Channelwatch--Stay far, far away.

YOU ARE SOOOOOOOOO RIGHT
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> Avoid CRINY at all costs.

I have never had a problem with criny.

Corporate Research International, a Marketforce company. Do yourself a big favor and stay far away from these people. I would have to write for a week to describe the abominable behaviors these people engage in. A real no go for anyone with a brain.

I don't think CORI belongs to Marketforce. Am I mistaken, Flash?

No, Corporate Research International is a totally separate company than anything with Market Force. The CRI with Market Force is Certified Reports. Often folks get confused between CORI (Corporate Research International) and CRI (Certified Reports).

"Avoid" and "stay far away"? Reasons would be helpful.

$20 for a Sears audit with certified feild associates is not enough. It took me two hours to perform the audit. I am sad to see that they have joined forces with MarketForce.

Please edit out the client name to "retail audit" and check your Private Messages.

I DID THEY ARE SO RUDE THE MANAGERS. MY FRIEND IS SICK AND SHE GOES TO THE HOSPITAL FOR KIDNEY FAILURE AND BECAUSE SHE COULDN'T PERFORM ONE TIME, JUST ONE ASSIGNMENT THEY TOOK HER OFF AND NOT TO MENTION, ONE DAY I WENT WITH HER SHE PASSED OUT AND WE CALLED THE AMBULANCE AND CALL CERTIFIED FIELD ASSOC. THEY HAD HER GO COMPLETE THE ASSIGNMENT THE NEXT DAY SO I WENT BACK FOR HER. THEY JUST HAVE NO RESPECT AS FOR ME I WENT THROUGH CAR PROBLEMS AND COULDN'T DO THE ASSIGNMENT THAT NIGHT AND WHEN I COMPLETED THE ASSIGNMENT THERE COMPUTERS WENT DOWN DUE TO A STORM AND WHEN THEY CAME BACK ON 2 DAYS LATER I HAD GO TO MY REGULAR JOB AND THEY CUT ME OFF THE COMPUTER THE MOURNING. SO I GIVE THEM A THUMBS DOWN. ANOTHER THING IT TOOK THEM 3 MONTHS TO PAY ME 90.00 FOR DOING AN ASSIGNMENT FOR A LIQUOR STORE AUDIT.

mommyapril32 Wrote:
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> I have never had a problem with criny.

I was wondering if anyone out there has worked for Consumer Connection. Let me know the good and the bad.

Shanna12 & ttaffyy

How did you like the Satisfaction Services shops??

I accepted my first one and shopped the retail store yesterday. I made the mistake of hearing the rep say $30 and after I accepted the shop, found out it was for a purchase and non refundable. I would have rather rec'd the money than something I really didn't want or need.

What does everyone think of ICCDS?

The shops I have done for them have been low paying, simplistic and poorly written. The shops I have done require mailing in receipts and proofs of purchase. Here is where I find them game players. They state they pay within 30 days after receipt of everything. Even with materials promptly mailed to them, they sit on the material indicating it has not been received for a while until you complain that you haven't gotten credit for it. Then 4-6 weeks later you get paid. I am not impressed. If they had jobs I was really interested in doing then it might be worthwhile to spend the follow up time on them.

Deech Wrote:
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> If anyone has any informatin on Reflections I
> would appreciate it. I just found them today and
> have never heard of them. They have resturant
> shops with meals but not a shop fee. I will go
> farther to say most of the compaies most of you
> talk about I have never heard of. They are either
> not in this area or I have not looked enough.


Deech, I have shopped several restaurant shops for Reflections here in Austin. I like them a lot. My shops have been no-fee but food reimbursement. They have all been at different locations of the same 24/7 restaurant. You are allowed to take only one ADULT guest, but may take children in addition to the adult guest. The reimbursement is not massive but is large enough that my guest and I have never spent it all. Not a bad report form, self assign, you file the report online. Not much contact from the company, they have never questioned my reported info, they just pay me. They pay pretty fast. I will do all the shops for them I can get - I just pick a a convenient time and location.

The only companies I personally would avoid, and only because of the low, low, low pay are: Corporate International, Bestmark, and Market Force. That being said I have had good relations with all of them.

For me, it's all about mutual respect. When the MS company isn't willing to work with you, regardless of the circumstance, as long as I know I tried to deliver my best work or work out an amiable solution that's all I can do. I do have one bit of advice though. Add a CC: to a supervisor when dealing with a difficult scheduler. I had a problem with unclear guidelines and when I completed the survey with photos it was thrown back to me as incomplete. Although the scheduler reviewed the pre-photos and approved them it was dubbed as my incompetence for them not being complete. The emails were very unprofessional and, frankly, unwarranted as I kept the tone professional and tried to resolve the issue. I decided to email the supervisor and CC'd the scheduler. She rebutted with yet another unprofessional email which I also forwarded and CC'd another email to the supervisor. Needless to say the tone changed and although I thought I would never work with them again I have received more jobs from them and with a thoughtful and professional "Thank you" email from the supervisor. I did not have to deal with that scheduler at all. It pays to keep your COOL!

modario Wrote:
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>
> For me, it's all about mutual respect. When the MS
> company isn't willing to work with you, regardless
> of the circumstance, as long as I know I tried to
> deliver my best work or work out an amiable
> solution that's all I can do.

The mutual respect is a very important factor in this work because certainly the pay is not stellar. Some companies and schedulers do treat you like a fellow professional and they are the ones you find you are willing to go the extra miles for, meet the sometimes extremely tight schedules for and burn the midnight oil to put extra effort into the reports. When you find a company or scheduler who treats you well they quickly become your favorite.

Reflections is a great company to work for but slow in paying if you read their section on when they submit their payments. Yeah, they only reimburse on their restaurant shops for I look forward to them every month as I know that it will be a free breakfast for me and a friend or dinner for me. The schedulers are wonderful and the reports are super easy.

I also love EPMS as that is my highest paying company that I work for and I even travel for them setting up in areas that are desperate to get covered such as Memphis, TN. My hotel room and mileage will go in as a tax write off and nothing like working in the day and partying at night.

red_101 Wrote:
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> I also love EPMS as that is my highest paying
> company that I work for and I even travel for them
> setting up in areas that are desperate to get
> covered such as Memphis, TN. My hotel room and
> mileage will go in as a tax write off and nothing
> like working in the day and partying at night.

That is where your specific contacts in a company make a whole world of difference. I have had way too many shopper friends who have had pretty dreadful experiences with these folks to risk working with them.

CRINY, is that the company up in Kinderhook, NY?

Yeah, you are So right! Wow.. Some of their dispatchers can be so rude it is incredible!

Never mind warning people about not taking insurance shops.. warn them about taking a shop in the winter season, if your area is in a place where they get SNOWSTORMS! They will literally put your very life in danger, by insisting you stay at a place and FINISH the shop, even though you may well end up having to drive thru a bad SNOWSTORM up a bad windy mountain road!!
If you do not do the job, or you cannot complete the shop, or check, then they will not only NOT pay you, after you worked for the entire day, and paid out a bunch of your OWN money to do the check, but they will kick you out of their system, rendering you unable to work for them again EVER!

Even if you have worked for them for years.

CRINY, is NOT a good place to work, if you get the wrong dispatcher, that is for sure!

You know.. now i really see why is it so hard for some of these companies to keep shoppers, if they are being mistreated. That makes so much sense..
Course you do not know.. unless someone is BRAVE enough on this forum and come out and say so.. And YES, I WILL say BRAVE cuz dee shops herself was bashing me on one of MY threads I started for complaining about CRI also!

dee shops Wrote:
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> sneakers Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Susan, that works in theory, and mostly in
> areas
> > that are not overshopped. My area is so
> carpeted
> > with shoppers that most of my schedulers have
> no
> > trouble giving away shops. When they post
> urgent
> > bonused shops near month's end, the shops are
> > still grabbed as soon as the email goes out.
> Again
> > and again I've applied for these, and someone
> has
> > grabbed them. Alternatively, other urgent
> shops
> > are hundreds of miles from here, and I wouldn't
> go
> > that far in traffic, over bridges and through
> toll
> > booths for any money.
> >
> > Your idea does work in areas that are short of
> > shoppers and more sparsely populated. Flash,
> dee
> > and Sandra Sue do pretty well with this.
> >
> > After almost exactly one year of shopping, and
> > many hundreds of good reports for about 39
> > companies, I have a relationship with exactly 3
> > schedulers in 2 companies..
>
>
>
> For me, I think there are just fewer shoppers
> here, rather than a sparse population. Honolulu
> is quite dense with peeps! :-) But, I think less
> shoppers are here for a number of reasons. The
> affluent here are REALLY so, and there are way
> funner ways to amuse yourself on this island if
> money is no object. The regular people, like me,
> work more than one job just to make ends meet. I
> think many people who could do this just don't
> have time. Third, the schools in HI are not very
> stellar-the writing skills of the average person
> are not so great (I see this in many of my
> students coming out of public schools here.)
> Therefore, I think sometimes I get more shops
> based on the fact that my reports may not need as
> much editing as some other peoples. The fact that
> I virtually never cancel, and rarely reschedule
> without a huge reason, has helped me to gain
> credibility with some firms. Sometimes I just get
> lucky, too, and someone posts something I have
> been going after with zero suceess for months as a
> LM shop due to a cancellation, many times as a
> self assign. I always try to do a superfab job on
> those so that I will have more oppties with those
> firms. Finally, This is a VERY parochial place,
> and I think that has worked in my favor with some
> firms. :-)
>
> I feel really lucky to live in an area with fewer
> shoppers than some others. It HAS been a huge
> help in getting jobs.

Well, dee shops. now i understand why you are going on people;s thread and start picking on them, like you did to me, for asking for where one can find jobs!
You got LOTS Of places you can work! That is not true of everywhere in the mainland however.

I lived in Hawaii for a long time. Not everyone is STUPID and cannot write well like you claim.. Isn;t Punahou school there. that is a private school and well thought of...

Trying reading what I wrote, and not what you think I wrote, Polly.

I recently signed up with Bestmark, and I can't believe how much work they want you to do for such low pay! There was a coffee shop that only paid $5, with $5 reimbursement, and the requirements just went on and on. And it was even for a drink that I didn't want to buy!

I do that shop. I don't mind it. I do it grouped with other shops in the area and sometimes I like the drink, sometimes I don't. It is not my favorite coffee shop due to the specified drink rather than ones I can choose my own. It is about all I do for them, these days, as some of the shops I did do went away, and they never had much here.