Corporate Research International

Be careful with these people. I was called by a Heather on their staff and asked to visit a Great Outdoors store. They offered a commision osf about 26.00. I completed the shop as directed and they refused to pay me because the salespeople were very busy there on a Saturday I was unable to talk to a person in the kitchen show room because theywere understaffed. I visited 4 departments besides that one and they refused to pay.
They are dishonest. If you notice their commissions are a joke and they expect you to take a test on top of it!!

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I have been dealing with CRI for 6 months now and I have not had a problem. Yes the start up process is slow with the pre-test you take. but once you do a test on a shop you don't have to take them again unless something in the shop changes. I wait till the pay increases and then I take the shop. I agree who wants to get in their car and drive excess miles for 4.00. So the game plan is to wait for the increase. Then do 3 or 4 shops in a day. I did 2 gas shops on Saturday and made 40.00. That put a smile on my face.
I hope you continue to get paid. I have dealt with them for several years but twice when the comission was high, they nit pick and disqualify the shop. I am done with them.
Not that I am a big fan of CRI, but if there are 7 things to be done and you only can do 6 of them, regardless of reason, it is an incomplete shop and you are enormously lucky if you ever get paid for incomplete work. It is just part of shopping that you figure out a way to 'gitter dun', whether you have to trip and hogtie a salesperson to talk with you or not. Rejecting an incomplete shop is standard procedure in the industry, whether it was a store across the street or one you drove 190 miles each way to, whether it was a $2 shop or a $200 shop. You leave a shop incomplete at your peril--both for the present shop and for future work.
CRI is notoriously cheap in their base fees. So I just wait them out. The $4 gas shop grows to $9 then $12, then $15. I start grabbing them at $9 but have been paid as high as $25 at month end.
I have never had a problem with them. I like their site and choices of shops, but they try to pay as little as possible.
They are the only MSC that increase shops by pennies. A $4 shop may "grow" to $4.58. The best one, though, was a fully reimbursed restaurant that went wanting for a shopper for weeks. They offered a $.03 bonus! Repeat-$.03.

My biggest criticism is that they are slow to respond to queries and problems and have no system to allow for rescheduling. There are severe rating penalties if ypu must cancel a shop.

I find Market Force the best all around MSC.
There is a shop that I am looking at from CRI that started at $5.00 and is now up to $20.00. I have not yet worked for them but I am considering this one.
Give it a try, computer man. They don't need heavy duty long narratives. I thought I did super duper heavy long narratives for my first shop for A Closer Look, but it came back incomplete. What did so and so say and do when they took my order? Well, as I already told you, they greeted me warmly, tried to upsell with add ons, were polite, professionally dressed, and smiled and thanked me. What exactly else did you want to know? Whether or not they scratched their nose?
CRI update post new higher commissions
so I looked....
oh higher for sure
twenty five cents...... go for it folks!
So far so good for me. I like that they pay weekly by direct deposit, so you can count on the money.
I have to chuckle when I look at the jobs offered: almost all the grocery stores and pharmacies are taken, but the $3 gas stations (+$2reimb) are open. DuuuHHH.
Who would go to the trouble of doing the shop, taking and uploading photos and reporting for that amount? I did my first one when it iffered $7.50 to get my feet wet, but that is it. Thank you very much.
msrice6 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I hear you all!!!. The shop fees are ridiculous.
> I did take the long "stupid" Exxon test but I
> never signed up for the $4.00 shops. I thought,
> "Well it I need gas then maybe it won't be so bad
> to have passed the Exxon test and do the dumb
> shop." However, I guess they got desperate and
> called me and offer me $12.00 per shop for 3
> shops. Well for $36.00 in this business it might
> be worth taking the "stupid" test and WAIT smiling smiley


Your not missing much. They voided 10 of my shops because they "claim they didn't get them. I didn't find out until it was too late. Funny thing all 10 had something wrong with the store. They blame it on Yahoo but I have no problems with sending pictures to other companies.
Deekennedy, sorry you had a problem. Are you trying to email them photos? It has been a long time since I did a CRI shop, but I thought they uploaded into the shop itself and that worked well with both IE and Firefox. It is the case with many email programs that there is a limitation of how much data you can send with a single email, but usually it blows up on the sender end by not going through rather than with the recipient.
I have found their online report does not play well with Firefox, I have to use IE when I do their reports. They also have a photo resizer app they want you to use. All the reports I've done have had the photos included. I've never noticed whether you can e-mail them or not.
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