I have not heard of them are they real?
Hello Mystery Shopper,

After the shut down of ShadowShopper, we at Mystery Shopping Solutions have started an effort to give Mystery Shopping/Scheduling companies an alternative for when mystery shopping can go back to normal(after the Covid19 virus). Mystery Shopping Solutions has been a part of this industry for the last 20 years, and is not a mystery shopping company, but has a shopper database that any mystery shopping company can use. We have asked many companies to refer all of their shoppers to our database. We hope that this will become a great alternative to what ShadowShopper used to be.

Virginia Horton of Informa would like to ask you to be part of this, and register in the shopper database(it's free).

To register, visit our website at [www.mystshopsol.com]. Be sure to select Virginia Horton/[www.sassieshop.com] as your referral source (at the bottom of the registration form).

Thanks and we look forward to hearing from you very soon!

Matt Corrow
Owner-Mystery Shopping Solutions and "The Mystery Shopper/Scheduler Connection"
www.mystshopsol.com
1988 East Rd
Shaftsbury, VT 05262

Yes; they are real. Matt is kind of an aggregator of MS info. He offers tools to link up shoppers & MSC's...and his database did result in good connections for me when I was starting out.

What parts of the US does he do?
Thank you for the responds

SteveSoCal, how long have they been around?

They've been around for about 20 years. The site is not fancy, but it gets the job done. I would not hesitate to sign up if I weren't already.

And it's not specific to any area. It's neither an MSC nor scheduling company. If a scheduler need people in a certain area, they can simply access the database for registered shoppers in that area.

This seems like it's always been a side project for Matt. He works as a software developer and built the original proprietary website that Coyle used to use before they switched to Shopmetrics.

Do they just repeat shops from other companies to you via email? I am listed with so many I don't want to get bombarded with the same info.

I don't get emails from them, so there is either a preference to not do that, or they just don't.

I do occasionally get contacted by a scheduler who said they received my information from MSS...and about 50% of the time it's a good assignment.

I had an annoying experience with Mystshopsol. (I am assuming these are the same people?) I got emails regularly telling me that my account was going to be dropped because I hadn't logged in recently. Or something close to that... it's been awhile. Finally I think I responded asking them to PLEASE remove me from the database so that the annoying emails would stop. I shouldn't have to log in to a database every couple of weeks. The entire point of it is so that a scheduler can contact me, not that I should have more pointless, unpaid tasks to do.

I have been with them for several years. Every 90 days they contact me to update my info. It is annoying but it only takes a minute so I do it.. I have never gotten a job through them but I do get emails from msc saying they referred me. As far as I know there have never been any specific jobs linked to those emails. I have not signed up for any of them.
They do have you rate the scheduler and the scheduler rates you for jobs you do. I do rather enjoy the periodic emails I get from them telling me a scheduler gave me an excellent rating. I am thinking about having a press conference and touting all my successes to the world.

@CoffeeQueen; Did you log in and re-activate? I feel like I only had to do that one time in the past decade....

I did, every 90 days, until I didn't. Now I never hear from them...or at least didn't until the last week when I got a couple of emails from other MSCs asking me to sign up with them.

No and that may be why I kept getting emails about it.
I thought the threat to remove me was legit but they chose to keep emailing me instead.

@SteveSoCal wrote:

@CoffeeQueen; Did you log in and re-activate? I feel like I only had to do that one time in the past decade....

@sandyf wrote:

I am thinking about having a press conference and touting all my successes to the world.

LOL
I can hire a brass band, and arrange to have orange and rose blossoms strewn at your feet.

@Opanel wrote:

@sandyf wrote:

I am thinking about having a press conference and touting all my successes to the world.

LOL
I can hire a brass band, and arrange to have orange and rose blossoms strewn at your feet.

Oh I may take you up on that. The orange blossoms will match my skin tone well.

Did they buy ShadowShopper’s database? Is everyone who is getting these emails signed up one level or another with Shadow?

They are real and I have gotten more than 10 emails recently trying to get me to sign up with them. I will not do it. I still remember, from years ago, when I kept getting annoying emails from them and their refusing to stop or remove my information from their database. IIRC, I substituted my information with nonsense because there was no way for me simply to delete my information.

@KevinE wrote:

Did they buy ShadowShopper’s database? Is everyone who is getting these emails signed up one level or another with Shadow?

From what I read in the email, schedulers are giving our email addresses to them. I do not recall giving anyone permission to do that. I am not real happy about it. There is nothing that says he bought the database.

I don't know of any ICA's that say they won't share your contact information with other MS business, however.

Are people potentially upset about being offered more work?...specifically a a time when people are freaking out about there not being enough work?

I work for less than a half-dozen companies and have culled the rest, don't need the MS work to survive and am still not offended by my email being shared for work offers. I don't understand that reaction....

This could be the answer to which database was hacked and shared, some of my info got out there and I had to change passwords. Unless it was Carrie, of course.

D, is that you?

@sandyf wrote:

@Opanel wrote:

@sandyf wrote:

I am thinking about having a press conference and touting all my successes to the world.

LOL
I can hire a brass band, and arrange to have orange and rose blossoms strewn at your feet.

Oh I may take you up on that. The orange blossoms will match my skin tone well.

I kept getting the same emails a while back telling me to respond or I'd be removed from the website. Since it had never really resulted in work, at least for me, in the first place, responding made no sense. However, I still kept getting the emails with the same threat but since I had more than enough work it wasn't worth it to me to follow up. I've just been deleting the emails unopened ever since. I suppose, when things open back up, if I need the work (if the stuff I was doing regularly doesn't continue) I'll look into it again.

Sorry I just finally figured out what you meant by D. And oh yes I have been perfecting that orange look for years along with the public boasting. So Mystery shop Solutions, keep sending me those periodic emails of high praise. I love them.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

D, is that you?

@sandyf wrote:

@Opanel wrote:

@sandyf wrote:

I am thinking about having a press conference and touting all my successes to the world.

LOL
I can hire a brass band, and arrange to have orange and rose blossoms strewn at your feet.

Oh I may take you up on that. The orange blossoms will match my skin tone well.

Just to let you all know.. KSS (still alive and kicking, although hardly any business right now) will NEVER share your information with anyone. EVER.

We feel strongly about your privacy. I would immediately fire any scheduler that worked for me that shared your info with another outside company.

I am sorry this is happening.

this is spicy1 reincarnated.

@CravingCakes wrote:

This could be the answer to which database was hacked and shared, some of my info got out there and I had to change passwords. Unless it was Carrie, of course.

@SteveSoCal wrote:

I don't know of any ICA's that say they won't share your contact information with other MS business, however.

That may be true, but I'll bet that those privacy policy logos everyone puts on the bottom of their websites to make you think they care about protecting your data says that they won't share your information. And by giving out your email address without your consent they are violating that policy.

I exchanged emails with Matt once before when he did this. He was not interested when I told him that he was violating privacy policies and argued with me. To be honest, what bothers me most about what he is doing is that he sends multiple emails if you dare not to sign up. If he just sent one and said "I won't contact you again and will not keep your address" I wouldn't be as pissed as i am to get an email monthly. I use different email addresses at different sites (I have my own domain) so I can tell where he got the address from. Good news is I reported it as spam and the latest email I got today went to my Spam folder, as I suspect it did for others who use AOL/Verizon as their email provider. So now even valid emails he sends may be considered spam. And I couldn't be happier.

BTW in searching my email for ShadowShopper, i see that two companies forwarded Matt's information to me themselves about a month ago. I have no problem with that because they did not share my information with him (I am pretty sure about this since I know he would have emailed me himself if he'd gotten the info). It's when he sends it himself (and multiple times) that I have a problem.

Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2020 03:15PM by MisterBill.

Just got another email from him. Went straight to my spam folder.

BTW in checking all of the copies I have from him in my spam folder, he has sent to at least 4 of my email addresses, so he's clearly sending to more than just the Shadowshopper mailing list. And as I said, the most annoying thing is that he doesn't just send on email and stop. He keeps the list and keeps spamning you until you sign up.

I do feel some satisfaction in knowing that the emails are now being treated as spam.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2020 04:06AM by MisterBill.

Thanks, Steve, for the only input. I too received that same invitation and was wary. Since you were the only one that replied is there a catch to getting shops with them? What services are involved in their shop board?

So i just got email titled "Covid-19 shopper survey " from them. It was sent to an email address I had used on an Archon site, not Shadow Shopper. So he's now spamming other stuff. Fortunately it went to my spam folder again.

Just got email from him with the survey on an address I only used on GFK. i'd love to know how he's managing to steal all of these mailing lists (and yes, that's what it is at this point).