Sunoco is being shopped again. I got the email a couple of hours ago. Anyone that enjoys making money is not going to like who is scheduling them.

Ok, that's scary..

Is it the promotion where you give out gift cards to people who have the bumper sticker? That was a horror show a few years back.

I saw the email. They appear to be very similar in nature to the E/M shops that my wife does. Am I correct in my thinking?

@brianmott8 wrote:

I saw the email. They appear to be very similar in nature to the E/M shops that my wife does. Am I correct in my thinking?

I signed up for one last night and attempted it this morning. The guidelines are like 12 pages long, endless counting, 10 photographs, etc... There are like 15-20 within easy driving distance from my home. I will do just this one.

Was definitely a good news/bad news announcement. The authorization letter mentioned "one time annual audit", so I wonder if that's what this is. Seems more interested in that type of thing. So, what the actual mystery shop ends up being will be interesting. I did pick up one, which I will do tomorrow.... and get paid for it probably around Halloween.

Haven't done a shop for this MSC since 2017.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2022 02:21PM by KA047.

I saw a few and they were 20+ miles from me. I'll see if the fee goes up, otherwise, its barely worth the gas unless I do a route, and I'm "on break" the rest of this month.

This MS company is the pits....and Halloween-- That sounds about right, after they send it back for even more writing....

Well, you've got me curious! I didn’t get an email. There are none of these stations in my immediate area so that may explain it. But there are a few in areas farther out where I shop. Or maybe I haven't shopped with this MSC in a long time. Or ever. Whatever the reason, I have no clue which MSC it is. I checked the ones that have been discused here as taking long to pay or paying cheaply. To no avail. What else can anyone tell me about this mystery?

@sestrahelena - your comment was so good, you had to say it eight times, eh??

Zero Sunocos around me. So, no letter. But I am low key kind of wondering who is scheduling them, just like @sestra. But only mention it once.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2022 02:04AM by ColoKate63.

They are being scheduled by a third party scheduling company on behalf of the MSC.

Isn't "one time annual audit" contradictory?

The shops show up on JobSlinger...if you're interested in seeing who the MSC is, just expand your search or use a zip code (78401 will do) and a big radius around it. I did the evaluation. It wasn't that big a deal...lots of photos and trying to be clandestine when you're six feet in front of the counter taking pictures is pretty difficult. I think I was able to manage it. One big thing is this. When I printed out the form, it mentioned that you'd have to make sure the employees are in approved uniforms for the convenience store company. Lets say 7-Eleven. And I did that. When I get home to fill in the information, they wanted a picture of an employee's outfit or "internal branding" as they put it. There was no "internal branding" except for the employee uniforms and 7-Eleven products like fruit pies, drinks, etc... There wasn't a giant 7-Eleven sign on the wall for example. So I don't know if they'll have a cow about this or not. I did get 2 pictures of the guy outside asking everyone for a dollar though.

Yep.. still gotta wait for $$ that MSC is nororious for paying late, or not at all. And KSS is scheduling, so it's likely to be a snafu.

Sorry about the multiple copies of my post! When I hit reply, it just froze, so I kept hitting it and I guess it was working although I didn't see it on my end.

Oh, I've got it now. Eh, not for current fee, in my opinion. Thank you!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2022 12:20PM by sestrahelena.

Well, it's done! Some thoughts:
It's not a bad shop, but this type of information gathering would have been better suited as a revealed audit. A lot of counts, if you do it, make a good cheat sheet as to what you should be counting. A lot of this can be conducted while sitting in your car, or in my case, making a couple laps around the forecourt and then parking across the street. Not a shop for a beginner shopper, but an experienced gas station shopper will be fine. Took 25 minutes.

I will not do another one for this amount, but may bite again around $25 or $30, if it ever got that high.

@Nikki21 wrote:

Isn't "one time annual audit" contradictory?

Not considering the MSC involved.. lol

If you have the $7 for purchases and can wait a few months to be paid okay assuming the pay is worth it. $15 and apparently not like the old shop when it was with the company that went under or at least stopped their mystery shopping division think garbage recycling truck. It may be more pictures that are hard to get undercover. Yes you have a LOA on you in case but really just make it a normal mystery shop/audit.

In the past I've had an employee tell they would have to call their manager or have their manager see the LOA and they weren't at the store at the moment.

As it applies to timely payment, I checked my log for the past performance of the MSC handling the Sunoco shops. I have completed 244 jobs covering 17 yrs. with nary a late deposit of my money. In every situation, I have been paid as agreed. The term late, in this context, implies beyond the agreed upon due date.

In a related note, would the Sunoco work appeal to me at the rate of $15 + $7? No, but at $30 and with five being within a few miles of me, yes.

I was looking at them to see what was involved and thought they were being very vague. I have a bunch near me so I will try one to check, but seems like a lot of effort for the $15.

One about an hour and 45 minutes one way. Not for less than $100.

@Curtzey wrote:

I was looking at them to see what was involved and thought they were being very vague. I have a bunch near me so I will try one to check, but seems like a lot of effort for the $15.

Yes. There are about 10 pictures as I recall (counting the one of each receipt), taking a picture of the interior of the restroom is always a bit of challenge. I live in S. Texas and there is a Sunoco a block from where I'm doing a shop at tomorrow. The problem is that this Sunoco is part convenience store, part truck stop, part town square. Its not unusual to have 80-100 people in the building at one time. You could easily do 99% of the shop but trying to find the one microsecond where you're the only one in the restroom to take a picture is a deal breaker.

There are A LOT OF questions on the survey but the survey does eliminate some for you. Like if there isn't a service center, that gets rid of 7 questions. No car wash? Boom another 7 questions gone. The upshot is that they ask some weird questions like, "How many cooler doors are there?" Why would Sunoco care how many coolers are at a 7-11? "Its not our job to wonder why" of course so when I did the shop, I didn't. I'm just putting that out there so you know what you're getting into.

My strategy was to take pictures of everything. I think I took 50 photos. Not to submit but to remind me if....remind me if pump #7 had a Sunoco tank topper or had one for 7-11; if there was a tire inflation station or not etc...

Worth it? I've done more work for less money in the past. But not very often.

Has anyone seen these bonused yet? They're still $15 and $7 in Upstate NY within 60 miles of me. There are however 90 available within that radius.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2022 10:11PM by wrosie.

I have not seen a bonus on these anywhere. I'm so happy to see that they are not moving much at 15 dollars. The description for this project says that they have to all get done in a short period of time. If that's true, they're going to have to start upping the pay.

And upping it big. I thought about asking for a bonus, but there is too much other stuff out there for me to hold open my schedule.

Got another email today. Still at $15 with no bonus. Still saying that they have to be done in a short period of time. Still well over 1000 locations remaining.

Wrosie wrote on 8/1/22 12:35 AM:

Lorri,

Is there any possibility for a bonus if I can do this shop on Wednesday August 3rd?

RESPONSE:

"I am not authorized to add bonuses yet as we still have 3000 locations open. When we get to the last 10%, we will add bonuses."

This seems kind of counter intuitive to me. Wouldn't you want to give small bonuses to move the number lower and then up the bonuses for the really hard to fill locations?

I guarantee you 100%, betting my life, betting my family's life, betting against nuclear war, that they will never, ever, ever, never in a million years, get 90% of the locations done without paying a bonus.

I feel that the scheduling company that is working with this project has enough experience with gas stations to know that it is not going to be possible to get 90% of the locations done at base pay. They have scheduled other gas brands in the past, and in all of those cases, they had to bonus before they got 90% of the locations done. I wanted to point out to the original shopper that posted that what s/he was being told did not pass the smell test.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/2022 03:12AM by thunderdeacon.