Anyone else frustrated with this cooldown period that schedulers can’t seem to manually override? I have a good rate of completion, I had some health issues the day I had some shops scheduled out of town and promptly contacted all companies requesting a reschedule in 2 days, hoping and expecting that my condition would improve. I am able to do it now today but the best paying one that prompted me to schedule that area won’t manually assign because of the punitive cool down period. I don’t know how this helps them get the shop done since I won’t be back in that area for probably another month, and it certainly doesn’t teach me any lesson because I can’t anticipate when my health problems flare, nor can I really be in public when I can’t breathe and coughing and hacking incessantly.

WIthout the cooldown period, I could schedule shops I know I can't complete in time, and then grab them again the minute they expire, and then repeat the process indefinitely until I have time to get around to them. And then maybe toward the end of the period something comes up and I end up not even doing them. Not necessarily a bad system. But then everyone will start doing it, and eventually the MSC will get fed up with having to pay high fees to get dropped jobs done at the last minute. And it will favor shoppers who are good at gaming the system, and discourage newcomers. Good for me, but not necessarily good for the MSC, who want a larger shopper pool to help drive down fees. And I'm sure the Presto sysem, which requires upfront payment to even list the jobs, make things more complicated.

I completely understand the need for it.

That "cool down" period was necessary because of their "Ishopfirst" program. Folks go in at the beginning of the round and grab all of the shops, and just keep grabbing them until they are bonused and keeping all of the other shoppers from earning money.

Thanks for the insights, moreledzep (oh yes please more zepp!), and mystery2me. I had an inkling it had to do with greedy shoppers but wasn’t sure how that scheme worked. I’m just getting back on the MS horse since everything went online. So far so good since coming back to it in October and jumping in with both feet but there will be things I will have to figure out. Too bad the cooldown penalty punishes even the legit shoppers who aren’t trying to game the system.

This is the first I have heard of cooldown. Please define.

You claim a job but don't submit it on time, you have a 24-hour "cool down" time before you can claim the job again.

I think a smarter system would look at the individual's history and give more flexibility to the shoppers with a low incidence of drops. That protects against predatory blocking while enabling the rare issue.

But I don't think they have enough incentive to be smart.

@Morledzep wrote:

That "cool down" period was necessary because of their "Ishopfirst" program. Folks go in at the beginning of the round and grab all of the shops, and just keep grabbing them until they are bonused and keeping all of the other shoppers from earning money.

If I remember correctly, the "Cool Down Period" is and has been a condition of the "Magic" platform. I can remember when the shops with the letter after "J" in a round figure had this while all of those shops in the big MSC company were absent.
As the big MSC company transitioned to the "Magic" platform, each one of its shops became bound to its "Cool Down" rule.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/2026 02:15PM by French Farmer.

yep French,

but now the MSC's are doing this cool down thing too. Especially Ipshitz.

Yeah, the cool down period is weird to me for a lot of reason. I understand they are trying to stop people from stacking or taking gigs and letting them go and reclaiming for the bonus. Seems like there could be easier ways to do this.

I just lost a few shops and will have to wait for cool down. My personal issue is that I still have to budget my finances in order to do a decent amount of mystery shops. If my funds are low, I have to let some of the gigs go. Most of the time, nobody picks them up within 24 hours and I am able to pick them up again so the cool down feels petty at times.

If I had an option to re schedule the due date, I could keep the gig and they won't have to bonus pay me. If I get sick, have something more pressing happen or anything changes in my personal life, I risk losing the gig and possibly upseting a scheduler and making enemies on the platform lol. The same major MSC has options to reschedule gig on one platform but not on the other platform. Odd.

The MSCs obviously have a bit of leway with due dates and payouts but this system feels like shooting yourself in the foot.

Lately I have been hesitant to even self assign or claim a audit unless I am already on the road and near the gig. Keeps it clean and doesn't stress out schedulers as much.

I do find it funny that we have deadlines and cool down periods but editors can take 5-10 days to review a report after all that stressing. Most reports come back quick but others are known to take forever, just to tell you your photo is too blurry or your night time audit pictures are too dark, your too close to the sign or too far from the sign, etc, etc. Editors that take 10 days to review our reports need to be put on a cool down, lol.

While you're blocked with a cool down, I'm picking up that shop and it's usually bonused! LOL!

I understand that things happen in life. Sometimes something comes up and we can't do a shop by a due date. However, that should be a rare occurrence. I think the best course of action is to only grab a shop if there is every intention of getting it done by the due date. Major events that stop that from happening should be a rare occurrence and not something that happens constantly. I have talked to schedulers that tell me about many shoppers that grab so many shops and then don't do half of them. Not only is that shopper having to deal with the cooldown., but they are also risking removal from certain programs and companies. So be careful out there!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2026 11:46PM by thunderdeacon.

Somebody was grabbing a highly bonused shop, and then letting it drop, and then grabbing it again after 24 hours, This happened like three times that I know of. I was going to be in the area on a certain date, and when they let it drop the third time I was ready and grabbed it. Gotcha!

On the flip side, I scheduled some shops, but reached my assignment limit, I decided to drop one of the more rural shops so I could grap one in a more competitive area. I figured I could claim in again as soon as I finished one of the other shops. But someone else got me. I ended up driving right by it with a frown on my face,