Has anyone done one of these yet?

I qualify through my son, who lives with us and has a disability. It pays well and seems pretty straightforward. It looks like I can sign up for the program if I want, not just inquire.

Yes I did one.
You are only allowed one most are you have to be with that provider. Make sure you qualify first online then go do the inquiry and if you want sign up. As of this writing it is only one EBB shop per shopper. This does suck as I could do so many of these at $40 a pop. Hoping as they sit more and more they will allow us to do multiple locations. They do have a few inquiry where you could be a new customer. You just have to look at shop details.

They have hundreds of locations available around me. It is making it a pain in the behind to try to build a route of sassie shops because they are cluttering up the job board so bad.

agreed but just scroll and look for stuff that does not say ebb. There may be a way to filter by shop.

@BuffaloNY101 wrote:

Yes I did one.
You are only allowed one most are you have to be with that provider. Make sure you qualify first online then go do the inquiry and if you want sign up. As of this writing it is only one EBB shop per shopper. This does suck as I could do so many of these at $40 a pop. Hoping as they sit more and more they will allow us to do multiple locations. They do have a few inquiry where you could be a new customer. You just have to look at shop details.

I applied for and qualified for the program before I applied for the shop. For this one, I have to be an existing customer of the provider, and I am. So I'm good to go. I think some of the other ones in my area are ones where you don't have to be with that provider, so it would be inquiry-only. Too bad you can only do one! Maybe they'll open them up if they can't fill them.

Did they ask to see your qualification letter? Apparently you're not supposed to offer it unless they ask, right?

The guy new nothing of it found a flyer gave it to me and referred me to go online. I got a 10 of 10 on shop today it was done Thursday. Yes don't provide code which I never got unless asked. You probably need it to get benefit if you actually wish to use. Hey it may only be through sept so 3 months is 3 months of $50 benefit I think outside of pay for the shop. I holding out as I have no need for it as I have free phone service through lifeline program and its for life no recertifying funny enough which I got doing another mystery shop years ago.

Wish I'd seen these shops! It took 4 calls and an escalation to a supervisor before I got the approval verification email from my provider. Without responding to that email, I would have been out of luck. Par for the course for my (no other choice) provider.

I'd like to get the credit for buying a new device. My other kid wrecked my tablet, so I need a new one! I'm guessing the folks at my provider won't know squat about it, either.

It is ok if they do not know anything about you can still sign up for it and they should be able to walk you through it. I get free cell phone service anyway from being on disability. They sent me a text asking if I wanted to up my data plan and I said yes so now I do not have the EBB anymore to try and get a T-Mobile home internet. Dang it.

I did one and had to talk to four or five people before I got one that knew what it was and explained it to me.

The description of the program is much better than what I was offered. They offered a device for my home for 4G that could be paid for with the reimbursement but the 5G device cost about $400 if I recall correctly. The $50 credit wouldn't cover the whole monthly 4G service.

There was a question in my report asking if I would do another one and I did say yes,. When I asked the scheduler, she said only one per person. That's strange because I would think you could do one for each of the wireless carriers and Spectrum also. They never asked me for my qualifying code.

Hopefully as mentioned above, if they sit, we'll be able to do multiple shops.

Now I see these are starting to bonus an extra $5 for $45 pay. It is not about the pay on these silly MSC it is the fact you have so many locations and are limiting it to one shop total per shopper. Not 1 for each of the brands of which I have seen AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Spectrum, and Boost Mobile which I could understand. I am taking a wild guess they either will not get done or they will have to let us do multiple locations. There is simply not that many shoppers in their database.

Just got this. Appear you can do another one with stipulations.

Wondering if I should do a second one now or wait for a higher bonus. Tons still on the board, both in person and even more over the phone.

"Are you interested in doing another Emergency Broadband Benefit (EB shop?


If you shopped a new provider shop (role play), and DID NOT fully sign up for EBB with the provider, you may now do another EBB shop as an existing customer. MUST be a customer of the provider that you shop.
OR
If you completed one as an existing customer and DID NOT fully sign up for EBB with the provider, you may now do another EBB shop as a new customer (role play) with a new provider. MUST not be a customer of the provider.
If you are want to do another EBB shop, please check the job board for open shops near you. [www.us-sassie.ixxxxxxx.com].
If not able to apply for another shop on the job board, please reply to this email with the full location name/provider name and the address of the store. If you want to do a phone or web shop, please reply to this email and let me know the provider that you want to shop and if new or existing customer shop, and I can check and see if I have open shops and I can assign you to the shop."

It's a federal program that allows for one benefit per eligible person which is why they allow you to only do one sign up.

You can do the shop without signing up for the EBB service. Since you don't sign up there is no reason you can't gather information on (shop) each carrier's offering.

In accordance with my thoughts, they just said you can do up to ten (10) of these projects.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/2021 06:42PM by wrosie.

How involved is the report?

I sure hope so as well! I did one, inquiry only, and would like to eventually sign up but it would nice if I could get paid for shopping around in the process.

@BirdyC wrote:

Has anyone done one of these yet?

I qualify through my son, who lives with us and has a disability. It pays well and seems pretty straightforward. It looks like I can sign up for the program if I want, not just inquire.

I did my quote wrong - but I meant to reply to the comment from BuffaloNY101 about them clogging up the job board despite only being able to do 1.

I applied for one of these shops and was approved. It didn't show on my shop log so I wrote to the scheduler telling her I needed to see the instructions. I did not hear anything back, the link in the approval email did not work and now it's been removed from my log. If she changed her mind about giving me the shop she should have had to courtesy to say so.

Pretty simple and straightforward imo. Took me 10 min max.

@sestrahelena wrote:

How involved is the report?

Thanks! I'll reduce the job-board clutter by one.

Well, I actually wanted to sign up for the program, but during my in-store shop, they told me they don't handle the sign-ups there and to do it online. Which is OK per the guidelines, and they want to know what happened when you followed the store's instructions. OMG. My provider's website was a nightmare re: the EBB program. I'd already qualified, but they won't let you sign up through the website unless and until you go through the entire qualifying process again. There was NO way to simply enter the I.D. code and sign up. Before I spent 45 minutes trying to sign up, I saw some of the inquiry-only shops they were opening up to shoppers who had already done one and which were with other providers. Since I couldn't sign up through my provider, I thought I'd go ahead and apply for a couple of local ones and get some extra cash out of this if not the monthly EBB discount. But by the time I finished and submitted my report, all of those were gone! The only ones left that are in my area are those where you have to be with that provider.

If allowed (probably should check with the MSC first), I'm going to try to call my provider and find out how to sign up having already qualified. But this company makes it just about impossible to find a phone number, and when you do find it, they don't want to actually speak to you! Seems to be the way of businesses these days.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2021 10:37PM by BirdyC.

Now you have to be a customer. And all of the Magenta shops are gone.

@2stepps wrote:

Now you have to be a customer. And all of the Magenta shops are gone.

There were some inquiry-only shops in my area, but they got taken. There were only a handful, and that's why I think the only ones now showing are the customer-only ones.

Now you can do three shops for your existing provider (in-person, phone, web), but the only one near me is another in-store shop--which I already did.