For awhile, I was grabbing these left and right. They moved through Scenario A, then B, then C, and then came to a screeching halt. How often does this MSC cycle through these? I'm in withdrawal-they are my favorites because they are the easiest aside from fast food!

They are never ending in my area. I have only done one, but if I need to ship something it's nice to know I can do and get paid.

They're dry here too. I think there are three in my 100 mile radius right now, and two are outside the area I'm actually willing to work in.

I expect they'll pick back up in July, so everyone gets on their game before fourth quarter when all the holiday shopping kicks in.

I was wondering the very same thing. The usual USPS shops haven't shown up in my area for June yet, either ~ except for some very remote locations that are probably just left-overs.

I was hoping that it wasn't because USPS is making so many cut-backs... heh.

I have been saving some boxes & am looking forward to sending some more doggie food to the elderly Sheltie rescue.

I was told last week there will be some B shops this month and then next month they will start all over. They are just winding down for the quarter. I am still getting quite a few out in the country this month but I should be done next week.

Just did a Scenario B a few hours ago. The job board in my area has a lot of these jobs still available.

No P.O. shops in my area.

I don't know the cycle, but do know they keep coming back.

Perhaps an inquiry to your scheduler would be the best way to go as I do know they have different cycles in different states.

They do seem to have hit a dry spell. I tend to avoid the Scenerio C shops as they require a large outlay to send an oversized box of food half way across the country, three of those can set you back $100+ and I can't have that much money out of my operating capital for two months waiting to get paid. To their credit this MSC always does pay, I just think they should offer a bit more for this shop considering what we have to pay up front for the boxes and the shipping.

There's just one post office in my area that gets shopped at the moment, 9 others I used to do aren't shopped any more. Also the one that is shopped is so horrid I won't go there for a shop nor even for personal business. They need to clean house there big time!

Maybe the Postal Service has figured out that window clerks like myself can easily read these forums and figure out when and where the shops are coming. You should realize that most of the time you have been made by the employees. If we have a supervisor who has been giving us a great deal of trouble lately, we can purposely fail the shop in order to make their lives more miserable with their immediate supervisor. Window clerks share this info with each other, and there is nothing in our employment that states we can not do what I am doing right now. It is interesting to read these posts and know that you people are trying to game the system just as much as we are. You should realize that some of these people have been doing their jobs for one, two, and three decades and are not as stupid as you make them out to be. When you post comments that are negative about individuals, we can show this to our supervisors, and further shops like yours will be taken with a grain of salt. Many companies are beginning to drop the mystery shop program because of the unreliability and sometimes outright falseness of the quality of the product that they are receiving. Just realize that your income here is based on deception, and nothing prevents us from being deceptive in return. I welcome replies to this post and will try to answer them as time permits, I have a real 40+ hour per week job.

You won't figure out "when and where" the shops are taking place by reading this forum. Just do your job, you Bozo, and you won't have anything to worry about. LOL What a joke. The USPS continues to lose millions, so maybe you should be worried.

I don't know all the details, but there are a certain number of shops for each scenario monthly, and they need to wait a specific number of days in-between each one before they can schedule the next one . That's one of the reasons the extra scenario was created, even though it's exactly the same as another one.

mistermediocre Wrote:
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It is interesting to read these posts and know that you people are trying to game the system just as much as we are.
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I am curious what you read here that makes you think someone is trying to game the system.

I am interested in hearing what you think would be a better way to conduct a mystery shop. I am often thinking of things that I would do differently if I were setting up the mystery shop.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/2013 09:06PM by prince.

Deleted to hold my own sarcasm in check.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2013 09:54AM by elcarev68.

I have done several of these shops. Some have been perfect and some have been not so great. I have seen post offices get cleaned up after my reports. I have been charged the wrong amount several times which tells me why the post office is loosing money. This is info the managers need to know so they can make improvements. They are a business and they need good feed back.

OK, first-we are told when the shops are going to happen, so it's really not a mystery is it? Management is so desperate just to make numbers that they are willing to do anything in order to just get the 100% shop.
Second- all we have to do is to register as a mystery shopper and we can see when and where the shops are going to take place.
Third-they are not at all interested in customer service, only in making the numbers however that is possible. Remember, the Postal Service is one of the few major employers in the country that does not have any major requirements to become a supervisor, only the desire not to do any meaningful work anymore. All supervisors do is read email and issue discipline.
Fourth- the Postal Service's loss of money is directly attributable to Congress. They take $5.5 BILLION dollars away from us each year. How do you run a business that way? Maybe by eliminating useless money wasters like the mystery shop program.
Fifth-I'm sure management would be interested to know that mystery shoppers are mailing to fake addresses. In other words they are paying you to have us double work the mail. This is not something they would be happy with, believe me.
Sixth-we know that some people turn in bogus mystery shops. Details that they give are not consistent with facts. You people do realize that you are on video when you are in the PO don't you? We have been pushing them to add audio also, so we can back up our objections with reality.
I have been doing my job for three decades, have dozens of letters in my file from customers giving praise and thanks. I am close enough to retirement not to worry about the Postal Service going under, although it occurs to me that you should be, as they are your cash cow. They will never eliminate a program that they can use to intimidate employees, but they may change it to make it unappealing for you to do.

Who is mailing to fake addresses? That is not possible. Who is lying on their reports? Did I miss something. I am 100% honest on my reports and sometimes there are negatives. Most of my post office shops have been really good to great, but sometimes there are issues.

Ah...it's bait. Don't bite.

We all know what we do and how we do it...

It is obvious the postal employee has less respect for us and our business than has been expressed by mystery shoppers regarding postal employees. What he does not realize is the mystery shoppers on this forum take our work quite seriously, do not falsify reports and do not try to "catch" employees behaving badly. We have little control over the scenarios and absolutely no control over how the client chooses to use the reports provided. Good clients utilize mystery shopping as a training opportunity, bad clients use it as a hammer. In other words, any issues with mystery shopping and the post office should be taken up with your management, not us.

BTW, this IS my real job so often I work more than 40 hours a week without any overtime, any "benefits" are paid out of my own pocket along with any and all expenses related to my business.

5- The Post Office are the ones telling the mystery shoppers the guidelines of where to mail the parcel. And how could they mail it to a fake address?

In Canada, we are told the exact address to mail the parcel to. We are given a list of ideas of what to put in the parcel. - I should say were, I haven't seen Post Office shops for a long time.

6- I'm sure this happens. We do know we are on video and we hope the unscrupulous mystery shoppers are weeded out.

^^^^^ I agree with Canuck. Those of us who have done this shop know things in that post to be untrue.

And by the way, I'm not at all unsympathetic to the plight of the post office or its workers. One of the post offices close to me was in danger of closing, and it stayed open largely because of the community spoke out. That said, certain things about this post office we love are frustrating. They often don't have supplies and at times, the wait is ridiculously long. The rub is, these things aren't even their fault. Supplies are usually back-ordered and they're understaffed. Even overtime has been discouraged or disallowed.

It doesn't excuse the employees who talk on the phone while "assisting", give inaccurate information, or those who are unfriendly or unhelpful, but there are plenty of things that are wrong that have nothing to do with the people who work there.

I agree with the point about Congress, too. That said, I think mistermediocre's anger is displaced. I can understand your frustration with the program or the way it's run, but shoppers are just doing a job. Be mad at the people who created it.

mistermediocre. I doubt you have a real job. Work hard and apply yourself. Maybe someday you will rise to the position of licking stamps. You would not make it as even a low level Mystery Shopper. (If there is such a thing). With your attitude you are a prime example of why Mystery Shopping Observations in the Post Office are a must! Postal Employees are required to be great examples of prime customer service. Quite a few, (Like you), are not. ..:p

Mailing to "fake address" really gave mistermediocre away. Also, he should know they can't do audios at a two party state.

A two party state does not mean no one can be audio recorded, just that both parties have to be aware and give their consent, either real or implied. Think about how many times you call an 800 number and hear the phrase, "This call may be recorded for training purposes." Staying on the line after that statement is implying consent to be recorded.

mistermediocre, adding my voice the chorus of confused "who's mailing to fake addresses?" voices. I'm not sure what part of the forum gave you that idea.

While you may know in advance that someone is going to shop your store on a given day, I wonder how you could know which customer is the shopper. I've never been treated with unusual politeness when I shopped - I know because I only shop the POs that I use on a regular basis for my actual mail. But then, I've never had particularly bad service there, whether as a shopper or a citizen. I did report long wait times - but that's a function of understaffing, not of poor service.

I made all of $17.06 profit from my USPS shops in 2011. Hardly a cash cow. I used them to subsidize shipping gifts to relatives, until my office moved away from the PO that I could shop on my lunch break. There's no incentive to lie on shop reports and risk every shopping opportunity I have with that company.

Of course, the government probably paid $100 for the services that trickled down to me as $17.06. But I? I have zero control over how the PO uses mystery shops or how the government spends that coin. I also agree Congress mismanages the Post Office. I address that through my political action work, not by griping on forums - and I am scrupulously fair on my shop reports, even to the point of recording conversations (single-party state) to accurately transcribe them.

Your anger is definitely misplaced, if understandable.