When I was new to iSecretShop, I was penalized 50 points for cancelling a shop. The shop that i cancelled was OVER 30 days in the future.

I made my decision to cancel based on the welcome packet that they sent me, which clearly stated in black and white, that "late cancellations would be penalized." 30 days is NOT anything close to last minute. And this shop was snatched up by someone else within a few hours. The computer system did all the work, and NOBODY AT ALL was inconvenienced.

After my point deduction, I tried contacting the support, and I got the runaround. First, I got a canned response, and then I received a "we can't help you" type of response.

Because of this, my point score has always been 50 points lower than I believe I am entitled to.

Hopefully, everyone's feedback will help me finally get over this (what I consider to be an) unjust deduction of points.

Here is a DIRECTLY QUOTED portion of the welcome packet they sent me. I read and reread this packet before I made the choice to cancel:

"Last Minute Shop Cancellations* -50 points
Incomplete Shops* -50 points
Poor Quality Shops* -10 for a 3
-15 for a 2
-25 for a 1
* Three strikes and you're out. There are difficulties and high costs associated with rescheduling,
redeploying and redoing cancelled, incomplete or poor shops. If you cancel, submit a poor quality shop or
an incomplete shop three times, you will be dropped from the program and unable to participate at any
point in the future."

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2012 05:09AM by SteveLA.

Same here I got penalized (50) for cancelling a Dollar store shop where the instructions are confusing. It say's anywhere in Los Angeles but I don't understand was it the county or the city. This confusion resulted in my cancelling the shop but I notified them right away the reason because the one given to me the nearest locationd was more than 27 miles.

It's possible that ISecretShop could not help you because the penalties are assessed by the mystery shopping company. Think of ISecretShop as a combination of a reporting platform (like Sassie and Prophet), smartphone app and job board (like MSJobBoard and Jobslinger). Right now there are several different MSCs using ISecretshop, including Business Evaluation Services and A Top Shop.

Jennifer Ely (from apptivate web design) is the Co-Founder of iSecretShop.
808.463.8715 jennifer@apptivatellc.com
She might be a step in the right direction regarding offering feedback/glitches of ISecretShop the point system.

Are you saying the deductions are from ISecretShop then? Why would they deduct points from a shopper rather than the MSC?

I don't know about their point system as I did only one shop for them and it said I got 20 points, no problem and I was paid. Since it appears that they have only the same shop available for me (I don't believe it is easily snapped up even when they raised it by $10), I doubt I would be doing anything for them anytime soon or at all.

LisaSTL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Are you saying the deductions are from ISecretShop
> then? Why would they deduct points from a shopper
> rather than the MSC?


So, iSecretShop tells me in my welcome packet that I would be deducted points for "late cancellations," but they give the MSCs authority to deduct points for any cancellation, contrary to the iSecretShop written policy as stated in The Welcome Packet?