Refer your friends or not?

@SoCalMama wrote:

You referred me to a new company. I appreciate it!

It must be because you have gumption! (I love that word)

Shopper in California's Bay Area

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Once I mentioned to my cousin that you had to have a Pay Pal account, a checking account just for Mystery shopping, that you have to report your taxes, you needed to know how to upload and download, learn the different systems, Sassie, etc. Geoverify, your own money up front for restaurants, need to open and close checking accounts, use your own gas get paid 30, 60, 90 days and more. My cousin said, "I don't know how to use a computer."

Everyone thinks it's so great until you start talking about the intricacies of doing it, and what it really entails. It never ceases to amaze me how many people think you get free things for no effort.

I did mention it to a guy friend once, because the MSC was desperate for male shoppers. He didn't follow the directions and wound up googling some scam company. He wouldn't listen when I told him it was a scam and then when he realized it, he got really crappy with me. At that point, I said never again.

I shop with a couple friends who know what I need and such for reports. They don't want to do it themselves, but like playing along with me. It's a win-win for me.

I referred my sister who was in a bind for money. I explained how you need to wait for the shopper fee to go up to a certain amount before taking a shop. The next thing I know she started grabbing all of the local gas shops for lower pay. When I say all the shops I mean every last one of them in our town and neighboring town. She even recruited he daughter to start doing them. For six months I had to travel over 100 miles to get descent pay. When I told her how she was effecting my income she just said, "Well you have the same opportunity as me. I am sorry if I am just faster than you at getting the shops." She screwed up and scheduled 10 shops at a time and then flaked on them so she was dropped by the company. Now when I see her she is mad at me and makes comments about how it's too much work for such little pay and how she would never do that again. I do have to say her loss was my gain because I got all of the shops she flaked on and got double pay. Now after a few months I am back to getting the shops at the higher fees. My sister got greedy and didn't listen. Then she burned out and got made at me. I won't make that mistake again.

that's some evil genius stuff right there!

@Aquiest wrote:

If I see a recruitment ad for an MSC, I'll encourage someone to apply who I know is going to flake, so the assignment goes back up on the board and I get it with a bonus.

@jellyfish wrote:

Everyone thinks it's so great until you start talking about the intricacies of doing it, and what it really entails. It never ceases to amaze me how many people think you get free things for no effort.

I suspect most people just think that we are working like an undercover restaurant critic and apply that idea to retail and other types of mystery shops you may have mentioned to them. I do not think they think it is something with little effort but I do think most think of themselves as perfectly capable of writing a wonderful restaurant or movie review or whatever they have read before in the press. Many people I am sure think they can do a great job, equal of better than the professional critics writing a critique in exchange for a nice meal or a free movie or purchasing a lawnmower or whatever. In fact there are sites online that give away merchandise for "reviewing" their product.
I have a friend who has gone with me often to restaurant jobs and parking jobs and each time it is a new to her place she still thinks all I have to do is a write up of how the food was or how easy it was to park. Yes writing a paragraph or two about my experience without all those rules would be much easier and much more interesting. They are not thinking it will be free but thinking the effort you have to make is much more interesting and fun to do than it actually is.

When someone starts to say how easy this is, I whip out my NV. work card and boy do they shut up.

Live consciously....

I have no problem directing people where to go to sign up for mystery shopping in my area. There are more shops than I could possibly handle - every month there are plenty that are not completed. I do this full time, and there are way more than I could ever handle. HOWEVER, I DO NOT give out my referral name or suggest they write me as a personal reference for the companies that I suggest. I did that twice, once for my sister and once for my sister in law's sister (who I've known for over 25 years!). They both flaked. I'm not putting MY reputation out there for someone else to mess with. I have no problem if they want to shop - I'll even let them tag along with me a day or two to understand the shops (or I'll go with them and give them pointers), but they succeed or fail on their own merits, and I make that very clear.

I would only refer a person in a different city.

I referred my soon to be daughter-in-law when she and my son lived nearby. She is a go-getter and had zero problems diving right in. She did bank shops that I don't have an account with and pizza shops I did not do. She tried some others that I enjoy, and didn't like them. No competition was involved. We went as each other's restaurant guest several times and once did a hotel shop in NYC where we had a blast. She is my friend as well as DIL. I steered her away from shops like IKEA and some with Intelli. We also went to a few concerts at Giants Stadium and had a great time as well. She was great with details and could do reports faster than me. Well, they moved to SC and she doesn't shop much anymore. I also got her into Ebaying which she turned into a small business. She has thousands of things listed to my 8-10. Oh I also introduced her to garage sales which she now does several times a year. I miss having her closer..and my son too.LOL

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The more I learn about people...the more I like my dog..

Mark Twain

When people ask me about how to get started mystery shopping, I refer them to the MSPA web site to find companies to shop for. It takes a lot of work to find the companies with the shops in my area that work for me, and I'm not giving that information away.

@MsJudi wrote:

I referred my soon to be daughter-in-law when she and my son lived nearby. She is a go-getter and had zero problems diving right in. She did bank shops that I don't have an account with and pizza shops I did not do. She tried some others that I enjoy, and didn't like them. No competition was involved. We went as each other's restaurant guest several times and once did a hotel shop in NYC where we had a blast. She is my friend as well as DIL. I steered her away from shops like IKEA and some with Intelli. We also went to a few concerts at Giants Stadium and had a great time as well. She was great with details and could do reports faster than me. Well, they moved to SC and she doesn't shop much anymore. I also got her into Ebaying which she turned into a small business. She has thousands of things listed to my 8-10. Oh I also introduced her to garage sales which she now does several times a year. I miss having her closer..and my son too.LOL

That's so great! And it reminds me a lot of my friend who referred me to MSing, who is about my mom's age.

MSing has become a much bigger part of my life than it is/was of hers, and she has given me a couple of other really good nudges/tips over the years too.

Happily shopping the Pacific Northwest. Shopping since 2013

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