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GETTING WORK/CERTIFICATIONS

May 23, 2011 02:59PM
I know of one company, Quest for Best, that sends notices to gold shoppers before the regular list; I spoke with the owner and he verified this was correct. If you've the gold certification, the job outline has a golden tint, but I don't recall if he mentioned the time difference. In this situation, if the jobs were desirable, it could matter.
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More About Certification
May 23, 2011 11:22PM
I did get the silver certification and have received a few emails/jobs through that. I would never pay the $99 or whatever the gold one is.

I have little respect for MSPA since they allow the $3-5 shops to be posted on their site. I know they aren't a MS union or anything, but if their standards are supposedly so high for shoppers, where the heck are their standards for MSCs????
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May 24, 2011 03:13PM
I have Silver, and I have received emails with offers that I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.
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May 26, 2011 03:22AM
rainy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I did get the silver certification and have
> received a few emails/jobs through that. I would
> never pay the $99 or whatever the gold one is.
>
> I have little respect for MSPA since they allow
> the $3-5 shops to be posted on their site. I know
> they aren't a MS union or anything, but if their
> standards are supposedly so high for shoppers,
> where the heck are their standards for MSCs???


MSPA's loyalty lies with its clients (the MSCs). It nothing close to a union. It actually closer to something that would be the exact opposite of a union.
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May 26, 2011 02:29PM
When the MSC's ask MSPA for a reference to do work in a certain area, the certification comes to play, and our name is given...the email tells us that our name was given by MSPA. That would be the main reason Silver or Gold helps.

Live consciously....
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May 26, 2011 06:35PM
Hi

Any one have any idea how many shoppers have a silver or gold certificate? If you have one, please tell me just one thing of value that you learned that you didn't know BEFORE you took the training.( and please no response like I learned i would get more jobs after being certified)
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May 26, 2011 06:40PM
There are over 80,000 in the MSPA database of certified shoppers. I believe, of those, there are around 8,000 gold cert and the rest are silver. This was the breakdown the last time I inquired.
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May 26, 2011 07:35PM
Does the MSPA keep any statistics on how many of these are still actively shopping? Certainly most of the folks I started with have moved on to other things, whether they were certified or not.
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May 26, 2011 09:28PM
No, that's the problem with the database. there is no way to know who is still actively shopping!
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May 27, 2011 05:27AM
PAID2PEEK Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi
>
> Any one have any idea how many shoppers have a
> silver or gold certificate? If you have one,
> please tell me just one thing of value that you
> learned that you didn't know BEFORE you took the
> training.( and please no response like I learned i
> would get more jobs after being certified)



I have silver and cannot say I learned anything new. I actually just skipped to the test and passed.
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May 27, 2011 02:59PM
There's actively shopping and there's also intelligently shopping.

I'm signed up with hundreds of MSCs, but there are probably only a dozen that can actually get me to respond an email for an open shop, so for most of the shoddy MSCs that would phish my name out of the MSPA database, I am a bad lead.
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May 29, 2011 05:20AM
Nobody can answer this question because there are too many variances for every shopper's situation such as location and experience. I compare this to a college degree in which a person with a degree would benefit more in a mid size city with less competition then in a major market where it is over saturated.
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May 29, 2011 06:14AM
I'm a relatively new shopper with gold DVD certification. I didn't do it to get more shops. My purpose was to take advantage of whatever I might be able to learn. Did I want to spend $100.00? Not really. Do I think it was overpriced? Absolutely not. Would I do it again? Yes, it was worth it to me. Did I learn anything? I did, and I felt better about my shopping after I certified. I'm not saying everybody should do this, and I'm not saying it brings more shops or better paying shops. It was right for me. We all have to decide on this from an individual perspective.

Mary Davis Nowell. Based close to Fort Worth. Shopping Interstate 20 east and west, Interstate 35 north and south.
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May 29, 2011 03:24PM
MDAVISNOWELL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm a relatively new shopper with gold DVD
> certification. I didn't do it to get more shops.
> My purpose was to take advantage of whatever I
> might be able to learn. Did I want to spend
> $100.00? Not really. Do I think it was
> overpriced? Absolutely not. Would I do it again?
> Yes, it was worth it to me. Did I learn
> anything? I did, and I felt better about my
> shopping after I certified. I'm not saying
> everybody should do this, and I'm not saying it
> brings more shops or better paying shops. It was
> right for me. We all have to decide on this from
> an individual perspective.


Welcome to the forum, and I agree with your post...if you feel spending the money was worth it, then it was.

Live consciously....
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May 29, 2011 07:46PM
I have the silver certification. However, now a few year's later, I see no advantage. The mystery shopping companies I found by signing up in the beginning would have probably given me the same amount of work. If a company likes my work, they give me more.
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