So, I was assigned an oil change shop from Confero last week to be completed today. I received an email reminder on 6/6 and then again, yesterday 6/8. After completing my shop, I received an email at 1:52 p.m. that they are no longer shopping that location and had to cancel the shop. There was no email prior to that or phone call earlier in the morning to give me a heads up.

I have since responded to the email and mentioned that I am entitled to be reimbursed based on performing the task assigned to me and having no ability to know the shop was cancelled. I have no received a reply yet, but the fact that they would even actually do this does not leave me hopeful.

I would welcome any feedback you could provide, both in agreement and disagreement with me. While getting oil changed is inevitable, I still had time to get it done and if I wasn't going to get reimbursed, I surely wouldn't have paid $39.99 plus tax to get it done.

Looking forward to your comments!

Art

What is there to disagree with? You contracted for a job, you upheld your contract and you are right, they owe you the reimbursement because they did not notify you in a timely manner. Keep us posted on the outcome.

They owe you at minimum the reimbursement. I am sure they will respond in the morning. They may let you do the report for the stated pay. I have never had any problems with them but had that happen with another MSC. They let me do the report and paid on original assignment.

Was this through Kern Scheduling?

I'm not sure if the title of this thread warrants a "watch for" plus four exclamation points just yet. You might be jumping the gun a bit. Yes, the MSC should have contacted you sooner but who knows? Maybe the client had just contacted them to cancel this location. And KathyC brings up a good question. A third party scheduling company may be involved throwing another possible delay into the situation.

I agree that the MSC should reimburse you for the oil change but it sounds like all of this just happened in a short period of recent time. You do need to give the scheduler/MSC a chance to actually look into the situation and respond to you. Many schedulers work part-time around another job or being a full-time parent. Maybe they are located in another time zone. I worked with a scheduler who lives in Hawaii. I live in FL. I learned quickly that I should not call her at 8 AM EST. {I did not know she lived in HI at the time of the call.}

Please give us an update.

art: Shops get cancelled all the time by clients. This is not that unusual.

You need to give this some time, for a scheduler to respond to your complaint. To say you were not paid, well, you don't know that. They might have a contingency for cancelled shops and offer you something.

Once they refuse to offer you anything, then you can heed a warning here.

artender Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would welcome any feedback you could provide,
> both in agreement and disagreement with me. While
> getting oil changed is inevitable, I still had
> time to get it done and if I wasn't going to get
> reimbursed, I surely wouldn't have paid $39.99
> plus tax to get it done.
>
> Looking forward to your comments!
>
> Art

Hi, Art, welcome to the forum. I'm guessing you are a relatively new shopper. My feedback is not a disagreement or an agreement, but comments about getting along in mystery shopping.

1. Try not to overreact. Of course you want payment, having completed the shop before it was canceled. And sending an e-mail to the scheduler was the right thing to do. Immediately posting an overreaction on an internet forum is not IMHO. This is really not a unique and unusual situation and you haven't waited to give the company an opportunity to respond to you.

2. Try to work things out directly with an MSC when something happens. It's much easier (and sometimes faster) to communicate directly with your scheduler and get resolution than complaining to others who are not involved.

3. Recognize that mistakes happen. Give a company a chance to fix a "mistake" or a timing issue (like you performing the shop right before it was canceled). If it is NOT resolved to your satisfaction, you can always complain about the company at that point. Right now, there is no reason to believe this won't be amicably resolved, yet you have posted something on an internet form advising other to "Watch out for Confero!!!!"

4. Recognize that the highway runs both ways. Schedulers have a forum on which they post (on Volition). How would you feel about a scheduler posting "Watch out for Art!!!!!"

Just comments based on MHO.

I hope you have better luck with Confero paying than I have. I did a bunch of shops for them and was supposed to be reimbursed for parking. I was promptly paid but no parking fees. I emailed several contacts and left voicemails but no one responded. Good luck with your situation!

I agree that you should give them some time. The shop cancelling email could have been a mistake and they meant to cancel a different shop. One mistyped character in the job number could have easily resulted in you receiving an email meant for a completely different shopper. If you don't hear back soon (I'd give them 2 or 3 days), try again.