I have to somewhat defend Nikki here, although I know a lot of people have had trouble with her. While I think she could use a re-work of her email templates and some tips on more effective communications, I've never had a problem with her. I had to cancel a shop a few years ago at the very last-minute because my son had a medical emergency. Although I didn't get a reply to my email cancelling the shop, and I did get a 1 on the shop, I wasn't blocked from self-assigning nor was there any negative pushback.

I also did a multi-part, month-long project for her, which was pretty labor-intensive, and I had to ask a few questions. She always responded quickly, gave me the answers I needed, and was friendly. At the end of the shop, I got paid the fee, but not the reimbursement, which was a significant amount. I contacted her and she put me in touch with the person who could help, and I got my $$.

Haven't dealt with Elise much. I did cancel a shop once because I'd taken it based on an email that said there was a bonus on it. When I checked my jobs, there was no bonus listed, so I contacted her and she said that the email was a mistake and there was no bonus. I told her I couldn't do it without, so she cancelled it. But no repercussions from that, either.

Maybe some schedulers don't handle the stress of the job as well as others and get defensive, angry, etc. No excuse for being rude to shoppers or retaliating, but I wonder if some schedulers might be happier doing something else.

Purple,

Thank you for the most unusually gracious compliment I recall ever receiving. Except for the 21 mos. when I failed in my attempts to free a woman I loved from drugs, I have been blessed with a fulfilling life.

@wrosie wrote:

. . . Nikki does the East Coast and someone else, possibly Robin, does the West.

I'm on the East Coast and I get emails for shops from Abby Morgan as well as both Nikki and Elise.

A testimonial:

Years ago, I worked with Nikki Atkins on several big route projects. I then worked with her off and on for a half dozen years as she cycled through a handful of MSPs. Her time with most of these companies was drama-filled and always ended poorly.

I ended the relationship when she adjusted and then lied about my shop fees. I produced the evidence that affirmed my claim. Nikki answered with an email labeling me as “obsessed” - just because I had made screenshots and saved correspondence in order to protect my profit margin.

I started to fire back an angry email, then paused and looked at my email address field. Where I had typed “Nikki@“ it had auto-filled a half-dozen different MSPs, all of which she was no longer affiliated with due to her unprofessional behavior.

Suddenly I realized: She will never change. She’s done this over and over, and she always gets rehired.

As others have pointed out, a couple of unprofessional schedulers have left a lingering stench in this industry that, oddly enough, Reality Based Group has no problem with and has tolerated for years. And - as others have also chimed in - I haven’t done a single shop for RBG, even though I’m still on their active shopper list, because any company that hired her on and is happy with the way she treats their evaluators is not one that I’m going to pick up assignments for.

Sadly, I predict that there will be no consequences for this latest act. All that I (we) can do is stand in solidarity and stop accepting assignments for companies who employ unprofessional, abusive schedulers. Maybe then there will be some change.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2023 04:19PM by ColoKate63.

To those of you who have had issues with these two schedulers, does it only happen when you need to cancel or reschedule? I have worked with both and have never had a problem, But, I have never had to ask to reschedule or cancel a shop. I'm certainly not questioning the validity of the complaints, just wondering if there is a common theme?

@kathygry wrote:

To those of you who have had issues with these two schedulers, does it only happen when you need to cancel or reschedule? I have worked with both and have never had a problem, But, I have never had to ask to reschedule or cancel a shop. I'm certainly not questioning the validity of the complaints, just wondering if there is a common theme?

My issues with the scheduler that I referenced centered around payment. My experience was that AFTER the assignments had been submitted, graded and approved for the client, the bonuses disappeared.

I have had it explained to me that it’s pretty common for schedulers get a “bonus account” - for example, $2500 - to pay out in order to get those last difficult shops filled. If they can get those orphan locations completed without dipping deeply into the bonus money, they get to keep all or most of that account as their reward for pushing the project across the finish line.

In other words, there’s a lot of incentive for a dishonest scheduler to make bonuses disappear after the work is submitted. Keep screenshots, emails, and receipts until you get paid, folks.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2023 04:16PM by ColoKate63.

Katie comments concerning Nikki Atkins--.......any company that hired her on and is happy with the way she treats their evaluators is not one that I’m going to pick up assignments for.

Bob's position--I agree.

Helena,

You possess an admirable quality: The ability to bring a smile to an octogenarian's face. Thank you for your comment.

@ColoKate63 wrote:

@kathygry wrote:

To those of you who have had issues with these two schedulers, does it only happen when you need to cancel or reschedule? I have worked with both and have never had a problem, But, I have never had to ask to reschedule or cancel a shop. I'm certainly not questioning the validity of the complaints, just wondering if there is a common theme?

My issues with the scheduler that I referenced centered around payment. My experience was that AFTER the assignments had been submitted, graded and approved for the client, the bonuses disappeared.

I have had it explained to me that it’s pretty common for schedulers get a “bonus account” - for example, $2500 - to pay out in order to get those last difficult shops filled. If they can get those orphan locations completed without dipping deeply into the bonus money, they get to keep all or most of that account as their reward for pushing the project across the finish line.

In other words, there’s a lot of incentive for a dishonest scheduler to make bonuses disappear after the work is submitted. Keep screenshots, emails, and receipts until you get paid, folks.

Wouldn't this be fraud on a scheduler's part? But then who do you report it to, which, I think, is what the original poster asked.

@wrosie wrote:

Wouldn't this be fraud on a scheduler's part? But then who do you report it to, which, I think, is what the original poster asked.

In my case, I ended up emailing the MSP’s owner. I had attended a conference and found his business card in my box of stuff from that event.

I got paid.

Fast forward a couple of months and she was no longer scheduling for that company. I suspect it had more to do with her behavior towards company management than the shoppers. We are at the bottom of the bottom of the totem pole, even though they talk a good game about how much they value our services, lolololol…

Edited to add: You know what would be handy here for shoppers in addition to the spreadsheet of pay dates? A list of contact emails for MSP leadership. A simply-worded, factual email sent above a scheduler’s head would help immensely when dealing with this sort of situation and curb the abuse.

Going forward, I’m considering forwarding the Reality Based Group executive whose email is given in this thread the “Shops are posted!” solicitations from RBG that I receive, together with a brief “I’m not picking any of your assignments this month because you employ unprofessional schedulers to handle your projects.”

Management and ownership need to know who they are employing and how well/how poorly they are representing their company, don’t you agree?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2023 08:05PM by ColoKate63.

Several months ago I received a mass email about a shop... I read the guidelines that were in the e-mail and I self assign.


I then looked at the guidelines that were attached to the report... I also looked over the report that I needed to fill out.. There were a couple of things that were mentioned there but they were not mentioned in the mass email.

I email asking which one do I do.. She said that she will get back with me.. A couple of days later, she said go with the guidelines on the forum/ in the report..

I thanked her for checking on that for me. I told to please cancel the shop for me.. She cancel the shop with no problems at all..

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2023 09:26PM by Isaiah4031a.

All of this commenting about RBG inspired me to open my remote hard drive and search for shops I had performed for that so named MSC.
It was almost 10 years ago that I fired the Reality Check MSC. I had asked for a $15 additional incentive for performing a shop for an unnamed business. I was denied with the scheduler advising that I was asking more than usual.
So there it sat.
BTW, as I remember those shops, they took at least 1 hour at the business, interacting with a named employee in each department. The report itself, took another 30 minutes.
I walked away, proud of myself for firing them, never looking back at those hooligans masquerading as an MSC.

Cheers and Happy St Patrick's Day to my partner and how we shall celebrate and to those who also do - as we look out onto our fields of the deep, deep last of winter's snow.

@ColoKate63 "I have had it explained to me that it’s pretty common for schedulers get a “bonus account” - for example, $2500 - to pay out in order to get those last difficult shops filled. If they can get those orphan locations completed without dipping deeply into the bonus money, they get to keep all or most of that account as their reward for pushing the project across the finish line."

"In other words, there’s a lot of incentive for a dishonest scheduler to make bonuses disappear after the work is submitted. Keep screenshots, emails, and receipts until you get paid, folks."

BINGO?

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

I think Bob might be right. Between Nikki and Elise there's very few jobs available through RBG that don't have their names on them. I don't think I have done anything directly for them since Elise stole that money from me. I have tried one other time to do a job for RBG, but the scheduler wasn't willing to negotiate. And I watched for two more weeks and watch the offer go up to I think it was $45 or $50 bonus for a grocery store shop, and I don't think anybody ever took it. I wouldn't because the scheduler wouldn't wouldn't accept my offer of $20, when I was going to be driving past the store to get home. And it's far enough away that a $50 bonus isn’t enough to make a special trip.

It's been almost a year with only Elise's bad conduct and bad faith. And another scheduler that didn’t know a good thing when it was offered. So maybe RBG doesn’t need my services any more after more than 10 years?

I did go looking to see what was available around here couple days ago. There was nothing. There was one job on the job board and I didn't want to do it either. Maybe Nikki and Elise have scared away all the Shoppers in this area? Maybe the clients are going to other mystery shopping companies because they can't get any of the jobs done with RBG?

As much as I hate hearing this, it comforts me to know I’m not the only one to be mistreated by Nikki. I won’t accept any job from her, as she’s unprofessional, and moody.

deleted

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2023 09:49PM by sil2222.

@sil2222 wrote:

I recently had to cancel a shop because i had a scheduling conflict that I could not fix. So I sent them an email asking them to cancel the shop, but I still had 2 other shops scheduled a restaurant and a retail store. To my surprise all my other shops got cancelled. Then I got an email from the scheduler asking me for a reason why I cancelled my shops. She was requesting a written response, but I had not cancelled all my shops only 1 shop. So I decided it was best not to engage and make the problem worse. I was expecting payment for 2 retail store shops I had completed last month and on 3/20 they were labeled as paid. I did not receive any payment. I emailed them and I am still waiting to get the payment resolved. I only worked the shops they offer for fun because its never a lot of money. In fact the money I was not paid is about 30 something dollars. I always enjoyed doing the retail store , but now with these issues I cant work those anymore. Sad. I really dont understand why they cancel all the shops because you miss 1 . I think over the years Ive successfully completed a lot of shops them usually at base pay.

Because you made that schedulers life more difficult? Who knows.... maybe they terminated their contract with you.
You should have been paid for shops already completed, but canceling a shop without the offer to move it to a different day is unprofessional.

I've never dealt with those two schedulers but find Christina Harhalos difficult and unresponsive. When I emailed her several times regarding an explanation of why I could not schedule a shop even though I have a 10 rating, she ignored me and then turned off my send shop offers link. I turned it back on but how petty and unprofessional is that?

I recall many times Nikki sent out emails with BOLD and all caps about bonuses being added. When I went to the job board, instead of auto self assign, I did click to read "more" and saw that not one of them had the bonus added. I emailed her. Twice. She finally responded, in a nasty manner, she will get around to it. She never did. Next day, she sent out same email - still no bonus. I had screen shots and still had the emails. I called RBG, spoke with a male in upper management who asked for the emails and screenshots. Nothing was done. That was years before COVID. I will also add in that there were two shops in a town about an hour away that had pretty good bonuses. I self assigned. Was driving, got sick on the interstate. Had to pull over 3 times in the emergency lane to get sick. I got off at the next exit, turned around and went home (I was only about 1/3 of the way to the first shop). I contacted the scheduler via the help/contact on the job board and gave her details. On my way to the hospital I get a text from Nikki asking "what's up with the "XXX" shops. I could only tell her I got very sick and I was on the verge of passing out at that point so I just sent what I had wrote. I was given a shop score of 1 for both shops. She is hateful, arrogant, vindictive, unprofessional and maybe Karma will pay her numerous visits based on how horribly she has treated most mystery shoppers. I haven't done a shop for that company since. If they want to keep a person like that on, they don't deserve a great shoppers. As a retired Registered Nurse and executive, I have decades of experience knowing that people get sick, sometimes, suddenly. That's just life. It isn't like I called off on doing brain surgery on someone. Oh, and to the person who Nikki didn't pay the bonuses - yes, I have a friend she did that too also. I would never trust anything in print or out of her mouth. Pathological should be her new first name. Oh, and I was at the steakhouse with a friend who was doing that shop at the bar. Two employees were all touchy-feely behind the bar in front of all the customers and in front of a manager. They were so close, you couldn't get a piece of paper between them (they were face to face). This went on for about 10 minutes (I was thinking "Get a room" ) So gross, I lost my appetite - I don't want to see that when at a restaurant eating dinner. My friend put the info in her report. Nikki banned her from ever shopping that location again (My friend asked Nikki, and that was her response). So it appears, if you say anything other than "everything was perfect", she can manage the system where you won't see those shops she banned anymore - or so my friend told me. There was another steakhouse location where the bartender threw something across the bar and hit her hair - just a few hairs shy of hitting her in the eye. She put that in the report and was banned from that location. I would think that the client would want to know this information. But Nikki doesn't want it seen or known. Does she make these shop reports disappear??? How does a scheduler get this much power? I am surprised that upper management, leadership, and owners of the MSC's are not aware of what is happening. These locations never show up on my friends job board anymore. It's actually sad, I loved doing shops for them until the "Dastardly Duo" got so out of control. I have noticed that Robin is now on the steakhouse shops and the Duo are now on the pizza shops. It is so good to see Robin's name in my emails once again!!!

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2023 05:39AM by FrostyBubbles.

The posts about schedulers are a bit ironic in light of a recent email received from IPSOS. I’m quite sure others received an email including the phrase: “Effective immediately, this program will solely be available on iSF. Waste no time and swiftly self-assign these highly coveted shops before it's too late! If you require travel assistance, ensure it's reasonable before submitting your direct route requests to mystery.shopping@ipsos.com.” I’ve seen more emails from the generic address and fewer from actual people over the last couple of months.

I recall a post from @ColoKate63 about a year ago stating that one day the schedulers would be replaced with computer generated scheduling (or robots…don’t remember the exact terminology but it got the point across).

Are we getting there yet, IPSOS?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2023 08:59PM by patman9760.

It could be robots/automated scheduling but I would bet that generic email address is also monitored by a team vs an individual.

This lets them have multiple people monitor the inbox in the event someone is out of the office, etc.

@patman9760 wrote:

The posts about schedulers are a bit ironic in light of a recent email received from IPSOS. I’m quite sure others received an email including the phrase: “Effective immediately, this program will solely be available on iSF. Waste no time and swiftly self-assign these highly coveted shops before it's too late! If you require travel assistance, ensure it's reasonable before submitting your direct route requests to mystery.shopping@ipsos.com.” I’ve seen more emails from the generic address and fewer from actual people over the last couple of months.

I recall a post from @ColoKate63 about a year ago stating that one day the schedulers would be replaced with computer generated scheduling (or robots…don’t remember the exact terminology but it got the point across).

Are we getting there yet, IPSOS?

I have received a reply from a particular person from that generic email address when I sent an inquiry. If I had to continue the conversation and replay back again, sometimes the same person has answered again, and sometimes it has been someone else. That seems to fit with the comment above about a team of persons manning that email box to offer support.

Hi - I am not sticking up for any scheduler at all here - but I do know that often a MSC will 'ban' a shopper from a location where they have had a memorable experience - certainly not because the shopper did anything wrong at all, but out of concern that the shopper would be remembered. No idea if that is the case here at all, but I have had that happen. Even a shopper who was comped a dinner for food that wasn't great was banned from a location at a company I used to work for.

It is a team

They are close

@KarenSchedulesForIpsos wrote:

They are close

That’s what I thought. For what it’s worth, I hope you stay around for a while @KarenSchedulesForIpsos

I plan on it!

Guys. Seems I'm getting fluffed right now for not following a direction that was NOT in the guidelines and NOT on top of the shop report or literally anywhere on the sassie platform. I'm ok with taking a hit if this is truly my fault but I'm wondering, if something is hidden deep in an email but nowhere else can it be justified I fight to be able to submit the report? It was an expensive dinner but in all of my years I have never been completely shut out like this without a discussion involved with a scheduler. I can't believe it to be honest.

This was sorted out.... But only because I was extremely "lucky"

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2023 12:15AM by bcj1jrj.

Just to add clarity, there are two companies that start with "Reality". RCMS is one and I think Kern schedules for them. I've mostly seen salon shops for them. RBG actively uses the schedulers in this thread and has a variety of shops.

@French Farmer wrote:

All of this commenting about RBG inspired me to open my remote hard drive and search for shops I had performed for that so named MSC.
It was almost 10 years ago that I fired the Reality Check MSC. I had asked for a $15 additional incentive for performing a shop for an unnamed business. I was denied with the scheduler advising that I was asking more than usual.
So there it sat.
BTW, as I remember those shops, they took at least 1 hour at the business, interacting with a named employee in each department. The report itself, took another 30 minutes.
I walked away, proud of myself for firing them, never looking back at those hooligans masquerading as an MSC.

Cheers and Happy St Patrick's Day to my partner and how we shall celebrate and to those who also do - as we look out onto our fields of the deep, deep last of winter's snow.