Back at the beginning of January I had a bunch of the Maritz gas shops assigned to me that they had picked up from CoRI/Steri. When they were first assigned, I didn't realize that they were all night time shops, and started hitting closed stations. I called Maritz a couple days in asking if I could move some of them back because I was doing a LOT of them and there just wasn't time between sundown and when the stations were closing to get them all. The girl yelled at me and said they couldn't be rescheduled, and all she could do was unassign them and let someone else pick them up. This was back on the 6th or 7th.

Fast forward to 10 minutes ago. They just called me saying they were desperate to get these scheduled, and wanted to know if I was available to do them. I told the girl that I was originally assigned to do them, but they took them from me because they didn't want to give me three extra days to get them done, so since I couldn't do them then, I didn't want anything to do with them now.

Add that to the fact that they have now flagged three of the shops I have done for stupid stuff like the time on the receipt not matching the time I did the shop. It's not like I can help it if the gas station computer clocks are wrong.

I have a few more of these scheduled for the first two weeks of February, and then I'm seriously thinking of saying screw it. It's just not worth the trouble. As much as I @#$%& about Cori/Steri, they have NEVER not paid me. I had to go back and forth with them a few times about stupid stuff, but in the end, they always ended up paying me. I now understand why so many people on here have stopped working for Maritz.

sometimes you just have to "see it" to "believe it"

Yea, not a fan of Maritz, either. Really going to miss those shops. I can't believe they're complaining about the times on the receipts. There were TONS of instances for me where the receipt times were totally wrong. Usually just an hour ahead or behind, but other times they were just way off for some reason. CORI/STERI always paid, though. I mean if you've got a date/time stamp on your pic, what the heck?

I must be really lucky....I have an even larger than I started with green station route, a yellow station route, I've done red and white ones, and dinosaur one,and I did 68 of the blue stations in the first two weeks of this year. I hesitate to count, but probably over 2000 shops with these guys...I have never not been paid for a shop....and I have never had one come back on hold that I couldn't resolve.

I have called them a lot to ask questions about shop guidelines, and have had to ask for extensions due to weather a couple of times....and I have never had anyone yell at me. There is one older gal who is a little gruff, but all in all, they have been pleasant and easy to work with. I must be missing something?

I find most of them to be nice but, oh so anal retentive. It's the age thing for the most part. These are older folks who have a different outlook on life. For many of them, the world is black and white. Many don't understand technology or the complications that come into play in today's work world. They didn't have time stamps on their receipts.

I've written before about how it took five phone calls before one of them finally got it that a gas station could have lots of gas but it could not be pumped when the computer system was down. I went around and around with them over that.

I think jon will find out if he would answer the holds then he will be paid as well. They always pay in my experiences, probably well over 2000 shops as well. Even when they assign the same location twice, but it has 2 different addresses.

Receipt time differences should be noted in the internal box on the report, as well as any other anomalies from the shop. Otherwise, they will ask about it. Maritz does NOT require a time/day stamp on their photos. CRI would question times too if they were off from the receipt. The difference, they asked in an email rather than a report hold.

Sometimes getting them to understand what we are seeing or doing compared to the traditional location examples or locations that go perfectly with the shop guidelines is hard. But that is for any company. They all want to believe that nothing out of the norm happens and it is all peachy keen in the world.

I have never had an unpleasant interaction with them on the phone, not saying it doesn't happen. So they didn't want to extend the deadlines. Their deadlines are very serious to them. We laugh because it was 3 days we were asking for, to them, it could mean a possible missed client deadline. I do think it is funny that that the same shops not extended are now their nail biters, but that was their decision. They *thought* they could get it done faster. The couldn't. It happens with all MSCs at some point.

I have run into the "little gruff" old lady more than once and I think she is more than a "little." But I've also had some really nice conversations with some of them about other things. Once I mentioned that I shop a lot of truck stops. One of the ladies had a long chat with me about human trafficking and what to look for as truck stops are a common place for such things. I spent a lot of years working in the criminal justice system and a few years as a sexual assualt counselor so I already knew. But it was still nice to hear the passion in her voice about something other than deadlines on a gas station mystery shop.

I can also say I've never not been paid on a shop although sometimes it takes a while because I do so many out-of-the-way and out-of-the-norm shops that have issues. But I respond, over and over, and eventually we get it worked out.

I often wonder about the deadline thing, not just with Maritz, but with all of the MSCs. How many times have you seen "it must be done today" only to see it still being advertised a week later and sometimes longer? Sometimes I think we see a lot of "crying wolf."

The biggest problem I have with the shop holds is that I have now had 3, and never once gotten an email about it. This last one was put on hold almost two weeks after I did the shop, and I was on vacation out of town when it happened, so I never knew about it. The two other holds I had got resolved. One of them really was my fault, I uploaded the wrong picture, but the other was over a location refused audit, and they had a fit that I couldn't get a picture of the front doors after I was asked to leave the property. That got resolved too. But this last one was just silly, the receipt timing thing, and they never emailed or called to let me know there was a problem. They just put it on hold and gave me 24 hours to resolve it, and I never found out about it until it was too late. Now they want me to do the shops that they took from me three weeks ago because they couldn't give me a three day extension, and the girl, who was very nice, didn't understand why I didn't just reschedule in the first place.

Anyways, I'll be working my butt off for them for the first two weeks in Feb, and see how that goes. If there are any more of these problems, well, I have enough other companies in the area to keep me busy without them. If they paid more, I would probably me more likely to continue, but with the amount of driving I do for these shops, the gas reimbursement doesn't cover it all, so it's not like I'm making a lot off of these shops. Having one pulled for a ridiculous reason like the clocks are wrong at the station cuts into that even further.

I'm just venting here.

I wonder if they are aware holds aren't being emailed. I think Mdavisnowell had that problem too and told them about it a few months ago. I noticed I wasn't getting the emails, but I am on the website enough that I always caught my holds. Not everyone is though.

I never stopped working for Maritz, I just never actually started. And at this point, I think I'm best off not working for them.

I don't think it's possible to get 75 to 100 non video shops a month in my area without working for Maritz unless I want to work on the phone, do $7 printer audits, $10 phone shops, and fast food. With the two new large clients they took on, they have most of what I want to do. Considering how much work I've done for them, I've had very few issues. I'm sure it's not that way everywhere, but in my area, Monopoly, anyone?

Those Gas shops that use to be at Cori....
Well they are only paying 11.00 here for them. Are they wanting all the same amount of pictures as Cori wanted?
As for the time issue...I noticed that, that makes it harder because the traffic is so much worse at those times and can only hope I can get to the next location in the time I think it should take.

Thanks for the info ahead of time

txNana, they also reimburse $5.00 gas and $1.00 inside purchase, for a total of $17.00.

No gas stations here from them, but there are hardware stores starting at $12.50.

What I'm seeing with the old Gas shops of CoRi's are night shops - pix to be taken after 6 PM. I understand the reasons - they want to see if the ID signs are lit correctly. The problem with this is that they want the shops reported within 12 hours - and, to get a better shopper rating, they rate the shopper on reports submitted sooner than the 12 hours - like within a few hours. On top of that, in my part of the country, temps are below zero during the day. At night, they're crazy cold. Couple the night photos with the cold temps, piles of snow everywhere and traffic - it makes for a very dangerous situation. Even with a safety vest.

I did a night shop recently. Temps were warm - about 1 degree. Almost got run over trying for the overall shop.

So, you go out, do your first shop right at 6:00, do maybe 4 more. You get done around 9 or 10, drive home by 11 and then do your reports. Get done by 1 AM.

Maybe.

Makes it pretty hard to put a route together.

jonchance: This was a great opportunity to get a nice bonus from them since they were desperate and had already taken the shops from you. I have never done the gas station shops for them but I have done the blue bank. They have always been reasonable and accommodating when I had to re-schedule (which I only had to do a couple of times). At least for the bank shops I enjoy working for them.

I have not found them to be reasonable or understanding about anything. I still do their gas station that's a pure mystery shop, because I like them and there's 2 gabillion of them around me, but it's not because I like the company in the least bit.

I think the schedulers for the gas stations and the banks are different so I guess I am lucky.

jwolpert Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> jonchance: This was a great opportunity to get a
> nice bonus from them since they were desperate and
> had already taken the shops from you. I have never
> done the gas station shops for them but I have
> done the blue bank. They have always been
> reasonable and accommodating when I had to
> re-schedule (which I only had to do a couple of
> times). At least for the bank shops I enjoy
> working for them.

They weren't offering me any bonuses. They took the attitude with me that I should help them out because these were all within 20 miles of where I live. I just wasn't in a very helpful mood when they told me exactly which gas stations they were, as I sat here looking at the original paperwork I had printed on my desk from the first time I had them scheduled and they refused to give me an extension. I just checked, and I have 40+ shops scheduled with them next month, thankfully all during the day. We'll see how they go.

We are in the middle of an "Ice Event" here, and there are travel bans in place that they don't expect to be lifted until at least Thursday, so I'm doubtful that those shops will end up getting done at all, unless someone at the beach has a snow mobile. I'm thinking they should have just given me the extension in the first place.

I am lucky I guess that I've had good experiences with them. They call me and leave a voice mail when they have things in my area, they let me reschedule today because of the ridiculous cold. I haven't even done a shop for them yet and they have been pleasant as punch.

I have never performed the gas shops for the old company or new company. I signed up for 9 shops in February, all close to where I live, so if I hate them, I haven't wasted a lot of time and money.

I have two questions though...

1) In the "type of visit" column, all of mine say "anytime shop" visit. I am assuming that I can perform them anytime that the gas stations are open. If there are specific time frames, is that the column where it would be listed? It seems like some of you that posted about were shocked to find out that the shops needed to be done after 6 PM.

2) The shops start on February 1st. Today is January 29th. They want me to take a "Review Requirements" quiz but when I try to access the guidelines, I get this message...

"Program Materials will be
available for download prior
to the first shopping day."

That doesn't give a lot of time to prepare considering I have end of the month bonused shops in January and several other shops scheduled for the first two weeks in February. Did they get overwhelmed by this new client? Or are guidelines always released last minute?

@ShoptoLiveinFla: The gas shops are identified by being either "Anytime" (day or night) or "Night" (after 6 PM). I'm not shocked - its just that during the winter in the north, its the cold at night that is even more brutal than the daytime temps. I'm seeing none of the Night shops taken.

The quiz is easy and you can get assistance if you don't pass by calling them. They'll help you out.

signed: Tatjana, Closet Nudist who doesn't need a closet carousel. Patiently awaiting Spring.

Shop2LiveinFL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1) In the "type of visit" column, all of mine say
> "anytime shop" visit. I am assuming that I can
> perform them anytime that the gas stations are
> open. If there are specific time frames, is that
> the column where it would be listed? It seems
> like some of you that posted about were shocked to
> find out that the shops needed to be done after 6
> PM.

The way they explained it to me was that the client hadn't required night shops from the old MSC for a long time, and they wanted to see how their Main ID signs looked at night, which is why most of the January shops were scheduled for evening. They did mention that these were the "Quarterly" shops in one conversation I had with them, so it's possible that every third month they will do them all as evening shops. Everything for February is daytime/anytime though. To be sure, in addition to the shop reading "Anytime" or "Evening", they actually list the shop hours in the header. If something doesn't make sense, call them.
>
> 2) The shops start on February 1st. Today is
> January 29th. They want me to take a "Review
> Requirements" quiz but when I try to access the
> guidelines, I get this message...
>
> "Program Materials will be
> available for download prior
> to the first shopping day."

This is also something new that I haven't seen before, but I suspect they are fine tuning the new reports with the client. I'd like to be able to start printing them also since I have so many to do, and am bored off my butt right now because of our Snow-pocalypse, but crap happens. I was a little shocked that I had to re-take the stupid test again this month. I get why they have us do it the first time, but if this is gonna be an every month thing, well, that's just a little annoying.

jonchance Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> if this is gonna be an
> every month thing, well, that's just a little
> annoying.

It almost certainly will be, and it is.

I received a phone call from Maritz yesterday wanting me to do a debrand. They asked how much of an incentive I would need and I told them. They agreed and I took it. Then she starts talking about a couple of others stating she would add $10 extra each if I could do all by today. I explained to her that I could not do them all on the same day as 2 were in one direction and the other one was in the opposite direction. So she was like so can you do them all on the 29th. I explained to her again that 2 were 80 miles in one direction and 1 was 85 miles in the opposite direction and there was no way I could do them all 3 the same day. Then she was like so you can't do them all in the same day. She just didn't get why I couldn't do them all the same day.

Be very careful. If you mess up on a Maritz project too many times they will ban you for life (from that project) with no option of appeal. If you feel there is a misunderstanding, it is almost always worth taking the time to make sure that the scheduler on understands the situation.

Source: Personal experience when I was new to Mystery Shopping.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2014 10:42AM by wickedlyslick.

I work for 50+ companies, and unfortunately I've had to write off Maritz. I did the blue bank shop and it was too much work for the paltry fee.

I'd love to do the blue hardware stores that CORI used to have, but I'm tired of playing phone tag with the scheduler. It's ridiculous and archaic that they only schedule via phone. I don't have time for that.

I have 19 more night shops for them in February. I really wish they'd specified the day part before I'd assigned them. I double-checked and even my "anytime" shops are ones they want taken after dark so why not just say evening and be done with it?

They were at least understanding about things when I told them we had a 3 county-wide travel restriction because of the weather and insane cold.

Cettie, on the first page of the form, my "anytime" shops noted that "if possible" to complete the shop after dusk. I took this to say that I could go during the day and I did. I haven't heard anything back, at least not yet. Most have gone through. Do your "anytime" shops specifically tell you to go at night only? My fingers froze doing them during the day. Ain't no way I'm doing night shops, at least until the spring thaw.

I did my anytime shops beginning on routes in the early morning and ending up in the early evening. About 20% of my 'anytime' shops were completed during evening hours. All were accepted.

Edited 'cause.....Ooops....got my evening and daytime mixed up!!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2014 06:57PM by quilter.