Okay so now that I have done this and I have spoke to a few other shoppers who did this recently this is what I have to say.
These is the type of high turnover landmine job that gets new shoppers sucked in and turned off and will probably never do again. I would do the ikea job from hell before I would do this again and most of you know how people feel about that one. This is not a newbie job, this is not even a job you should go if you intend on making more than $10 an hour and it's even worse if you dont like food which was the highlight of the entire visit. I can't currently think of a situation where I would be willing to do this unless the payment was double or I was given the ability to keep any winnings that I might win. I have no idea if this is a cheap client or if the MSP takes it and will form no opinion on that. I can just say, for certain, I will be avoiding Bestmark and CHC casino jobs for this very reason and would highly recommend others due the same.
You have almost 40 interactdions to do, and you are REQUIRED to be on site for several hours. I haven't talked to anyone who's done this that has been out in under 4 hours and I am talking about very experienced shoppers. I cannot even imagine what this would be like for a newbie who is all gung ho and excited about getting their first casino job.
Second, on top of the 4 hours on site, you will probably have travel time. For us, that was about an hour and fifteen minutes. (I worked with a shopper partner and not solo to also put it in perspective)
You are not allowed to spend your own money, at all. So you're going for a fee and that's it. This fee will probably balance out to being maybe $10 per hour. I can snap my fingers on the corner of the train and make more than that per hour, and im not even joking.
The requirements are completley unrealistic to that of a typical casino shopper. Receipts from slot waitresses, a REQUIREMENT to stand around and wait for 20-30 minutes for a server at the table games while you have enough money for "maybe" 2 hands of whatever table you go to. I had every single pit boss looking at me funny as well as dealers because there simply aren't a lot of reasons some random person is going to sit and stare at a table for 20 minutes. I dont care becauese it's what I was told to do, but there's no way anyone with half a pea brain didn't know what was going on or at the very least could identify that something was a little suspicious.
Youre not allowed to have phones out at the table games. If you don't have an audio recorder hooked up and running or perfect memory you're gonna have a bad time.
The job requirement stated 24 hours for the report. I had received an email from the scheduler after 8 hours asking me to start keying it in "right now". I said I would have it in mid to late evening, and I received a second email at 3pm asking when it can be expected. I was pretty flat out and said I'll have it in at about the exact end of the 24 hour window that the shopper instructions stated.
Total time all in including report was an arrival of 7:20 PM, we have over 150 texted notes, and left at 12:05 PM. The report wasn't that terrible IMO beyond the near zero tolerance on requirements. It was about 2 hours or so for us. That's an all in time of just about 8 hours.
I have another friend in Philly, super experienced shopper. Does it full time too, video, piracy, the whole nine. He told me he did it the day before mothers day.
Here is a direct quote "Not much - the casino shop itself was to be 3 hours - the report for me was at LEAST 5 hours. I did some extra work on lining things up and deciphering my notes."
That's not including travel time. He also notified me that he had an email asking for his report the next morning on mothers day even though it says the report is 24 hours.
I have had another shopper, also does this stuff full time and for years, who had just as bad of an experience.
This is far less about bad shoppers and far more about it being too much work for what you get. It's one thing to go into a casino job and you have that random normal odds of winning some cash off of your measly $90 of gaming reimbursement. At least then, ya got a shot which is the thrill and excitement. It's ojne thing to be able to spend additional money and just treat it as another $75 in gambling you get back or to be able to stay later .
But no, you have to make a special trip that involves doing nothing else at the casino or you dont get paid. If you're not a perfectionist on names, youre not gonna get paid. There is very little you can actually do to force the time to be lower on the overall shop without doing things that are not in the spirit of the shop (for example, if I were to do this again I would park my ass at a table one or two ahead of the cocktail waitresses rotation so I didn't have to wait 30 minutes because once she goes around and you can verify she does you're allowed to leave).
All in all, this needs to be nearly double the payment, or at the very least let you keep your winnings. None of this cheap stuff. Best part of the evening was the food. Definitely delicious. Report was reasonable IMHO. Requirements for report far less so. There are so many forced and unatural interactions and I simply won't participate in jobs that require acting ridiculous to do.
This company has now trumped the ikea report from hell.
For the record, the HS Brands casinos and several others let you keep thousands or all of your winnings. They also don't have forced interactions and kill you if you miss a name (as long as you have the location or great description of the person) they certainly dont fail you and take away your money for it.
Youd be better off doing those spanish phone shops and would make more money doing so for your time.
These are one and dones. You get someone super excited to get a casino and they snatch it up not knowing better and then they find out it was a land mine.
Of the three people I know personally, all very experienced shoppers, we agreed the report wasn't really off the hook, but if you didn't takae the approprioate notes exactly or even made one mistake you are quite possibly not being paid.
I may not be paid because I didn't go through BOTH entrances and get the security guards names. I only went through one entrance. I also neglected to get slot waitress receipts for my drinks. Those were the only mistakes made on the entire assignment.
Will post if I get paid or not.
Im in full agreement with most of what OP said.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2015 11:11PM by jrossetti.