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Is it just me or is it very slow these days?

September 11, 2025 01:24AM
@maverick1 wrote:


There's also DJ-ing Jazzy Jeff. Just sayin'

and the Fresh Prince is nowhere to be found....
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September 11, 2025 01:54PM
Yes, it is very slow for me too.
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September 11, 2025 01:55PM
Yes, it is very slow for me too. And, when there is a job, the pay is much lower.
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September 11, 2025 01:58PM
Yes, it is very slow for me too. And, when there is a job, the pay is much lower. And I am not getting emails. I have to got to the job board to see them.
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September 11, 2025 02:07PM
crickets - Kayla's army must be out in force lol.
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September 11, 2025 04:48PM
For the triple and more posts (repeats), just wait a moment after hitting reply and your post will eventually populate on the thread. It lags like that every now and then. The delay seems to work out and go back to normal after a while.
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September 11, 2025 06:36PM
@nc wrote:

Yes, it is very slow for me too. And, when there is a job, the pay is much lower. And I am not getting emails. I have to got to the job board to see them.

Having the same issue with the emails. I went to Intellishops site the other day and there were all of these jobs for pet stores. I was like wait a minute!! I can't seem to fix the issue. It is not just Intelli, it is ALL of them. What is happening?
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September 11, 2025 06:58PM
@Datagirl wrote:

@nc wrote:

Yes, it is very slow for me too. And, when there is a job, the pay is much lower. And I am not getting emails. I have to got to the job board to see them.

Having the same issue with the emails. I went to Intellishops site the other day and there were all of these jobs for pet stores. I was like wait a minute!! I can't seem to fix the issue. It is not just Intelli, it is ALL of them. What is happening?

I haven't gone into my sassie profiles and checked anything yet, it is on my to do list.

I wonder if it has to do with the zip code radius. Remember there was an issue with doing searches over a certain mileage not too long ago?
Just another thought.
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September 11, 2025 08:36PM
I can't figure it out. Every Sassie MSC I log on to has the red notice at the top that they can't send me emails. I have made sure every one of them has my email enabled in my profiles (they had all been turned off some how) and that I have no blocked email addresses, yet still nothing.
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September 11, 2025 09:34PM
I wonder if it is a response to your email provider bouncing the emails back -- I have this issue with mass email senders from time to time as I use an old school free email provider. I have not had it with SASSI but have found usually you need to have someone manually reset it which might be a SASSI issue not a MSC issue.
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September 29, 2025 09:46PM
It is definitely slower for me, too. The other forum member here who lives in Phoenix and felt I was taking their shops - it's been a few months since I have run across a shop that meets my standards - I love that line, too, as I know what I believe is my worth now and I won't do this for a pittance. I have not done a shop since the last one I posted with a dental cleaning reimbursement and $40 for the report. There are less shops that I am seeing and the pay is just not worth it for yours truly - but I am now working F/T and I even have insurance, what a revolutionary concept. I'd love to do a few shops here and there but I'm just not finding any worthwhile. At least I don't seem to be alone in this. Morocco77
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September 29, 2025 11:38PM
@morocco77

Thank you for leaving some shops for me :-) I have standards too, but i'm willing to take some shops for less pay if it means I don't have to pay for a service.

for example, if i am going to fly somewhere, why not get a parking shop for the airport or near the airport? Might not pay a bunch, but i save wifey or friend time in dropping me off and coming back to get me.

i don't get "paid" to do the BJ's Brewhouse...but because I eat for less than the $100 reimburse GC, i use the extra $ to feed myself on non-shops.

I'm not claiming there are a craptop of high paying shops. But sometimes "value" is hidden (like these 2 examples).
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September 29, 2025 11:52PM
I am finding there is a glut of new shoppers that are taking the shops and the
quotas are being filled.
Especially On iShopFor Ipsos and Coyle.
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October 01, 2025 04:27PM
I had to switch to gmail to keep the Sassie e-mails from being flagged or blocked
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October 01, 2025 07:49PM
When I was full-time, I rarely did shops except for the occasional date night dinners. I barely had time to read the guidance. Now that I have more time, I don't mind taking on more gigs. I think it comes in waves. There will always be people taking the shops at minimum. I would too if it made sense for me to do so.
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October 03, 2025 01:09AM
My slower than average months this year have been March, May, and July. June for me was well above average, with the rest of the months being average.
What I already have scheduled for October will make it an average month without taking on any additional work. The additional work that I will take on in addition to what I already have scheduled will most likely make October a highly above average month.
I don't do a lot of traditional mystery shops anymore. I will do bonused USPS shops and the occasional decent paying miscellaneous shop here and there. I do perform a lot of "mystery visits" but they are not shops. I do other tasks during the visit instead of a traditional mystery shop.
And no I'm sorry, I cannot divulge what these other "mystery visits" are. I only mention them to remind everyone that there many other types of visits/projects out there that do not involve doing a mystery shop, and some of them pay very well.
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October 04, 2025 09:33PM
This niche is being monopolized by big companies gobbling up the ones we built good relationships with that could care less about anything or anyone except getting more done for as little as possible.

Time to diversify.
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October 05, 2025 10:09AM
You bring up a good point SBP. I got into Msing 8 years ago. At the time, reading this board, the conventional wisdom for making decent money was to spend time developing relationships with schedulers....to take low paying jobs at first to get your foot in the door at various MSCs....all the advice was about building relationships.
I don't think anyone suggests that anymore and I can understand why.
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October 06, 2025 12:35AM
@BarefootBliss wrote:

You bring up a good point SBP. I got into Msing 8 years ago. At the time, reading this board, the conventional wisdom for making decent money was to spend time developing relationships with schedulers....to take low paying jobs at first to get your foot in the door at various MSCs....all the advice was about building relationships.
I don't think anyone suggests that anymore and I can understand why.

That’s always been my approach because it’s humans who are doing the work. It’s a win-win if everyone if the playing field is fair and everyone works well together. If a scheduler knows they can depend on you to get it done very well, on time, it’s actually enjoyable, unless they’re being forced to low-ball us because there’s a new ruler on the throne wielding a hatchet.

In the end, objectifying us and being miserly costs them more, but all they notice from that ivory tower is a short term gain they get credit for and the rush of adrenaline/power surge from chopping off heads…which isn’t really power at all. It’s actually destructive.
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October 06, 2025 10:32AM
I hear what you're saying, but I often wonder if the MSCs aren't corporations, but rather small to medium sized businesses just doing what they have to do to stay in business? I don't know, just speculating.
It doesn't appear to me that they have any sort of strategy, just to thrive another day or month.
Also, it depends on the client it seems.
The MSC for FG, for example, has no need to develop relationships with shoppers and it shows...we're just tools for them.
On the other hand, I have (not recently) shopped resorts where only a specific type of shopper can do a good job, so the scheduler wanted to know the shopper before hand.
So my point, is that I see the culture of MS changing and you can tell even by reading this forum.
The type of shopper, what they discuss, the situations they discuss - so different from even less than a decade ago.
Most of what I consider to be the "intense shoppers" seem to have faded away.
I've adapted because I see this business adapting...so that means I will likely soon be handing my skills over to technology - not unlike a lot of other low skilled work in this country.

What's happening now is in line with the history of the US, but perhaps a more dramatic rate of change than in the past.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2025 10:34AM by BarefootBliss.
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October 15, 2025 02:52AM
There seems to be a really big push to get more people into mystery shopping right now- maybe good for the companies but concerning to those of us who have been doing this a long time. High supply of hopeful new mystery shoppers keeps the pay low.
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October 15, 2025 10:17AM
I believe that more people are looking for work in general. Not just MSing. People have finally realized that the gravy train of checks being handed out for doing nothing is really over. In the real world you must perform, perform, perform. It will be good for their mental health. Also, more HS students, and parents, have woken up to the fact that they may be better off attending trade school and a part time job than a worthless degree in college.

Yesterday, while dropping off a FedEx pkg, a female minority was inquiring about a position interview. BTW, you ever notice that package delivery drivers are never overweight? I'll bet their company healthcare costs are lower than average companies too.

It's good to see all of this shift in sensibility and hopefully a positive self-worth. #Winning
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October 15, 2025 12:32PM
I suspect that there are more people doing gig work to make ends meet. I go by that Kroger shops in my area go quickly, faster than 4 months ago. I suspect companies are pairing down expenses or looking for cheaper alternatives. It will be like this for the next 5-10 years.

In the US, we have economic cycles, roughly 50 years. 1920/30-1970/80 was the automobile. From there until now was the microchip. Something will come along that will spur the next economic cycle.

Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.
Richard Feynman-- letter to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, published in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005) p. 230
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October 15, 2025 01:28PM
@maverick1 wrote:

I believe that more people are looking for work in general. Not just MSing. People have finally realized that the gravy train of checks being handed out for doing nothing is really over. In the real world you must perform, perform, perform. It will be good for their mental health. Also, more HS students, and parents, have woken up to the fact that they may be better off attending trade school and a part time job than a worthless degree in college.

Yesterday, while dropping off a FedEx pkg, a female minority was inquiring about a position interview. BTW, you ever notice that package delivery drivers are never overweight? I'll bet their company healthcare costs are lower than average companies too.

It's good to see all of this shift in sensibility and hopefully a positive self-worth. #Winning

I agree with all this. I do not believe the driver being of a certain demographic matters either way, but I get the general premise.

But anyways, if only all this new productivity from all this hard work were going to reward the performers. Instead, it seems, there is still one set of grifters standing in the way. Namely the people who are skiiming the extra productivity to pad their own pockets without putting in the work. In the past 50 years or so, the share of GDP going to wages and salaries has declined 7 percent, with that extra money going into corporate profits. We work harder, produce more, and none of it gets to us. We can't seem to replicate the economic security of our parents, no matter how many Starbucks coffees we do without

This is not an attack on you Mav, or people like you, who have worked and saved to build up a nest egg. Good for you. The reality is,10 percent of the population owns 90 percent of the stock market, even when incluiding 401Ks and pension funds, while one percent of people own half the market. We can cut the saftey net all we like in an attempt to force a few more pople into the workforce, but until we find a way to deal with the other set of grifters, little will change.
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October 15, 2025 01:39PM
Before today, I had never accessed this thread. My compliments to all, as the light is burning brightly on today's shopping situation. The Arab:camel MSCs are definitely in a "take it or leave it" mode. The example of the speed with which the Kroger shops are being gobbled up, even the full service jobs*, hi-lites the needs of some folks.

^My last 2 such shops required me to stand in line for 17 & 24 minutes. Now, I will only pick a single store from 1958. They have 5 registers and never leave customers hanging.
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October 15, 2025 06:32PM
Two thoughts...First starting at some point in the not so distant future Medicaid recipients who are not totally disabled will be required to either work for pay or volunteer at an official non profit 80 hours per month. I am thinking mystery shopping may be impacted by a number of new shoppers when that kicks in. Not sure but it seems to me it might be fairly easy to "inflate" the number of hours worked since pay is not be hour in this industry. If they followed the time needed for a shop boasted by schedulers we would be greatly shortchanged however. I have never either cooked a recipe or done a shop that was not usually at least twice as long as the amt of time advertised.
Second thought for those not getting emails. My mail often puts emails from a msc in my spam folder. I regularly go through and pull them out to restore them to my inbox. If one particular sender ends up in spam and I leave it there time after time my email will just assume the sender is spam and start blocking it. There may be a way to restore these on your email platform. So check your spam. It only takes me about a minute or less to go through my spam folder every few days.
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October 15, 2025 10:26PM
@sandyf wrote:

Two thoughts...First starting at some point in the not so distant future Medicaid recipients who are not totally disabled will be required to either work for pay or volunteer at an official non profit 80 hours per month. I am thinking mystery shopping may be impacted by a number of new shoppers when that kicks in. Not sure but it seems to me it might be fairly easy to "inflate" the number of hours worked since pay is not be hour in this industry. If they followed the time needed for a shop boasted by schedulers we would be greatly shortchanged however. I have never either cooked a recipe or done a shop that was not usually at least twice as long as the amt of time advertised.
Second thought for those not getting emails. My mail often puts emails from a msc in my spam folder. I regularly go through and pull them out to restore them to my inbox. If one particular sender ends up in spam and I leave it there time after time my email will just assume the sender is spam and start blocking it. There may be a way to restore these on your email platform. So check your spam. It only takes me about a minute or less to go through my spam folder every few days.

By placing a sender's email address into your email account, it will prevent such emails from going to spam.
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October 16, 2025 03:22PM
@maverick1 wrote:

By placing a sender's email address into your email account, it will prevent such emails from going to spam.

Did you mean into the contact list? Thanks for that tip.
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