Summit Scheduling works with Confero, which stands alone the Mystery Shop Industry as a heartless, soulless terrible MSC to be avoided at all costs. I highly caution all who read this post to steer clear of the Confero / Inferno people and their hired lap Dogs.....Summit Scheduling.
Last year when my foot became badly infected (I have neuropathy and did not even realize it until too late) and I was ordered by my Doctor to next day emergency surgery to save my leg every single one of my more than 80+ mystery shop companies worked with me EXCEPT Confero. (For more information including photos and proof of my very reasonable and unanswered e-mails and the proof of the call from my hospital bed please e-mail me at BigEdBSA@gmail.com).
Last AugustI was literally on a hospital bed in pre-op calling calling each of my MSC to inform them of my surgery and all were concerned for my health and happy to work with me - cancelling my upcoming scheduled shops. I called Directory Assistance (still have the e-mail receipt where I called to get their Cary NC number) but the Secretary at Confero told me they have nothing to do with scheduling and if I needed to cancel a job I would need to contact my Summit Scheduler via e-mail. Here I am about to head into surgery, I was lucky to still have my cell phone which was almost out of power Sorry but patients don't generally have a lap top with them and I tried to explain this to Elaine Buxton's idiot secretary to no avail.
After surgery where I lost half of my foot I had a month in the hospital plus three months of rehabilitation. As soon as I had my lap top I called and e-mailed Confero and Summit Scheduling. SIXTEEN TIMES.....nothing, not a word, no reply from Celeste Borden at Summit Scheduling.
When I was finally approved to return to Mystery Shopping every MSC welcomed me back EXCEPT CONFERO. I made more efforts to contact them, finally reaching Rob Barry, one of their hot shot account executives, who said there was nothing he could do. It was noted to me that I was still active in their system and they could use me on projects other than their big Grocery Store account. So three months later when I finally saw some local burger joint shops I requested those via Summit Scheduling's Celeste Borden yet all of my requests were rejected and again NO COMMUNICATION.
That is when I went on this wonderful forum and exposed Elaine Buxton (their debutante C.E.O) for the heartless soulless person she is. A company that did not give a damn if I lived or died, one that was not willing to, under these extraordinary circumstances, relay a simple message to Summit Scheduling that I was not going to be able to visit some grocery store shops later that week because I was getting my foot sawed off in Asheville NC at St. Joseph's Hospital.
Confero said I would be able to do other shops from them, I actually believed them until it became clear they were never going to approve me for another shop for any of their clients. That is when I dropped the Mystery Shopper Forum atom bomb on Elaine's head (and guess what Elaine....I will never stop telling anyone and everyone I meet at IMSC and MPSA conferences about YOU!)
At first I worked quietly for months to try restore my relationship with them, even sending them photos of what happened to my foot before and after surgery to no avail with very reasonable letters. Elaine did not reply to these. Celeste Borden failed to acknowledge or respond to 16 e-mails sent to the Confero system and directly, finally telling me on September 16th that they could not use me on the Grocery store account.
Confero did not respond at all to me until I finally got the attention of their aloof and detached C.E.O. after posting a detailed post on this forum about her company. Even then this clueless C.E.O. claims I was eligible for other projects until I posted on this forum at which time she deactivated my account on March 16th (I had just been turned down on 7 burger shop applications two weeks before, despite the false assertion that I was still eligible to work for their other accounts besides the grocery store chain).
Elaine and her associates are all hugely well paid, have 401K's health insurance, etc. I am out here driving 20 - 30 miles or more between dozens of small towns high up in the Blue Ridge & Great Smoky Mountain chains of GA, NC, & SC trying to somehow squeeze a profit from her $10 Grocery Store shops with no insurance of any kind. I am spending $190 on gas most weeks to turn a gross income (before expenses) of $350 a week. Very often I leave before noon, not getting home until after midnight 5-6 days a week (and even then I still have hours of photo processing and data entry).
Elaine was not finished with me; she event sent a message to all other MPSA companies that they should drop me. Only two of them initially did and when I went back to them and showed them all of the facts, they both reinstated my accounts. She may be a past Vice President of MPSA but it says a lot about what the other MSC think of her that so many ignored her hateful message.
Today I work with every MSC that has projects in the Southeast except one. CONFERO. It is sad because I drive right past those Grocery stores every day and I know they struggle to get these shops filled. That same Celeste Borden over at Sumitt...periodically she sends out tons of SPAM begging me to visit these stores they have not been able to get any coverage on for weeks. When I needed her most, all I got was silence, yet now Summit Scheduling thinks nothing of sending me 10 automated SPAM e-mails at a time as a shopper who works for other MSC to go to these very shops.
Well Elaine, I can play this game too so this month I am preparing to file the following complaints:
I will report Confero and Summit Scheduling for unsolicited SPAM to:
The U.S. Department of Justice @ [
www.justice.gov]
The Federal Trade Commission @ [
www.onguardonline.gov]
For Fraudulent Practices including non-payment I will shortly be contacting the Attorney General of North Carolina as well as the Raleigh - Durham Better Business Bureau.
I am even considering linking all of these posts with Google ads so that any time some unsuspecting mystery shopper Google's Confero the first item in the search box will be documentation about Confero's war on me. Elaine, your behavior would be enough to scare the hell out of anyone thinking of working for you!
It did not have to be this way.... I tried for months to amicably resolve these matters, begging for the chance to resume earning $10 per shop so my visits to the three dozen small mountain communities I visit in three states could include your Grocery store shops.
I am one mystery shopper, with huge unpaid medical bills, trying to survive and I thank all of those wonderful companies like MarketForce, Jancyn, BARE, Reality, Trendsource, Maritz, AboutFace, Bestmark, Beyond Hello, etc. who do work with me and stood by me. Despite Elaine's best efforts to run me out of the Mystery Shop business I am still here. I even was at the same IMSC forum in Atlanta she was and will likely run into her again this fall in Nevada.
I want to thank this forum as well, it helps level the playing field. Each Mystery Shop company has their ICA's and the MPSA, all of which are designed to protect THEM. As independent contractors we have very little in the way of recourse to fight back when a MSC goes rogue. It was almost a year ago I lost my foot and I have been back shopping now for eight months.
So Elaine....how many more years do you want to continue this war against me?
Big Ed
Mystery shopping in the Great Smokey & Blue Ridge Mountain ranges of Southern Appalachia (GA, NC, SC, & TN)
BigEdBSA@gmail.com