Six months ago or so, it appeared that the company who handles the black and white bear shops changed things around. Prior to this, if a shop was going to fall off my list, it would do so at 7am my time. Then it would become available again and I could reaccept. As far as I can tell, to be blocked from a project, the scheduler would physically have to do it. After they changed their system, shops fall off 4 hours earlier and if you’ve let too many shops fall off the system automatically blocks you. They didn’t notify us about the change or tell us what the new magic number of dropped shops is before you get banned. I first discovered this when at 3 am my time, the black and white bear report I was actively filling out couldn’t be submitted because it didn’t exist on my shop log anymore. The 3 other ones I was planning on filling out after this one were also gone. So it appeared that I flaked on 4 shops even though my fridge was overflowing with Chinese food that I’ll never eat yet paid for. I tried reaccepting them and found out I had been automatically blocked from the project. The same happened shortly after with the phone program. I realize that being up in the middle of the night doing reports is probably not that common, but not everyone is on a 9-5 schedule.

I get that they don’t want flakes working for them, but they’ve literally told me more than once to let shops drop off and reaccept them if I asked to change the date a second time. When multiple people tell me to do the same thing and don’t mention any repercussions, It sounds like that’s the protocol and it wont count against me. But even though I sent a email yesterday explaining I had been sick all week and asked to reschedule so it doesn’t look like I flaked, I got no reply, and I’m now banned from a third project.

I’d like to know what criteria they use in determining if someone gets dropped or not. I have done thousands of shops for them and have a rating of 9. The amount of shops I’ve let fall off over the years is a tiny percentage of the total shops I’ve done. It’s not like I’ve only ever done 10 shops and let half of them drop. If that were the case I’d understand why they blocked me.

Mystery shopping is my only source of income. I like it because of the flexibility since I’m disabled and some days I just can’t do it. I’ve plead my case to them several times to no avail. If they told us that dropping x amount of shops will result in getting banned, I could have made sure I didn’t go over that number. I feel like I’m playing a game of Russian Roulette.

I know this is really long but if you’ve made it this far, I’d like to ask if anyone else found themselves in the same predicament and if so, were you able to get back in and how’d you do it?

Well, in my opinion you've been gaming the system and getting away with it for a long time. It seems that you've made it a habit of entering reports late, grabbing them and entering them the next day. How does that work?

If I take a fast food shop to do on August 17 and you let it fall off and grab it the next morning, it is then August 18. Are you reshopping the location? Are you able to enter a shop you did on August 17 on a template that says August 18? I do not think that you can select a date in the past.

I think that your only bet is to email or contact them through Facebook.

They have hundreds of thousands of shoppers. On most projects, we are just a number to them.

The MSC notified those who were paying attention that they were going to start giving a 1 for a dropped shop and blocking access to the shop for 24 hours after it drops. So your shopper rating is going down, and once it gets below 5 you won't be able to self-assign any shops. You have no idea how much it hurts to defend the MSC, they don't deserve it. But, here goes.. They give you tools to keep your status high, you can reschedule a shop yourself one time. And at base pay they give you a 4 - 6 day range to do the shops, you don't have to do it only on the day that you chose initially. So you've had a group of shops on your board for up to 12 days, and you waited until the last day and then waited to the day after to do your reports, even though it says CLEARLY in the guidelines that you must input your reports BEFORE midnight of the day you do the shop.

Send the "chinese food" that you won't eat to me.. If my son won't eat it, the chickens will.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2024 03:18AM by Morledzep.

Im sorry that the bullies are coming after you. You asked legitimate questions and your only receiving answers from the drunk crowd.

@NM1962 wrote:

Im sorry that the bullies are coming after you. You asked legitimate questions and your only receiving answers from the drunk crowd.

At least on Reddit, they get downvoted into oblivion.

Their system sounds very frustrating.

I haven't ever worked for them. Fire them, move on and find better companies.

Find out who is in charge of the program. I think there is info on the website somewhere. Email that person, explaining like you did here. If they see you have been making them money, they will likely give you another chance.

@Morledzep wrote:

And at base pay they give you a 4 - 6 day range to do the shops, you don't have to do it only on the day that you chose initially.

Some programs do need to be done on the specific date chosen, such as the recently-lost hedgehog, because there are client required number of days between shops and scenarios. This may be true for the asian food, I don't remember, but there are several scenarios so it would make sense that the client might not want them all done on the same day.

@NM1962 wrote:

Im sorry that the bullies are coming after you. You asked legitimate questions and your only receiving answers from the drunk crowd.

Thanks for your contribution, as always.

I don’t think I was gaming the system or getting away with anything. My whole point was that these 4 bear shops would have been submitted in time if they didn’t change the time they fall off. I don’t know where you got the idea that I drop and reaccept shops all the time, because I don’t. Like I said the number of times I’ve done this is minuscule compared to the shops I successfully completed. And I was following the instructions they gave me several times, to let the shops fall off and pick them back up. And as for an email notifying us of the change, I’m talking about changing the time the system drops the shops and that getting blocked will now be automatic after x times of doing it. Had I known this, I could have submitted the reports earlier on that particular day and make sure to not let any drop going forward. But after years of things being one way then changing it out of the blue without prior notification isn’t cool. And there are going to be times when it’s just not possible, like last week when I was sick. I made sure I notified them in advance but didn’t get a reply, then got blocked anyway. I’m not perfect but I do the best I can. It would be nice if they were willing to work with shoppers, especially ones that do a lot of jobs for them.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2024 09:50PM by Kittypoop7.

I know the slushie place shops and some grocery ones have to be done on specific days but the bear shops don’t.

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it!

Thank you for replying. My complaint is that I didn’t even have a chance to change my behavior and do the things you mentioned because I got blocked right off the bat. It literally changed overnight without warning. I’m perfectly fine with the changes they made and completely understand why they did. I just wish I was given the chance to adhere to them before getting axed.

I get what you’re saying. There have been many times where I’ve gone out of town to do shops that no one else was willing to do, and took as many shops as I could to make the trip worthwhile. When I get home I have to finish the reports and some get submitted after midnight because there’s not enough hours in the day. No one has ever said they had a problem with that, most likely because they were always there by the time they woke up. I continued doing what I usually do until bam!, one day it changed out of nowhere and I got blocked. All I’m saying is if they notified me that things were changed from whatever date going forward, I could have adjusted accordingly. I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I worked hard for them doing thousands of shops all over the Central Valley, and getting banned from programs feels like a big kick in the gut.

To the best of my recollection, I have only been in a single situation where I knew I was unable to submit the reports according to when the company required. It was a long day route, for Maritz, of 17 banks covering 437 miles on 12/31/2012. Before agreeing to complete the work, I requested and was given permission to submit on 01/01/2013.

My point is that if one either knows or suspects required submission could be problematic, attend to the situation, if possible, in advance.

Ses, Panda Bears don't care what day, or even how many shops are done in a single day. By the time they pay enough that I want to eat there they typically only give you 2 days from the day you claim the shop.

The same thing happened to me. They told me I had missed too many shops that were heavily bonused. I apologize. I continued to do other shops and six month later I asked to be reinstated. They did and told be if I did it again I would be banned for life. (I have done almost 2000 shops for them). As I have previously been a scheduler, I understand the repercussion of my errors. You can waiy some time and ask to be reinstated and then be extra careful.