Have you Encountered Another Mystery Shopper

I never have but I wondered more than once. I was at the burger joint the other day (has a number in it--red and white-dramatically overpriced) and this woman stands up and watches her burger being made, holding her phone like she's texting but she isn't texting.

Made me wonder if I was watching a mystery shopper at work.

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I didn't ask, but I think I probably did a while back. A woman up ahead in the grocery store line was spending a whole lot of time texting smack in the middle of her transaction. My gut feeling is that she was taking a picture of every single step of the transaction. After seeing her in action, assignments with similar requirements, which were on the board at the time, went straight to my ten-foot-pole list. Other than maybe the crypto shops, I haven't seen any other such lately.

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?
"Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
-- Abraham Lincoln

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2022 04:45PM by GinnyLynn.

When getting gas as a regular customer at a station, I encountered the shopper doing that station for the month (I wasn't in rotation). When she was close by, I said the name "(MSC) Inspection?" She was startled at first to hear that, before I explained that I do them too. We talked for a minute or two about them before she continued and I left.

Tried to schedule red burger place at the same time as the missus (different listings). One went through. One didn't. All other postings simultaneously changed their dates to the next day (maybe 10 postings total). I know it makes sense they'd not want two shoppers there at the same time (too much overlap -no value).

However, big stores -grocery -warehouse -electronics- definitely have multiple people there. I was once approached by someone as I completed an embarrassing video of myself per shop instructions. They were with a different MSC doing something different for a similar product. Ha!

On an airport shop with required knowledge questions the patron next to me asked “What soups do you have today?” I wondered…but when it arrived she didn’t take a photo, which would have been required.

Years ago, during one of my first Chipotle shops, I saw a woman with a clipboard and a paper who was jotting things. I couldn't imagine she was a shopper and being that blatant about it, but also couldn't think of what else she could be doing. She was with somebody else, so I didn't think she was, for example, working on paperwork for what might have been her "other life" job.

When I worked at an apartment complex part time a few years ago, I got shopped! And I think I was shopped when I worked in the fine jewelry department of an upscale store. A couple came in and asked questions that an ordinary, everyday shopper wouldn't know to ask.

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

Yeah, the more I know what to look for, the more I notice it when I'm out. One time while doing gas station audits, someone approached me and said "I know what you're doing!". He mentioned a MSC that I didn't know but he said he knew what I was doing soon as he saw me. I have noticed MSer but what I notice more are the folks doing Merchandising inside of stores, inventory checking and product refferals. Lot of people are using gig apps for these as well.

Sure. Hundreds at conferences and some while they are on assignment. It is really obvious when they are doing price checks, such as at Costco.

I have done several medicare shops last week and this week and I have seen the same woman at 3 of them,at 2 of them she was sitting one chair over from me and I could see she had a tape recorder in her hand. These were for the same insurance, just different sales agents. I know in my area there are a couple MS companies advertising these shops other then the company I am doing them for.

Earlier in the summer I saw a woman wearing a safety vest at a gas station. I stopped and talked to her long enough to verify that she was indeed doing an audit.

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. Eleanor Roosevelt

I would bet, reading some of the posts above that many shoppers think I am the shopper when I am not. I often ask what I have read here are silly questions that will out someone but I have asked those questions when I am doing my own non mystery shopping. I have also watched my food being made. To me it is pretty boring to stand and wait for food so watching it is more interesting to me. As for what xx is on the menu I will often ask that too. I live in a big city with thousands of restaurants. I do not eat over and over at the same places and where I do eat the food sometimes changes from one time to the next. I usually get what I had last time but I just want to make sure there is no new and exciting thing on the menu.
That said I was at Costco once on a shop where I had to buy multiples of one item. Another person was there when I arrived at the display and she filled her cart with 8 or the item. Costco often has small business people shopping for their mom and pop store but this person had nothing else in her cart and she took a photo of the display. I asked her if she was working for a company to buy so many and she said she had lots of nieces and aunts she was buying for. The item was not on sale!

Only at movie theaters pre pandemic. Interesting Men usually didn't even want to say "hello" but Women could be chatty. While comparing notes ( bad pun) with one she realized she was at the wrong location and dashed out.

Doing trailer checks at theaters I used to talk to a man who was doing them for another company once ina while. The only other mystery shopper I've encountered was a man doing price checks in a grocery store with a big tablet like mine. He didn't talk to me, he just looked at me and kept walking.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2022 05:44AM by Morledzep.

I was doing competitor grocery price checks years ago and would regularly run into another shopper price checking another list of products. Made the shopping trip more interesting.

When I worked at Kroger, I could never figure out who the mystery shoppers were. I figured out the company who shopped us at the time and monitored the job board. I knew the date range, the departments and questions which were to be asked. Let’s just say our store scored perfect scores for a year straight lol. I still never found out who the shoppers were.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2022 11:25PM by Capurato.

@Capurato wrote:

When I worked at Kroger, I could never figure out who the mystery shoppers were. I figured out the company who shopped us at the time and monitored the job board. I knew the date range, the departments and questions which were to be asked. Let’s just say our store scored perfect scores for a year straight lol. I still never found out who the shoppers were.

I had a Ralph's produce guy tell me what the questions were. I avoided that Ralph's for several months, and that produce guy for a lot longer than that. But I lived in a target rich environment back then, it was easy to avoid one store. Probably wouldn't be so easy now that I live in Kroger territory.. there are exactly zero stores South of me, and none are less than 25 miles away. I think there are only 7 or 8 in my area (within 50 miles) in total.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2022 04:57AM by Morledzep.

I was doing an open audit at a cell phone store. The manager told me they know who the mystery shoppers are. You're the only one's asked questions. I have a friend who worked at a fast food place. He said they knew who the mystery shoppers were, they are alone and order just 3 items. As soon as someone drove up and order 3 items the word went out...."Mystery Shopper" At one clothing store I was doing mystery shops counting items on several racks. As soon as I started counting, employees ran over sorted out the clothes ahead of me. LOL

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2022 07:01AM by johnb974.

@johnb974 wrote:

I was doing an open audit at a cell phone store. The manager told me they know who the mystery shoppers are. You're the only one's asked questions. I have a friend who worked at a fast food place. He said they knew who the mystery shoppers were, they are alone and order just 3 items. As soon as someone drove up and order 3 items the word went out...."Mystery Shopper" At one clothing store I was doing mystery shops counting items on several racks. As soon as I started counting, employees ran over sorted out the clothes ahead of me. LOL

Yes, I am familiar with that shop. I did one and refused to do any more of them, because I believe they are impossible to do without even the most non-observant employee instantly recognizing the counter is a mystery shopper.

@johnb974 wrote:

I was doing an open audit at a cell phone store. The manager told me they know who the mystery shoppers are. You're the only one's asked questions. I have a friend who worked at a fast food place. He said they knew who the mystery shoppers were, they are alone and order just 3 items. As soon as someone drove up and order 3 items the word went out...."Mystery Shopper" At one clothing store I was doing mystery shops counting items on several racks. As soon as I started counting, employees ran over sorted out the clothes ahead of me. LOL

We never knew who they were, and our turnover was pretty high, we just knew the time frame and the days that they were coming. Our managers never looked at the cameras, but they would provide us with the report which didn't have as much information as the mystery shopper entered.

I think in the larger stores, most employees only care that they don't get yelled at by their bosses for failing a shop. We were a high volume store which makes it harder that a fast food restaurant I think. I do remember we had a requirement that there be less than 7 carts in the lot or corrals at all time or else we would get dinged on the shop and we needed a bagger for every open checklane.

@Morledzep wrote:

Doing trailer checks at theaters I used to talk to a man who was doing them for another company once ina while. The only other mystery shopper I've encountered was a man doing price checks in a grocery store with a big tablet like mine. He didn't talk to me, he just looked at me and kept walking.

Some of those price checks might be part of merchandising as opposed to true MSing.

I was in line at a DIY pizza place doing discrete timings. A couple behind me asked if I was a mystery shopper. I asked why and they said that they owned the Ace Hardware down the street and they used mystery shoppers.

Needless to say I had to cancel my next shop.

"I told myself to quit you; but I don't listen to drunks." -Chris Stapleton

Not long ago, one morning I headed out to do some shops on the first day of the month - new round of shops . As I drove by a gas station, I witnessed a man crawling all around the embankment trying to capture photos of different angles of the station and the signs and pumps. I thought to myself - yep! lol.

One time I was at the gas station that I generally go to that I’ve also audits for. There was a mystery shopper in there. I saw him when he came back in to reveal himself and to do the audit. He was weird! You know I tried to make a little conversation with him, but then he said we were breaking all the rules. He was just strange! It’s not every day you run into somebody like a coworker ya know!

@TinaMarieO wrote:

One time I was at the gas station that I generally go to that I’ve also audits for. There was a mystery shopper in there. I saw him when he came back in to reveal himself and to do the audit. He was weird! You know I tried to make a little conversation with him, but then he said we were breaking all the rules. He was just strange! It’s not every day you run into somebody like a coworker ya know!

Some people get strange when it comes to mystery shopping. I would have welcomed meeting another shopper. You were not breaking any rules.

I pulled in to do a regular gas station audit at a remote location, and I saw someone running around the perimeter doing the one-time POP audit that was available on an app. After the reveal, I went to take the pump photos. I said hi, but the other person kind of blew me off. I would have tried harder to strike up a conversation, but I knew I was making about three times what they were, and I didn't want to possibly clue in a potential competitor. As I drove off, they were still taking pictures.

Another time, I saw someone taking photos at a station that previously had been mine as part of a quarterly arrangement with an MSC. The MSC had canceled the arrangement. (I later found out it was for everyone, not just me.) I stopped, thinking I would try to figure out how this person had bested me. It turned out thay hadn't bested me at all. They were down on their luck, sleeping in their vehicle, basically traveling from place to place taking all the shops at low rates. They complained they weren't even covering gas. At least that's what they said. Based on all the possessions crammed into the vehicle, and knowing the going shop rates at the time, I tended to believe them.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2022 04:19AM by mystery2me.

Yesterday I was doing a gas station shop, wearing the orange vest. A woman drove up, wearing an orange vest. She looked at me and backed up. When I went back into the store, she was in line, no vest. I think she was another shopper. She just stared at me. I think she was another shopper.

I was doing a college apartment mystery shop and a skinny white-haired octogenarian was at the next desk with a different leasing agent. Eavesdropping, I heard her tell a terrible cover story that was WAY too involved, detailed, and long. We ended up touring models together, and she was scribbling notes on a pad constantly, checking her watch and noting the timings. Poor old thing, she was Exhibit A in “How Not To Mystery Shop.”

My shop instruction when touring a model has always been, "Never agree to a group tour."

@AZwolfman wrote:

My shop instruction when touring a model has always been, "Never agree to a group tour."

For Ellis? Never seen that.

@ColoKate63 wrote:

@AZwolfman wrote:

My shop instruction when touring a model has always been, "Never agree to a group tour."

For Ellis? Never seen that.

I was not thinking specificallly of EPMS. No, I have never encountered that situation with them. So, I posed the question to EPMS. Their prompt reply was that I could agree on a group tour only if the agent gave me no other choice and that I should detail what happened in my report.

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