I regularly shop for Service Intelligence and never have seen a shop bonused. I watch the board for some further out of the way shops and they never get filled and no bonus is ever advertised. Is this common for them or just the trend in my neck of the woods?

Have you ever asked for one? They have not had anything at all in my area for a while. Several years ago I remember taking a spread out route of cell phone stores. I may have negotiated the bonus for those. Watch out for one thing, they are one of the MSCs that pay a reduced fee for a closed location. One of mine was closed and the bonus was honored, but the basic fee was reduced by $10. I didn't know and didn't appreciate it considering the distance.

make SURE if you negotiate one that you save it in writing....and double check when the pay comes.

Thanks for the advice, will try to contact the scheduler.

Anything can happen, but a friend who has shopped with SI regularly for years, indicates bonuses are rare indeed.

Contacting the scheduler can't hurt, and if nothing else, may enlighten.

I've worked with SI for over 10 years and have never gotten a bonus from them. I've worked with In-Touch for over 5 years and have gotten a bonus - a whopping $3 - once. When I asked about their stinginess with bonuses, I was told that they have many evaluators in my area. If I don't take a shop at the listed fee, somebody else will.

As for those far away shops that nobody wants, they've taken to reducing the fees in large cities in order to give those extra monies to evaluators willing to take those orphaned shops. What I find a bit ridiculous is that, if a shop in the middle of nowhere is orphaned, chances are that a $2-5 bonus won't go far as gas is over $5/Gal.

I think the company is quietly putting the money in their pocket. Imagine that there are over 500 shops for a particular client. Those shops now pay $16 less than they did 2 months ago. That's $8000 every month that the MSC saves on fees. Does anyone really think they're giving it all out in bonuses? Yeah, me neither...

I doubt the MSC gets paid if the shops don't get done.

One company paid me $125 to go to the Grand Canyon and another $40 to hit four shops that were out of the way as I was coming back (plus the shop fees). 425 mile round trip, I was gone 12 hours that day and did nine $10 shops along the way, all but one was for the same company. About $250 total for the day, paid $50 for gas, then had to do the reports that night (thankfully they were dead easy reports) for another three hours. $200 net for 15 hours of my time. Do the math. Would you have made that trip for any less? Would you have even done it for what I accepted? It's easy to get shops done in local Metro areas but it costs a lot of money just to get to these remote towns. Arizona is one huge sprawl -- little bitty towns are all over the place. Let me tell you, I can tell when I hit a place that hasn't been shopped in a long time. The service and standards are NOT up to snuff. At the FF shop I did for lunch on that trip NONE of the employees were even wearing a hairnet, and that's a health code violation in this state. And they were lucky -- I didn't even ask for bonus money since it was on the way back from the Grand Canyon shop.

So . . . please don't begrudge us the extra money it takes to get those faraway jobs done. We work a lot harder for it than most shoppers do running a shop on the way home from their day job.

Sorry but I don't buy it. I don't "begrudge" your bonuses - where did you get that from? I don't live in AZ (or the States for that matter) so I don't know how far away towns are from one another. I live in the Great White North, where we have 1/10 of your population on 10 times the land. Around here, past the suburbs, to get to far away towns is usually a long, lonely highway drive. In the city and the 'burbs, I have to deal with parking meters, traffic, crappy roads that damage my van and incredibly high gas prices (usually over $5/G). To say you have to work harder than someone else is simply not true. You may have to drive further but that's about it - the work itself is the same. I'm pretty sure that a highway drive is much more relaxing than city traffic. Also, although I know some shoppers do assignments on their way home from their day job, for me, this is my day job. I shop full-time. A company that takes away $16 per shop when I was doing 6-8 of these per month puts a serious dent on my bottom line. Do you honestly believe that a shopper in a remote location is getting that money? I know for a fact that they're not because the shops are listed on a board and they're all listed at the same fee.

Anyhow, my point was not this generic "some company paid me bonus money for going to such-and-such town". It was specifically about SI/IT. They're stingy with bonuses and that's a fact.

As for your 12-hour day, there's no way in hell I would have done it for so little. Only you can determine your worth. I charge a set fee per km so in your case, 425 mi is 684 km. I would have charged $383 in gas expenses on top of the regular shop fees.

I can't argue with the logic that the actual shops are not harder regardless of their location. I can argue with the concept of a long leisurely drive. Remote locations often are not on an interstate and can include lots of hills, mountains and windy roads. Add to that the high price of gas, regardless of where you live, and the additional wear and tear on a vehicle. Naturally I am willing to do a job for a posted fee that is five minutes from my house, but if there is additional time involved it doesn't matter if that time is spent driving or shopping, the additional compensation is justified. As far as this company and bonuses, many companies do not automatically bonus and post it on their boards. You could be right that they are stingy with them, it just doesn't hurt to ask.

Absolutely Lisa! It never hurts to ask!

However, after more than 10 years of doing this, I can tell you that SI very rarely offers bonuses/gas expenses (call it what you will). I can also tell you that IT offers them even less often. C'est la vie!

I wish I could drive to all of the little locations around me that get bonused, I would happily pick up several of those per day.....unfortunately, many of them require a plane trip to get to them. They aren't offering bonuses that high yet.