Welcome msffjp! Luckily I had only 3 that had been submitted that I needed to go rework. It just added insult to the injury of lowering the pay. They still had a ton of shops in my area since they had wanted you to take no more than 3 and had a 2 day window to do them. They then bumped out the due date and wanted you to take more. Luckily I couldn't because of other obligations. And now with this junk I wouldn't be likely to even if they hadn't pulled them already.

I am also truly bugged that if you look at my shop log you will find that only one shop in my long history with them had ever been returned to me from them. There is no annotation, but this was I believe one of those occasions where the final narrative disappeared from the form and I had not copy/pasted it as a separate contact the scheduler through the Help/Contact section so they came back wanting me to "finish" the shop. That was definitely a computer glitch on their end as it would not have been possible to get the shop to submit without the narrative. Now my record shows another 3 shops as having been returned to shopper. I wonder how soon they will forget that they were returned due to THEI

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2009 07:14PM by Flash.

I wonder when I will get the email? I'm sure it's coming my way too. I just get a bad, bad feeling about Ath. Like they are not run professionally, sort of just by the seat of their pants.

Maybe they have less experience than other companies, but if the few of us here are having all the same issues you know every shopper is, yet they just don't change.

I wonder how long they will be in business? I only shop for them at this point becuase the available jobs in general have slowed down in my area.

They've been around for a while. Certainly the schedulers who solicit work today are not the same ones of the past few years. I don't know if they have changed owners but at least some of the problems have been around as long as I have worked with them.

They have the "Famous NY Fish Market" Bank shops- they were originally at $11.75, but have bonused the $8 to $20. Now we're talking!

I might take one but I am afraid of the guidelines/form! Has anyone done these?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2009 01:31PM by SusanMB.

"I wonder when I will get the email? I'm sure it's coming my way too. I just get a bad, bad feeling about Ath. Like they are not run professionally, sort of just by the seat of their pants. "

Just a little story about something that happened to me with them recently....

When they put out the first round of drive-thru teller shops for a bank in my area, I eagerly signed up for 3 that were right in my neighborhood. I mistakenly thought that they had a 3 day window, but turns out it was only a 2 day. My mistake. I did one of the shops the very first day I signed up. Then I had an emergency come up the next day and when I came home late that evening, my rating which had been a 9 or 10 had been dropped down to 1 and I was listed as a Flake. I wrote the scheduler an e-mail explaining what had happened and told her that I could complete the 2 shops the very next day, along with 4 other shops that were out in the sticks that no one else wanted just so I could make it up to the company. I got a phone call from my normal scheduler and she eagerly signed me up for all 6 shops. I spent the entire day driving around all over the countryside. I completed every shop. Then, the next week I saw another round of shops come through and I signed up for at least 8 of those. I completed all of them without any problems. However, the flake citation is still on my account and none of my shops have been rated. I would like to be able to self-assign, but can't. In my area, this is one of the few companies that actually offers a decent amount of shops (even if the pay isn't the greatest). This company sounds very desperate in all of their e-mails, as if the shops MUST be completed by a certain date, but then I keep getting e-mails for quite a few days after with the exact same shops!

But here's the best part. I never could find a phone number for this company, so after the scheduler called me and scheduled some shops, I saved her phone number into my phone. Then the next time I had a question about a shop, I called that number. The first time I called, somehow the phone picked up, but all I heard was loud blaring rap music. I waited about 15 minutes and called again. This time some guy answered and I asked for the girl that normally schedules me. The guy says I can't talk to her because she doesn't have her phone, he does. He says he'll "have her call me back." Then he hangs up. I never did get that call back. Then the next time she called, it was from that very same phone. Not very professional I'd say.

This company does keep begging me to do more shops with them. It would be nice to be acknowledged for the work I do and at least be able to self-assign again, even if that does limit the number of my shops.

OH... and I know I'm getting long winded....

This company also only allows you to have I think 5 shops on your log per day. This is incredibly frusterating for me because I'll go to complete 5 shops and then try to sign up for more for the next day, and only a couple will be left in the area that I want. So, then I'll leave them be and they get assigned. Then the next day, someone will inevitably flake on whatever was gone before, and I realize if they would have just given me more shops, I could have completed them in 2 days, they would have gotten their reports and not had to deal with a flake.

Discouraging and frustrating. You're ready, willing and able to produce but run into roadblocks by a less-than professional "secretary" and scheduler. If they come begging, as you say, you're needed and desirable. Ask for allowances - explain how the location(s) are out of your way and see if mileage, or route-building assistance is available.

So now I'm wondering.... has everyone gotten rated for their Feb/March shops? I'm still awaiting ratings on pretty much all of my shops. I'd like to actually get ratings on these so I can start self-assigning again!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2009 04:18AM by poofoo80.

Sounds like typical Ath to me. I got my check today for my February shops if that gives anyone a little hope that at least we'll get paid.

I've never had an Ath shop rated, though I certainly have done enough of them in the past. I just got paid for a job done 2/3/09. I think they were paying for shops done and reported prior to 2/14/09.

No ratings for me either by the way.

What does my rating need to be to self-assign?

I don't know that there is a rating to do so--some shops are self assign and some are not. It seems to depend on how close to deadline they are. They posted a ton of stuff the other day that needed to be done by this Friday. I took 3 (the max allowed) and theoretically could have done one yesterday. Today I did one and planned to do two tomorrow. Got home and discovered a demand email wanting to know if I was planning on doing them because they could grant no extensions and the data must be submitted by Saturday and yadda yadda yadda yadda. It was tempting to email back that I have NEVER flaked on a job so get a life and give it a rest. I have completed about 50 jobs for them and have never seen a rating on anything. Instead I sent them a polite email that one was complete and ready to report and the other two scheduled for tomorrow.