Saw this on line in the grocery store and forgot the issue date, but a half page is written up about a female mystery shopper and which companies she shops for. UGH.....just what we need, more potential shoppers competing against us, but many newbies will drop out when they cannot make the same monthly income of the shopper profiled. Forget the amount, but the shopper might be exaggerating.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2022 12:19AM by Arch Stanton.

Haven't seen it, but, makes me wonder if this may have been a PR piece placed by MSCs to get more folks interested. What mystery shopper would intentionally drum up national attention to this industry, especially by promoting specific companies? Why would anyone bother to do that?

There's tons of blogs and other websites about side hustles. People hear "mystery shopping" and a glamorous image of bags of free goodies pops in their heads.
The reality of having to go in a store, look at specific details, have an interaction and put money out of pocket and then report on all that, wait 1-2 mths for payment, tends to turn people off. My husband used to tell people I was a mystery shopper and people would always ask how to get started, etc. Once they found out it was real work, eh, not so interested.

I have been shopping for over 20 years. I have yet to make anything near what I have read in articles and in some posts on this board. I often wonder what I am doing wrong as I do not make that much- but then again I remember that everyone underestimates their weight and overestimates their income and net worth. I have told friends about mystery shopping- every one of them a total of 4 did 1 or 2 shops and then told me too much work for too little money. Two of them told me I was nuts for doing shops. One friend put out money for a fancy dinner and for some reason the shop was declined- she was furious as she would have never spent that much and then had to write a long and tedious report only to find out that she would not be paid. So, no worries about aritcles- I suspect many will sign up do a few shops and then say why bother?

Just like those shows about extreme couponing years ago. MOST of us who did it thought 'why the hell would anyone go on TV & tell everyone'... but people did! Attention hungry, I guess. It definitely changed the landscape of that 'industry' you might say....

I went from special ordering THOUSANDS of items at different stores 10 years ago to not having touched a single coupon in about 7 years.... (my husbands salary is also almost 4x what it was then, so that made it easier to walk away from that lifestyle)

luckygirl your name says a lot to me. Perhaps unintentional on your part but everything I have I have worked hard for and I have been frugal all my life saving a good percentage of my income for my retirement. Now I am retired except for mystery shopping and yet many who do not know my well think I am "lucky" for being comfortable now. And frugality has always been fun to me. I never felt I needed all the things those now with no money in retirement did like excessive vacations, buying a closet full of the latest fashions, eating lunch out everyday at work at an $$ restaurant.
Kind of sidelines this conversation but back to the topic, those people who have blogs or even magazine articles about their shopping may well be earning more for that one article or blog than they ever earned shopping. The "professional" social media wannabees will do anything for a following. They see $$$ in their future and some actually do make it. Same with those who try mystery shopping who think if you shop Gucci you get a free Gucci something for your review of the item.

Like those "reality" storage space auction tv shows did to us. We were doing pretty good actually, We had built up pretty good business. We were buying 2 or 3 units every week and selling most of it on the weekend. Then those stupid TV shows started popping up, units we used to pay $300 - $500 for started going for over $2K. The only folks that really benefited from those shows were the auction companies. They started making big money because they get paid based on the price of the units. Our profits went to basically nothing, we were barely keeping the lights on.

My user name has been the same for EVERYTHING since I was about 16... it refers to the Lucky brand of jeans. I've only worn this brand of jeans since I started working and purchasing my own clothes. It has absolutely ZERO to do with luck.

@sandyf wrote:

luckygirl your name says a lot to me. Perhaps unintentional on your part but everything I have I have worked hard for and I have been frugal all my life saving a good percentage of my income for my retirement. Now I am retired except for mystery shopping and yet many who do not know my well think I am "lucky" for being comfortable now. And frugality has always been fun to me. I never felt I needed all the things those now with no money in retirement did like excessive vacations, buying a closet full of the latest fashions, eating lunch out everyday at work at an $$ restaurant.
Kind of sidelines this conversation but back to the topic, those people who have blogs or even magazine articles about their shopping may well be earning more for that one article or blog than they ever earned shopping. The "professional" social media wannabees will do anything for a following. They see $$$ in their future and some actually do make it. Same with those who try mystery shopping who think if you shop Gucci you get a free Gucci something for your review of the item.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2023 02:05PM by luckygirl0100.

@veebeeshops I think you're right that it is probably a PR piece by a MSC or MSPA so they can get more new shoppers. New shoppers are most likely to accept work at base pay not knowing that unfilled shops' pay will go up. Some schedulers have come on here to discuss the challenges of getting new reliable shoppers. The MSCs are looking to fill the roster since shoppers do pause or quit altogether.

@joanna81 Like you, I don't understand why people go on youtube to talk about it when all they are doing is drumming up more competition for themselves. There is no way that any of the "content creators" are making money to replace what they are making from mystery shopping since the videos have such low view counts. One of them is selling a book, but there is no way they have sold more than a dozen.

Interesting that they forget to talk about shop revisions, waiting 30-55 days to get paid in the majority of cases, fronting all the money to make purchases before you get the funds which usually arrive long after you have paid the credit card bill, vague guidelines, poor communication, some reports having to be done when you get home (which should be added to factor the hourly rate), etc.

A long time ago someone posted that they went out on their own and dealt with companies directly to do shops and were very busy and making a lot more. I don't think they post on here anymore.

@Arch Stanton I went to the magazine website. I couldn't find that specific article. The only articles that pulled up on were from a few years ago.

One of their articles claimed:

"And don’t worry about shelling out your own money when you’re on an assignment. Mystery shopping companies typically will reimburse you up to a certain amount — so you can practically enjoy a shopping spree for free!"

A tad misleading since they don't tell you when you can expect to get that money. One article talked about real estate mystery shopping and another listed top MSCs from back in the day.

luckygirl, I have a pair of their jeans that I had bought at a huge sale. The brand was unknown to me at the time but I liked the fit a lot and they were my favorite color.. Then I met the owners through my job (I do live in L.A. so sometimes you come across high profile people) and found out my jeans were one of the better brands. From what I recall as it was years ago they were very nice and generous people.

@luckygirl0100 wrote:

My user name has been the same for EVERYTHING since I was about 16... it refers to the Lucky brand of jeans. I've only worn this brand of jeans since I started working and purchasing my own clothes. It has absolutely ZERO to do with luck.

I always discourage anyone who expresses interest in mystery shopping. I know their expectations are warped. They have no idea. Once you learn the game you can make it work better for you, but the learning curve takes too long. This gig is not for everyone. It's perfect for me, but there is no one in my former professional life who would actually consider doing something like this. Regarding the article, I don't like it. As I mentioned, my tendency is to discourage anyone. However, based on what has been said regarding the content of article, my feeling is that almost anyone who tries this business based on the article is in for a rude awakening, and will fizzle out just like they fizzled in.

All these folks profiled in Women's World with any high paying home biz you should lay low in the event of the prying eyes of the IRS. Yes they do target folks like this. And why create any competition?

I have not read this article and will not need to because as everyone else has said, I’m sure it completely removes the truth behind mystery shopping and provides a sugar-coated version that supplies unrealistic expectations. I regret mentioning my involvement in mystery shopping to certain people in my life. Without having any experience with the work, they believe that it is easy and painless with the ability to earn a plethora of money for little work or effort. I was fighting these perceptions and having to dissuade them from pursuing shopping. Not necessarily because I was overly worried about the potential for competition, but more so because I knew that once they did their first job and saw the amount of work and detail required, they would feel like it was not fair in comparison to the pay received. I didn’t want to have that tension or blame towards me when I knew that they would find disappointment. Mystery shopping works for me as I have a penchant for detail, and I can find the type of jobs that fulfill my needs/interests as a shopper. However, for those individuals within my life, I knew that they didn’t have the patience or diligence required to be successful in shopping. Thankfully, most have either forgotten or moved on to other things in life. If someone does ask me for feedback or recommendations on how to start, I’m honest and lay it all out in a factual manner.

Outside of close friends and family that have taken part in shops with me, I rarely speak about my involvement in mystery shopping. Fortunately, those family and friends that have come with me on a job have seen the nuances with shopping and are more than content with being a guest while I do the work. This is perfectly fine for me!

@veebeeshops wrote:

Haven't seen it, but, makes me wonder if this may have been a PR piece placed by MSCs to get more folks interested. What mystery shopper would intentionally drum up national attention to this industry, especially by promoting specific companies? Why would anyone bother to do that?

You know, in all these years that we've seen these impossible claims, it never occurred to me that they are engineered as a recruiting tool by mystery shopping companies. I, who am naturally very suspicious of everything, am very disappointed in myself for not having figured this out!

The article is in the Woman's World Dec.26,2022 issue on page 42.
It mentions several companies and the person claims that she has done hotels, airlines,restaurants "all over the world" for them. claims they make $500 a month for 5 -10 hours a week and "Thousands in reimbursements". from the job.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2023 02:45AM by sueac101.

@sueac101 wrote:

The article is in the Woman's World Dec.26,2022 issue on page 42.
It mentions several companies and the person claims that she has done hotels, airlines,restaurants "all over the world" for them. claims they make $500 a month for 5 -10 hours a week and "Thousands in reimbursements". from the job.
I took the article with a grain of salt.

Well, let's say they take 1 fine dining shop per day. Possibly for Coyle @$20/ shop. If you don't count the onsite time (I do personally, but I can see some rationalize that they would dine out anyway) you could spend 10hrs per week writing the reports. Once you get into a groove with their preferred style it goes much faster. That would give you an income of $600. Many of their restaurants reimburse $150+ so that would be $4,500+...
Is that scenario realistic? No, but 'possible'.

The person in the article is either delusional, a liar or both. If you do fine dining shops you will be working more than 5 to 10 hours as the reports are very tedious and detailed. I did many and the degree of detail including photos of food and descriptions of the ingredients, presentation and taste were extremely lengthy. I have a friend who I told about mystery shopping and she did a fine dining shop. I had shown her a copy of one of the reports I had done previously as a guide. From what I can tell she wrote a very detailed report. She made the mistake after working many hours on the report of describing the waiter as a balding obese gentleman, which from the photo she discretely snapped he was. The report was denied as she used derogatory terms to describe the gentleman. I bet they used the report and just decided not to pay her. That was her first and only mystery shop! Whoever wrote this tall tale in the magazine should write for TV as most of the shops stink!

I can't believe they would reject the report, rather than just having her correct the description to be more appropriate. By rejecting it, the scheduler and editor have to go to the work of having the shop re-done and re-edited, and they anger a shopper.

@SueW70 wrote:

The person in the article is either delusional, a liar or both. If you do fine dining shops you will be working more than 5 to 10 hours as the reports are very tedious and detailed. I did many and the degree of detail including photos of food and descriptions of the ingredients, presentation and taste were extremely lengthy. I have a friend who I told about mystery shopping and she did a fine dining shop. I had shown her a copy of one of the reports I had done previously as a guide. From what I can tell she wrote a very detailed report. She made the mistake after working many hours on the report of describing the waiter as a balding obese gentleman, which from the photo she discretely snapped he was. The report was denied as she used derogatory terms to describe the gentleman. I bet they used the report and just decided not to pay her. That was her first and only mystery shop! Whoever wrote this tall tale in the magazine should write for TV as most of the shops stink!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2023 12:22PM by mjt9598.

Yeah, that smells a little fishy to me... and if you don't count the time onsite MANY people are able to write a fine dining shop in an hour or so.

@mjt9598 wrote:

I can't believe they would reject the report, rather than just having her correct the description to be more appropriate.

@SueW70 wrote:

The person in the article is either delusional, a liar or both. If you do fine dining shops you will be working more than 5 to 10 hours as the reports are very tedious and detailed. I did many and the degree of detail including photos of food and descriptions of the ingredients, presentation and taste were extremely lengthy. I have a friend who I told about mystery shopping and she did a fine dining shop. I had shown her a copy of one of the reports I had done previously as a guide. From what I can tell she wrote a very detailed report. She made the mistake after working many hours on the report of describing the waiter as a balding obese gentleman, which from the photo she discretely snapped he was. The report was denied as she used derogatory terms to describe the gentleman. I bet they used the report and just decided not to pay her. That was her first and only mystery shop! Whoever wrote this tall tale in the magazine should write for TV as most of the shops stink!

@SueW70 wrote:

The person in the article is either delusional, a liar or both. If you do fine dining shops you will be working more than 5 to 10 hours as the reports are very tedious and detailed.

Magazines publish articles like this every few years. I remember one from years ago that sounded fishy, where it turned out the reporter changed some facts in the article to protect the identity of the shopper.

One purpose of such articles is to get more people to try mystery shopping. Who would go for it if they read that a dinner shop with a $15 fee could take 10 hours to report?

I much prefer to read the escapades of SteveinCA who used to post here but no longer does. He could show you how to make MS a game for worldwide travel at little cost and was actually someone people (not me) knew personally. Hey Steve, where've ya been?

@MsJudi wrote:

I much prefer to read the escapades of SteveinCA who used to post here but no longer does. He could show you how to make MS a game for worldwide travel at little cost and was actually someone people (not me) knew personally. Hey Steve, where've ya been?

I was thinking about him the other day. I miss him so much! He talked about how he earned an amazing income as a shopper specializing in hotels, resorts, etc. around the world.

Edited to add:. SteveSoCal last posted two years ago, in Sep 2020.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2023 11:34PM by Susan L..

Maybe Steve the world wide traveler got Montezuma's revenge eating for a shop in some exotic foreign restaurant and perished from third world medical care. That might be why no one hears from him anymore. Rest in peace poor Steve!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2023 11:42PM by Funny oldgal.

SteveinCA and several other shoppers stopped posting shortly after COVID began and their favorite shops disappeared.