observed at the bar area at the other end of the restaurant chatting it up with the bartenders and guests at the bar who I assumed were his friends. That disappeared from the job board for me as well although I knew they were still shopped. No explanation from the MSC.

Last one? The MSC informed me I was ID'd as a mystery shopper and I would no longer be able to shop that location. That shop went very well and we were in rotation but I think the guidelines of going to bar beforehand or afterwards gave us up. It was the first time we visited the bar afterwards. I saw our server spot us and whisper to the bartenders and managers. They were at attention and overly gracious from that point on. We giggled to ourselves but we do miss that restaurant.

How about you? TIA for sharing.

I posted about this recently- we had a big mix up with our bill and I was charged three times for dinner. I had to speak with the manager twice on the phone, and I was then turned over to corporate, who did not fix it either. The MSC has to get it fixed. We were told we could not go back there for a while, which is fully understandable.

If I am doing a shop, I will say exactly what happened, good or bad. I have not been "banned" for an accurate but negative report.

Niner, I agree. I always hope they will provide a great experience and delicious food but I will report what happened.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2019 03:31AM by Madetoshop.

I saw the shop in a posting and asked for it. The scheduled tried to give it to me and then told me he couldn’t because I’d been identified so I was banned from doing it again.

Happened to me recently! Our food had a piece of steel wool (from the dish washing station) and we asked to speak to a manager. Since the incident was “so unusual,” the scheduler let me know I couldn’t shop there again. Oh well! I probably wouldn’t want to return anyway...

One strategy is to call the shop "off" (cancel) once you realize that your predicament is so unusual that they are sure to remember you. Yes this will give you late or cancelled shop status but you can explain to your scheduler and hope they dont hold it against you and allow you to reschedule the shop. At least that way you could have a chance at continuing at this client restaurant BUT you would have to eat the cost of the dropped shop yourself.

I was banned by a company regarding my reports, but I received no feedback if there were any issues on my reports. They said the editors had to work too hard to fix my reports. I feel that is untrue without any feedback to tell me if I was making the same error.