As Viktor Komorovsky (or was it later Komorov) told Zhivago, "Adapt yourself".

I received a similar letter from Jody saying my shop was rejected because I didn't sign in until I bought gas. She said the guidelines say you have to sign in before you make any purchase. I assumed she meant check in. But his letter says he did the shop the next day. Mine says I didn't sign in until I made the gas purchase. I was sure I checked in before I went in the store. Mine said I was rejected by the MSC because I made a purchase before I signed into Presto. It's the same shop he did. I can't mention the MSC now.

One shop I do occasionally is in a no-reception zone and, for icing on the cake, has a different address on the receipt. The number is correct but the shop is for "Highway ##" and the receipt says "Main st." No matter how much 'splainin' I do in the report, I still get accused of going to the wrong place. And it's the only station of that brand in the town. Google can prove it. Duh.

But this checking in before starting the shop raises a problem for a location as above. How will you always know before you get there that you'll have no reception? Should I just check in from home to every location I plan to visit that day? That makes no sense, right? My cell company map shows coverage in lots of places where there actually is none.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2024 11:53PM by sestrahelena.

@sestrahelena wrote:

... How will you always know before you get there that you'll have no reception? Should I just check in from home to every location I plan to visit that day? That makes no sense, right?

I agree.

They shouldn’t be overly dependent upon something that doesn’t always work. I think a part of the problem is when Presto was created, the people behind it presented the "check-in" feature as some earth shattering game changer when it wasn’t, and the gas station clients believed it. Like their app is "perfect", but it’s not. The "check-in" feature is not useful in places where signal is not possible. And even as French Farmer had mentioned, in a different thread, where there was a glitch with the app to where you couldn’t upload a required photo recently. So, if the app’s features don’t work a 100% of the time, then why should it be required a 100% of the time?

@sestrahelena wrote:

My cell company map shows coverage in lots of places where there actually is none.

I totally believe that. As someone that has traveled all over the country, and have tried out most of the major cell phone carriers in an attempt to find the best one, I have found all of them to have coverage areas maps that are misleading. You may get service in some of the areas that you expect, but you are not going to get service everywhere.

Here is how I do this:
For shops that I am not aware of signal problems, and then discover a no signal at the site, I check in as I am driving away and as soon as I see that my phone has a decent signal. I stop and check in. My time that I have reported starting the shop is always, always different that my check in time. The receipts reflect it.
For shops that I know there is a signal problem, I check in as close to the site as possible that I have a signal.

I've not been questioned on this. I do report signal problems for these particular shops, both on the app as well as in the report.
My receipts do reflect the date and time.

So far, I've not had a problem in doing this.

Sometimes, I think we overthink these problems.

If or when the time comes that the editor decides that what i have done is not acceptable, I'll stop taking those no signal jobs and quietly say a few words in another language that would not also be acceptable.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2024 02:08AM by French Farmer.

French Farmer.....Fermez votre grande bouche avant je vous donne une frappe...my favorite high school slogan when flustered...I know, poorly written

@MsJudi wrote:

French Farmer.....Fermez votre grande bouche avant je vous donne une frappe...my favorite high school slogan when flustered...I know, poorly written

Était-ce un commentaire ironique ?
Je l’espère. Pourtant, je ne suis pas offensé.

Non...just one of the few phrases I remember..No offense intended to you...It would be my foreign language response to the MSP

I don’t have a problem with using the check-in feature before doing a shop, provided that I understand I have to. It is not that big of a deal for me to just hit a button that says “Check-in” before doing a shop. That is assuming there are no issues with signal, or the Presto app. If there are, I rather just not do a shop rather than follow French Farmer’s method of doing it. Because what if one day, without warning, they decide French Farmer’s method isn’t good enough either? I can certainly understand the sentiment expressed in French Farmer’s post should that ever be the case, but it’s not really an experience I care to have in the first place.

What I do consider a problem is poor communication though, and then later blaming the shopper for what comes of it. I never got an email response from Jody Czarnecki despite it saying in the rejection email, “Please reply to this email if you require further details”, and suspect that I never will get a response from her. I did get a response from the general support team, and upon having my email forwarded to Emily Barnes, did get an initial response from her. Afterwards, I was left just hanging as to whether or not I would get a response on the follow-up questions though. So I don’t know if I should just be patient, and await a response, or just don’t count on one based on the experiences of others. It’s weird though because the initial response was only like 30 minutes later, whereas it’s going on to 3 days with no response to the follow-up questions. I guess I should just give her the benefit of the doubt, and wait it out, as I don't think I really have any other choice.

What I am still unclear on is exactly why were my shops rejected. I now understand that at least a part of the reason was because I didn’t “check-in” before starting the shop, but I don’t know if that is the only reason. According to the rejection email, it sounded like another reason was because the shop was not submitted within the same day the location was visited despite the guidelines saying we have 24 hours to submit. That would mean that there are potentially two reasons for the rejections rather than just one. I am also curious to hear how she would like locations to be handled where there is no signal.

This matters because I don't want to check-in before starting shops, only to still get them rejected by Jody Czarnecki again for not doing something else that was not clearly communicated, or understood.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2024 02:32PM by Mr. JM.

JM, do your needs exceed the aggravation, knowing, based upon the MSCs reputation, that there is an excellent chance of some form of repetition?

To my understanding, sign-in and check-in are NOT synonymous.

Bob, I agree. Unfortunately, there is a financial need to work for them. Otherwise, I would consider it too much aggravation.

A more reasonable response would have been for them to have gone ahead and accepted the shops in question, and then inform people like me and Belle that future shops may not be accepted if the check-in is done after the shop starts because they aren’t supposed to be accepted that way. However, the idea that they “can not” accept them that way, I believe, is non-sense. I believe the mystery shop company has much more discretion in what they will accept, and will not accept than they let on to, and are simply wanting to be much more strict with people than they had been in the past.

Of course, a more reasonable response would probably be too much to ask of them.

I guess I don't understand why you would assume you have 24 hrs to report a shop. Most companies require it to be within a few hours and the same day at the bare minimum. Most Presto jobs have to be reported within 4 hours if I recall (haven't done one in a few months).
If you are just making assumptions about these things and not actually reading them, there is your problem.
Things change, ALL THE TIME.

@Boutique wrote:

I guess I don't understand why you would assume you have 24 hrs to report a shop....

Copied from Page 5 of the Helios Plus Shopper Guidelines....

Submitting your results
Submit your shop within 24 hours of completion.
Shops submitted later may be rejected and not paid
per your Independent Contractor Agreement.
• You will be notified by email if there are any issues
with your shop data and you will have 24 hours to
make any corrections.

You are required to Geo Verify. It is in the guidelines. Plain and simple. I feel for you because it seems other editors and the fuel corp transcended not fulfilling the requirement for all your shops in the past. The Editor does say it was rejected by the Fuel Corp. It only takes a small moment. Better luck ahead.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2024 05:49PM by emm2131.

The sign-up page, and the shopper guidelines are not the same thing to me though. No where within the guidelines that actually come from the client do I see where it says that you have to check-in. Hence, my understanding of this that it was not truly a requirement for everyone, until perhaps as of this year based on the email with Emily Barnes.

Perhaps it may have been a requirement for some in the past, but not for all. How else would you explain how I have over 4,000 completed shops within Presto, of which the vast majority where for BP, where I didn’t have to check-in at the start of each shop?

What the reviewer’s email said was that my shops were rejected at the direction of the MSC, and not the client specifically. It is my belief that the client allows the MSC some discretion in how rules are enforced, of which they pass down to the reviewers, and I just unfortunately had to have someone like Jody Czarnecki working on my shops instead of someone else. It happens.

But you are right that it only takes a moment, and it’s not a big deal to use the check-in feature. (Unless you are somewhere where there is no signal, or the app isn’t working properly.)

@Mr. JM wrote:

Perhaps it may have been a requirement for some in the past, but not for all. How else would you explain how I have over 4,000 completed shops within Presto, of which the vast majority where for BP, where I didn’t have to check-in at the start of each shop?
.)

Wow! That is quite a bit.

This year I returned to performing BP shops after not doing them for a few years. I did do them when the previous MSC had them a few years ago. That MSC also had the Shell and E/M gas stations.
However, I just do not recall when BP shops started on the Presto App.
I know that the other 2 gas stations, Shell and E/M very recently started using the Presto App. Wasn't it Shell that started this year and last year E/M shops were sometime in 2023?

So, just when did BP start using the Presto App? Were they always on Presto?

I think you are right that Shell started using the Presto app this year, and EM started last year.

I don’t know for sure exactly when BP started using the Presto app. My oldest completed BP Shop on Presto is dated for June of 2019. So my guess is that was probably somewhere around that time that BP started using Presto. And from then up until just recently, they had never required me to use the check-in feature prior to the shop.

I can’t remember if was the BP shops being on Virtuoso, or Sassie that preceded them being on Presto. But as far as the current MSC that has BP goes, I think they were always on Presto.

@Belle wrote:

I received a similar letter from Jody saying my shop was rejected because I didn't sign in until I bought gas. She said the guidelines say you have to sign in before you make any purchase. I assumed she meant check in. But his letter says he did the shop the next day. Mine says I didn't sign in until I made the gas purchase. I was sure I checked in before I went in the store. Mine said I was rejected by the MSC because I made a purchase before I signed into Presto. It's the same shop he did. I can't mention the MSC now.

This is a puzzle to me.
To me, in the report we submit, it asks the time we started the shop, not when we checked in (or signed in according to Jody C).
Are they now defaulting to when we checked in rather than the time we started the shop? Considering the problem the app was having on November 5 when it was almost an impossibility to check in due to the app's map issues, must the shopper start checking on their phone at home and then reverifying nearer to the site.
BTW, is the editor the same one who kicks out reports for fantastical reasons and often appears magnanimous in his/her comments?