I've been working with CRI for years. I ONLY deal with a few select employees. It's easy to find out which ones are nice... just call them up and ask if you can get a higher commission on a particular shop. If they are rude, write down their info and never deal with them.

One particular nice person is JoAnn, she usually works the pizza shops.

dogwonder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But wait! If you do over 50 Exxons in a month -
> we'll raise the rate from $4 a shop to $5 !!!
> (yes, folks - this is true example)


It is very simple with CRI. Just don't take the cheap shops and have patience!!

I can always tell when a new shopper comes to the area because the Papa John shops drop from $20-$30 a shop to around $6 $10 a shop. I just wait a few months... they'll get sick of the same 'ol pizza and realize it's not worth their time... then I come back in...

Kroger... now those shops I've never done... they always seem to go cheap....

SteveSoCal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Though I was impressed at the somewhat generous
> reimbursement for the gourmet burger shops they
> recently attained, I was bummed to notice the
> shops available with another company as well. The
> other MSC offered an even higher reimbursement
> with a decent fee attached.
>
> I'm guessing the client is paying the same for
> both shops. Even when they get a generous client,
> CORI still seems to take a big bite out of the
> shopper portion.


I think that it is a shame that CoRI is doing that. I have done one of those and have another scheduled for later this month. Looks like I need to get into some research on the other company! Other than this shop, I refuse to do the other shops they have here, as they do not pay well enough to be worth my time.

mrcomputer im just trying to see it from their end of the deal... the cheaper they can get their shoppers the more the company makes.... its that simple

it may not be ethical but not much about business is...

cooldude581 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> it may not be ethical but not much about business
> is...

A rash generalization, for sure! There are many ethical businesses out there. There are companies that treat their customers and workers with respect and fairness both inside and outside of the mystery shopping community. It is up to us as individuals to observe the corporate behavior and respond accordingly. Near me there is agriculture where treatment of workers has been successfully prosecuted as "slavery". There are several fast food corporations who were doing business with precisely the farms that have been prosecuted. Until the fast food corporations switched suppliers I would not even darken the doorway of those corporations as a mystery shopper until they 'grew up' and recognized the unethical behavior of their old suppliers. Many folks have the same argument about Walmart, though my experience is that they are an employer of last resort for a lot of folks who would otherwise be on welfare. While they are not high on my overall radar of 'ethical businesses', they on a relative scale are far from the bottom. Just as you can't make generalizations about shoppers, you can't make generalizations about businesses.

Cool due, I see your point, but most of us here are in it for the SHOPPER side. We want to be paid what our work is worth.

Blue light up to $7.05. Must grab it now. I think NOT.

Yes, just saw several shops by them for $5.00. Pleassssssse.------

I have to say this company pays very little and wants you to jump through hoops for a $5-6 payout. Plus you have to go threw training FIRST just to see how much the pay is. They have so many jobs open, but the pay is discouraging and so is the training.

I have to comment again, that some of you act as if CoRI is the only company paying only $5 for shops. Um, not even close.

"Jump through hopps for a $5-6 payout"?

Maybe the other companies paying $5, but not with CoRI. CoRI may pay $5 (or in a few cases even less) for many of their shops, but the reports are fairly simple. Some of the other companies paying $5 fees require long narrative for that $5 fee. Intellishop for instance.

Also CoRI regularly raises their fees and can end up really high. I do not see the other companies paying $5 raising their fees like that.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2010 03:28PM by lisams901.

Lisa, they are not the only one. They are just among the cheapest at initial post. In my area, shops don't make it up to a decent wage, let alone a "well-paying" one. The blue light is not worth less than $10, and even then, it needs to be a clean, well-run store with lots of associates on the floor that all wear their name tags. Otherwise it is a time sink. Like here.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2010 05:53PM by dee shops.

At least I haven't seen too many $0 shops from them. Those just drive me crazy!

I hope shoppers know that if they take $0 shops then they have to pay taxes on the the value of the shop and treat that as an income equivalent.

Hard to justify the value of the shop as being "just part of the job" to the IRS if you don't get any income!!!

Wrong, yoyoshopper. Reimbursements are reimbursements and not taxable.

Well not according to my accountant and my IRS friend from a few years back.

If you get an oil change and do NOT get a payment for it (only the "free" oil change) the IRS assumes your payment is in fact the oil change. So you have to include the "value" of the oil change as your compensation for the work done. Otherwise, why did you do it? Charity?

Same goes for the shops where you get a free item from the store but no money payment. That item is your compensation and IS taxable.

I would say that each person should follow the advice of their own tax provider and leave it at that.

Assuming you have a tax provider... if not be careful...

yoyo,
All of my tax advisors AND the IRS say that the free items in lieu of fees are non-taxable. It is a wash; you pay $35; you get $35 back. No taxable event.

And if that were NOT the case I would be receiving 1099s that included $0 fee shops where there was a reimbursement. But Dee Shops is correct--go with the advice of your tax preparer because that is what you are paying them for. And if you have an incompetent tax preparer they at least guarantee that they will pick up any penalties incurred as long as you can prove that you provided them with all the information. But of course IRS would be happy for you to overpay your taxes

It is not a wash because you have the added benefit of the item you purchased or the meal you ate or the oil that's in your car.

Maybe this will help

1. You spent $35 on a bird feeder for a shop.

2. You did NOT get any commission for doing the shop. (Otherwise you could make the case that you didn't need the item / service and was just doing it for the money)

3. The company gives you the equivalent of $70 ($35 in money and $35 in merchandise).

The IRS looks at this as if you made $35 profit (unless you can somehow put it on your schedule c as supply or something).

If you ever get audited (believe me it's a big pain), you'll wish you'd followed this advice.

I would not dream of telling you that your tax preparer is wrong, but that is certainly not the way I have been advised to do it and certainly not what I have read for myself in IRS information and certainly not a position ever backed up by the companies for whom the additional benefit of passing on the cost of reimbursements to shoppers as income have taken. So be my guest and claim it all! It is not necessary but the budget deficit will appreciate it.

Reimbursements are not taxable. Get a second opinion if your tax person tells you otherwise.

I see yoyoshopper's point in that 'barter' profits can be taxable. So if I, for example, I used to frequent a used book store where they gave customers credit for 1/4 of the cover price and 'sold' them other used books at 1/2 cover price that could be paid for either in credits from books they brought in or in cash. Barter income such as that is taxable and requires careful accounting.

But reimbursed business expenses are something else entirely and are treated differently. It is unclear to me from the IRS information I have read whether reimbursements even need to be addressed in a Schedule C business. Certainly you cannot perform many, many shops without an expenditure and reimbursement may make the shop more valuable to me to perform. A reimbursement is a reimbursement whether there is a fee or bonus involved or not. So if yoyoshopper wants to be consistent, he/she needs to declare ALL reimbursements as income, not just the $0 fee shops. And that, of course, is patent nonsense.

The essential point from the viewpoint of the tax law is that you were required to make the purchase. When resident managers get a free apartment, it is the fact that they are required to live on site as a qualification of their employment that makes the value of the rent nontaxable. If your job requires that you eat a hamburger and then you get reimbursed for the burger, you have an expense of employment and a reimbursement of it; money out, money in. A wash. But if you spend more than you get reimbursed, you have a net expense to declare on your Schedule C. When I travel on MS business and stay overnight, the MSC may give me a reimbursement limit for hotel. If I spend more, I have a net expense to declare, since the travel was required, and cannot be split into business vs personal parts (unless there are purely personal days spent on the trip, for which there is an IRS formula as to what can be written off as business expense). But, if I spend more on groceries than the MS reimbursement, the excess is NOT a business expense.

Correct. And in situations where I am reimbursed up to $X for my purchase, I look for something that is $X or less. If I am unable to find anything less than $X + $Y, then the $Y portion of that is deductible. If there is something for $X but my choice is to purchase something more useful to me that is $X + $Z, I do not deduct the $Z because I COULD have met the requirements with a $X purchase.

Whenever we do a shop that has a reimbursement we are at risk of shop rejection and losing the money we have spent. That is why this is not a barter situation.

I see CoRI has a new gas station client in my area. I swear I saw the commission at $4.00 at the beginning of the month. I just checked today and commission is $3.00. WHAT A JOKE!

I too noticed it dropped from $4.00 to $3.00.

If I hold out till the end of the month, do I have to pay them to do it?

Man oh Man, it's just a matter of time before they are giving the jobs to whomever will pay the most.

What is this world coming to?

I gave this company a chance. I worked for them for 1 year and had many many problems with their editors or anyone getting back to me. I especially had problems with pizza shops and with shops with large bonus'. I did like their fast payments BUT I have to warn everyone that they are not a good company to deal with. I have been having problems with some new changes they made on the submission forms and something required me to redo the training and take the test again(after I had done over 60 jobs for them for that gas company) so I did all that was asked, redid the training video then I went to take the test. Over and over and over and over I tried to submit the test and it would not work. I know my answers were right because I'd done so many of those audits I could do them in my sleep. I tried to get in contact with someone but no one was available on the chat on a Saturday night. I sent an email explaining the situtation and that I needed help asap to get the test passed so I could submit the shop that I already did. No replies. Got an email the next day saying the shop was overdue, waited for hours for someone, anyone, to come on chat to help, no one did. Sent another email and submitted the recipts cuz I didnt know what else to do. Go another email today saying I was unassigned AGAIN I sent an emial trying to get ahold of someone about the shops.
Finally this afternoon I got an email saying that this editor had talked to me on chat this morning and gave me the answers to the test and I had told I passed it but then I decided not to put in the shops. WTH!?!?!?!?!?!? I wasnt even home this morning and I've not logged into CORI all day!

They will use ANY excuse not to pay you! And sure sometimes things go through with them and sometimes shop work well for you but in the long run its not worth it!

Who are you dealing with? It really matters with CRI. There are a few bad apples there that you must avoid, but there are others there that are really nice.

For example one lady (I'd have to look up her name) was rude to me when I asked for a $10 bump on an "urgent" shop and stated, "we never go more than $20". Now I knew this to be incorrect since I had done the same shop in the same location a month ago for $30.

Instead of dropping it, I looked up the scheduler from a month ago and e-mailed, "I can do this shop today for a $10 bump". She scheduled me for the shop immediately.


Y.

PS I have never gotten anything other than a 5 for a shop, and never had one rejected. Try tracking to see if you've got somebody who just has an axe to grind, and then complain to the supervisor!





MerissaA Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I gave this company a chance. I worked for them
> for 1 year and had many many problems with their
> editors or anyone getting back to me. I especially
> had problems with pizza shops and with shops with
> large bonus'. I did like their fast payments BUT I
> have to warn everyone that they are not a good
> company to deal with. I have been having problems
> with some new changes they made on the submission
> forms and something required me to redo the
> training and take the test again(after I had done
> over 60 jobs for them for that gas company) so I
> did all that was asked, redid the training video
> then I went to take the test. Over and over and
> over and over I tried to submit the test and it
> would not work. I know my answers were right
> because I'd done so many of those audits I could
> do them in my sleep. I tried to get in contact
> with someone but no one was available on the chat
> on a Saturday night. I sent an email explaining
> the situtation and that I needed help asap to get
> the test passed so I could submit the shop that I
> already did. No replies. Got an email the next day
> saying the shop was overdue, waited for hours for
> someone, anyone, to come on chat to help, no one
> did. Sent another email and submitted the recipts
> cuz I didnt know what else to do. Go another email
> today saying I was unassigned AGAIN I sent an
> emial trying to get ahold of someone about the
> shops.
> Finally this afternoon I got an email saying that
> this editor had talked to me on chat this morning
> and gave me the answers to the test and I had told
> I passed it but then I decided not to put in the
> shops. WTH!?!?!?!?!?!? I wasnt even home this
> morning and I've not logged into CORI all day!
>
> They will use ANY excuse not to pay you! And sure
> sometimes things go through with them and
> sometimes shop work well for you but in the long
> run its not worth it!