Exxon/Mobile Lighting Availability

September 01, 2025 05:02PM

Is it just me, or did these all disappear pretty quickly? I know we're not supposed to start them until September 2nd, but I planned/reserved some for an area near me on Friday, and there were a ton left over. I went back on today, and they're literally all gone. I check other cities where I remember seeing them (even though I don't live nearby), and those areas are all taken too. I wonder if they were on a quota setup, where if a certain amount is done, then the rest isn't necessary?

EDIT: I realize my auto correct changed it to "Mobile" - oops

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2025 05:03PM by scottsteg.

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September 01, 2025 11:00PM

I first saw them on Friday, August 28th. It looked like a pre-launch where you grab a location, but you can't perform the actual shop until September 2 (the form won't appear until that date). Once the date begins, you have 5 days to complete the job before it gets released from your reservation. I always depended on these around now and suddenly they all went into the ether. Not even some remote location way far.

September 02, 2025 12:02AM

The limit is 20. Maybe you have some enthusiastic shoppers nearby.

September 03, 2025 09:24AM

@sestrahelena wrote:

The limit is 20. Maybe you have some enthusiastic shoppers nearby.

I take it back. My new theory is that there is a national limit and once that is reached they all disappear. I believe the purpose is to not flood the editing and payroll departments with everything all at once.

September 04, 2025 04:25AM

I'm thinking there is a quota of how many can be assigned overall at a given time because i canceled one I couldn't get to tonight and many popped up. They were gone again within a few minutes.

@scottsteg wrote:

Is it just me, or did these all disappear pretty quickly? I know we're not supposed to start them until September 2nd, but I planned/reserved some for an area near me on Friday, and there were a ton left over. I went back on today, and they're literally all gone. I check other cities where I remember seeing them (even though I don't live nearby), and those areas are all taken too. I wonder if they were on a quota setup, where if a certain amount is done, then the rest isn't necessary?

EDIT: I realize my auto correct changed it to "Mobile" - oops

September 04, 2025 01:23PM

Ah yes, the Quota... Makes sense now. I wish they would say something to that effect in the requirements like "limit x shops per person" or "once a required amount of tasks are completed, others will no longer be needed" or then what I call the Pokemon rule which is "gotta catch 'em all."

September 04, 2025 02:22PM

I picked up the max amount and usually when I start submitting them I can see additional ones but I cannot. I know last time, more appeared at a later time, probably after people started getting rejections.

September 04, 2025 03:43PM

I only picked up 11 when it came out and I have seen anymore available ever since

September 04, 2025 10:45PM

@scottsteg wrote:

Ah yes, the Quota... Makes sense now. I wish they would say something to that effect in the requirements like "limit x shops per person" or "once a required amount of tasks are completed, others will no longer be needed" or then what I call the Pokemon rule which is "gotta catch 'em all."

That's exactly how I view it as I'm snagging shop bundles and thinking of Pokemon! "Gotta catch 'em all!"

September 07, 2025 04:28AM

I was told I was banned from doing them. I've completed them successfully for a few years now. I never let them fall off. I don't know what I did to piss them off, but something had to happen. I can still accept this company's work on their own website. I just can't accept jobs on the Otter network.

September 08, 2025 05:29PM

The ones in my area disappeared, and they came back this weekend and I snagged another 11. I am traveling this Saturday and looked at my destination, and there is a massive dividing line between "lots available" and "absolutely nothing" with a major interstate as the boundary. I know the area and almost every station along either side of the boundary (it's where I lived for over 20 years) , and no sane shopper would have not crossed the interstate for one or two easy ones.

So my guess is that they are only accepting a certain volume of shops for each reviewer each week or two. The title implies that they have multiple months to knock all this out.

These have been one of my favorite shops so far in my ten weeks of doing MS. Make $70-80 in an evening driving a little and listening to podcasts or sports, working 8 minutes, and moving on to the next one. I just wish that the "time finished" question was at the very end of the survey.

September 08, 2025 05:37PM

Duplicate

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2025 06:08PM by nc-retiree.

September 08, 2025 07:19PM

Retiree- hit "I'm done" at the end of the survey and it will bring you right back up to the time out box so you don't have to scroll around so much.

September 09, 2025 02:48PM

I did not realize there is a quota. I do know that there are no September Shops. This happened once before when I did Chevron shops for Maritz. Then they were gone.

September 12, 2025 01:57PM

Some more became available this morning (Sep 12) when I opened the app. When I came back to it a little bit later to start scheduling some work trail/paths, they were already gone. I do see lots in other major US cities so I'd suggest everyone to go for it and "catch 'em all" as they say.

Its interesting, the availability pattern seems to be like this
1. All available locations appear on a Friday morning
2. Shoppers start to grab the assignments
3. Once a quota is met, the remaining location pins disappear
4. The following Friday, any location that wasn't accepted/completed before reappears and the pattern repeats

September 15, 2025 01:04PM

It looks like they're all in the open now. My region that had stuff disappear on Friday suddenly all reappeared today. I grabbed some more for a route I'm doing tonight and then another set for later this week and none suddenly disappeared as I was choosing. Looks promising. Catch em all I say...

September 15, 2025 04:38PM

So just in case you do not know...Always check google map or address before you assign the location. If the shop has been rebrand to another location. The app will still require you to take the same amount of pics, but they will only pay you half the fee ($5 instead of $10). It just happened to one of my shop. One of the Mobil has been rebrand to Chevron, I was still asked to take pic of the storefront, the canopy and the main ID and the whole site, which is exactly the same amount the pic of the regular survey does, but my pay was reduce to $5 instead of $10, and I do not recall their guideline ever mention anything about reduce pay.

I know that the MSC has a habit of doing reduce pay on shops that cannot be performed due to shop being closed or rebranded, but usually when that happened, the survey is significant shorter than normal. I am not going to say anything about this one as this one isn't exactly like taking me forever to complete the survey, but I do know there's people out there that would be take that into consideration.

September 16, 2025 01:11AM

A lot of the Exxon stations have rebranded to Wavaho around here. But they are still coming up for site experience and lighting audits. And my son is doing them, just like he would if they were still branded Exxon stations. And he's not getting any pushback. At least not yet.

September 16, 2025 11:01AM

Mine are rebranding as well. About 70% of them. A brand shopped by an MSC that pays cheaply, wants a lot of covert photos and takes a long time to pay.

September 16, 2025 04:21PM

Just had a few rejected for "Visited outside of location's hours, 6am-10pm"

I'm angry. This is so deceiving.

September 16, 2025 04:22PM

Just had a few rejected for "Visited outside of location's hours, 6am-10pm"

I'm angry. This is so deceiving.

September 16, 2025 06:51PM

@Antipopbritt wrote:

Just had a few rejected for "Visited outside of location's hours, 6am-10pm"

I'm angry. This is so deceiving.

How are you going to do with since they require complete darkness so majority of that hour will be unavailable to perform the job to begin with....you may only have like 2 hours to do the job?

September 16, 2025 07:46PM

Yep and no where in the guidelines does it say that it must be business hours. In fact, it says to continue as if the store is open as long as you can purchase gas.

This is fraud. I'm so sick of these conglomerates taking advantage of us.

September 30, 2025 12:04AM

I know the feeling, and then suddenly the shops no longer appear on your JobBoard.

September 30, 2025 12:56PM

I totally understand the frustration for how the rules don't seem to work in our favor. I have a gas station near me that's ripe for review, but its primarily an auto service location that closes at 6 which is well before sundown, but the campaign looks like it ends on Dec 31 so we'll definitely have darkness by then. Who knows, if it sits a while, the algorithm will increase the price too?

As for the other business hours ordeal. I had this happen to me before where I went to a station when the lights were on but the CStore was closed and there were no employees on site. I assumed it was closed during posted operating hours, but I got a response back saying that some stations now allow fuel dispensing after the store closes where pumps and lights are turned on and only card payments are accepted. I went back and sure enough, I saw the card reader screens were fully on. I snapped my photos and got accepted.

If you go to a station where everything is shut down before their posted closing time, take screenshots from the gas station app website showing the supposed hours and say in the explanation that the card readers were off as well (take photos for proof).

The "disappearing" ones definitely annoy me. Its all about that quota per region thats a mystery.

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