I got this email for a shop with the subject as:
Easy Appearance Audit - Great Pay!

Now I know anything in the subject is almost always the opposite. Ex easy means hard, fast means long. So Great Pay means Bad pay. Just for curiosity I clicked on the link to see. This one pay'd a whooping $12 no bonus. I wish they would just be honest. Now I know its a trick to get people to open the email or link but come on if I did I would be a little ticked at said MSC and may be less wanting to do shops for them.

What things MSCS do that tick you off?

An email that promises shops near me. My definition of near me is not the other end of the state. This is a big state.

Or in Puerto Rico

@sandyf wrote:

An email that promises shops near me. My definition of near me is not the other end of the state. This is a big state.

Or across a waterway. I get offers all the time, mostly via text for DE, which as a crow flies is a quick trip, but ya gotta take a 70 minute ferry. I've told them over and over again and still get the same text. Also, texting or calling at 6:30 in the morning.

Easy shops with FREE food.....they can keep it.

Getting AZ, NB, NY or any US shops when I'm in Canada. I wish Schedulers would filter shops to their targets. It's sometimes frustrating to keep getting emails for shops that are nowhere near me.

That is one of my biggest MS pet peeves!

@Monk-N-Nut wrote:

Easy shops with FREE food.....they can keep it.

I think having to work with sassy schedulers & editors bugs me as much as fluffed up shops.

Having to take a shop in order to see the guidelines, a very common practice among MSCs.

But I say to myself, "This is the business we've chosen".

"Must buy the three stated food items. Entre', side and beverage. Shop fee $15. No reimbursement for food." I'm not in this business to eat.

@kryswyn916 wrote:

"Must buy the three stated food items. Entre', side and beverage. Shop fee $15. No reimbursement for food." I'm not in this business to eat.

But you are being reimbursed for the food, it is just with a different fee schedule. You can still take the cost of the food off your fee of $15. Some people prefer flat fee shops to reimbursement shops.

Here is one I just got this morning...the subject line said it was the last day to get the high fee of $16. This was for a fast food shop where they seem to need thousands of shops done. It advised grabbing them before they were gone as the fees would go back to regular the following day. I did not grab one but deleted the email. Not twenty minutes later I got an email about the same shops where they had raised the fee even further.

@sandyf wrote:

Some people prefer flat fee shops to reimbursement shops.

@ wrote:

I wonder who those folks are?

A Dad shopping the Ark-LA-Tex and beyond.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2019 11:56PM by ShoppingDad.

Me for one sometimes. It depends. Using as an example the flat fee shop mentioned above that pays $15. Since it is a flat fee and all I really want is a $6 burger, assuming I can get just a burger on this shop, then I get to keep the leftover $9 as a fee. If the same shop is a reimbursement shop for $15 then I can purchase a burger, fries and a shake to use up the $15. I end up getting 2 items I do not especially want just to get the top reimbursement value and no fee. For the flat fee shop $9 is income and $6 gets written off my taxes as an expense. The reimbursement shop does not have any income at all. One way I have $9 in my pocket. The other way I have $9 on my hips.

I get really sick of just spamming my inbox over and over for a job. I email the scheduler and say I can do it for this price. They turn it down and then literally offer it the next day.

I'm also sick to death of multiples of the same shop being emailed. Same day twenty minutes apart.

If we started sending emails back they might stop doing that. Would not do any good it is all sent out automatic.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2019 01:49AM by 2stepps.

Getting emails (L.A.) for shops miles away on freeways only aliens know about. Maps show my radius, can't someone clean this mess up?

Or at least not to eat what they want you to order, but instead to earn money to buy what you want to eat on your own terms.

@kryswyn916 wrote:

I'm not in this business to eat.

@sandyf wrote:

Me for one sometimes. .

We all shop for different reasons. I for one prefer a job that pays without me having to keep up with a FF receipt for tax purposes

I just looked back to what this is in reference to. My quote was in reference to "Some people prefer flat fee shops to reimbursement shops." your original statement. In either case you need to keep your receipt. So did you mean you prefer a fee shop to a reimbursement shop? A flat fee shop generally includes a reimbursement.


@ wrote:


I wonder who those folks are?

@ShoppingDad wrote:

@sandyf wrote:

Me for one sometimes. .

We all shop for different reasons. I for one prefer a job that pays without me having to keep up with a FF receipt for tax purposes

Just so you know, those appearance audits REALLY are easy. We don't have much in our immediate area (rural), but I pick up shops mostly as I travel to other areas anyway. I did 3 of those in one immediate area one day, and it took maybe 20 minutes total for each location? I picked up another at a closed location another day that paid $24. No landscaping - was very fast. It wasn't bad for the pay, and nothing really out of pocket. I know there are better, but not often in our area that are that fast.

I replied on the MSC Board about these shops. They ARE quick, and they ARE easy. As awinsey said, they take about 20 minutes if you do the report onsite. But you can also just take the photos and fill out the photo specifics later if you like. It's $12 for the shop for 20 minutes. Is $12 a reason to leave home? No, but if you're going that way it's a nice filler. The first time I did one they needed it done immediately and when I explained it was in the middle of nowhere with no shops around it, they paid me a $30 bonus. No complaints from me!

Retail Me Not's 20% pushed coupon to a large kitchen/houseware chain with a whopping $5 reimbursement.

Means even if you buy an item priced at $5.80 and an 8% sales tax, you will still be paying $0.01 out of pocket!

In essence, you are being paid $5.80 to do this shop.

It's even worst with buying higher priced items at other stores, even if they do have higher reimbursements at some stores. On these you are basically doing a mystery shop to get about a 40-50% discount.

My understanding is with a flat fee shop the required purchase is deducted from the flat fee, not a true reimbursement. (ie. fee + reimbursement)

@sandyf wrote:

A flat fee shop generally includes a reimbursement.





I wonder who those folks are?

@ShoppingDad wrote:

@sandyf wrote:

Me for one sometimes. .

We all shop for different reasons. I for one prefer a job that pays without me having to keep up with a FF receipt for tax purposes

I was under the impression you were comparing a flat fee shop of $15 where you had to purchase something to a reimbursement only shop of $15. Those were the two scenarios I was comparing. In the case of the flat fee shop you would get the entire fee of $15 in $$ payment. Then when you did your taxes you would deduct the $6 you spent for your burger which would be in the reimbursement column when you did your taxes in the scenario I used as an example above. So you would have a reportable net income for that shop of $9 once the tax forms were properly filled out. And you could also deduct mileage.
If the flat fee shop required you to make purchases of the entire $15 then the reimbursement shop for $15 is a bit easier. to handle on tax day but you still need to have your receipts. But if your purchase amt can total less than $15 you can do that. In the flat fee shop you have the choice to save some of it as income/fees. You do not have that choice in a reimbursement only shop.
There is one (amusement) company I work for that pays a flat fee. Many people on the forum have complained they have to spend over the flat fee out of pocket. I have done those shops multiple times and almost always come home with a fairly decent amount of the fee leftover. But then I do not take my entire family on those shops and expect the fee which is designed for two people to cover a family of four. Those types of shops can be attractive to a family as they partially cover the expenses of person 3 and 4 and may totally cover person 1 and 2 in the family. If it had been a reimbursement shop they often would not allow reimbursement of any kind for person 3 and 4. The flat fee in some cases allows more flexibility in how much you spend and how much you earn.

@ShoppingDad wrote:

My understanding is with a flat fee shop the required purchase is deducted from the flat fee, not a true reimbursement. (ie. fee + reimbursement)

@sandyf wrote:

A flat fee shop generally includes a reimbursement.





I wonder who those folks are?