I have done exactly one shop for Bestmark and was paid on that shop without incident.

One's reputation as a mystery shopper is built on trust. Any inconsistencies or irregularities on a report can call that report into question. Negative reports tend to get questioned more often than positive reports; let's face it, when you were in school were you more likely to challenge a D (or even F) grade, or an A+?

One simply cannot expect to "accidentally" submit wrong/re-used POV documentation even once and get away with it. MSCs do look at these things, and if one is doing this, the MSC will appear to be defrauding the client, but actually of course it's the shopper defrauding the MSC (and indirectly, the client).

In general, I approve of an MSC taking measures to curtail fraud. The MSC in this instance appears to have found such an instance. I don't think this is a case of a company being several states away and knowing they have an advantage were the dispute to come to a lawsuit. If so, we would have heard about this being done by this MSC a bit more often by now. I think this is the first time we've heard of payment on checks being stopped after being mailed out, under circumstances like these, on this forum. I could be wrong of course.

..and there are many complaints against BBB too.

So? I speak from experience with them and they have never rejected a report. They have never ever NOT paid me.

I like them.

They got me on a couple of deductions here and there. I just keep adding those amounts back in every time I negotiate a bonus. Seems like I've made it up at least three or four times

File a complaint in small claims and get a judgement against them since they will not show up then it is easier to go collections to collect against them

I don't know about the merits of what happened; but I think it was wrong of Bestmark to stop payment the checks after they were issued. In doing so, they not only denied the payment, which may have been their right, but they also cost the shopper bank fees, which was not their right.

In my opinion, if you discover after you have paid someone that the payment was an error, your recourse is to ask for it back, and if it is not given back voluntarily, then you need to take them to court. You don't "steal back" what you think was stolen from you.

A stop payment or bounced check has a domino effect: OP incurred fees for the stopped checks. OP may have written checks against that money, which then bounced when the stop payment occurred, incurring NSF fees as well. The people OP wrote checks to may have written checks against that money, and those checks might have bounced, causing those people NSF fees.

So BestMark may have caused innocent people three or more times (depending on how many checks bounced) the $400 they wanted back, just because their internal processes were insufficient to prevent the payments going out erroneously. They did not have the right to cause all that trouble, regardless of what OP did to cause it. That's what courts are for.

BestMark should have made their case in court. The harm they caused others is not justified by the money they felt OP owed them back.

Better read the ICA, generally it specifies where all legal issues will have jurisdiction. I scared a payment out of a MCS as I wasn't going to sue them, but their client. I'm 5-5 in small claims, 2-2 as a defendant. Sued Ford over the tires for the roll-over Explorer. Bought the tires before the recall, couldn't get reimbursed despite 5 months of letters and calls. So I filed. A week later I got a call from the Regional Vice President. We settled out of court.

The great thing about small claims in my state that if you win, then you can go to Proceedings Supplemental. If they don't show, you can request a body attachment warrant, which means they sit in the pokey until the court date.

You need to file soon since there is a time limitation on these types of cases.

I think that in most cases you will win if someone pays you and cancels the check. As long as they take to pay shoppers, they should have caught whatever the error was.

I had a bad experience with Bestmark where the gal in the payment department forgot to process my reimbursement for a dinner shop and then tried to blame me for submitting the receipt ONE day after the shop. My editor accepted it and was supportive but she took several months, of, oh, I forgot and anyways, didn't you submit the receipt late bs. I got fed up and reported them to the BBB. I was paid within a week or so after the complaint and deactivated. Good riddance.