You will be expected to provide unreasonable and excessive details that are beyond the abilities of even the best of shoppers. Be prepared for extreme nit picking and a lack of support. Way way too much work for the pay. Keep moving. There are better companies to work for as an IC.

Thank you. Now, how about more details.

Please let us know what transpired.

Never heard of them.

They're invitation only.

Thanks for the heads up. I get invited all the time...then rejected after responding all the time.

CHC Solutions prides our self and stands by our thorough reporting, and any shopper that is looking for a quick buck instead of providing a client with what they pay for is not someone that we would want as part of our team. We have a great reputation in the industry for a reason.

Who are you?

@mhoughton wrote:

CHC Solutions prides our self and stands by our thorough reporting, and any shopper that is looking for a quick buck instead of providing a client with what they pay for is not someone that we would want as part of our team. We have a great reputation in the industry for a reason.

LOL real friendly company???? i strongly doubt YOU pay for what WE do...

Nobody really wants to give any details here it seems...

CHC should be aware, as consultants, that their reputation amongst shoppers is not all that great. Tales of poor communication and hostility toward shoppers that I have heard seem to be backed up by the above post.

Assuming the post above was made by one of the managing partners (since the name matches); I would suggest that Mandy first introduce herself, perhaps add a signature line as is customary on this forum for MSC operators, and engage in a professional conversation about what CHC offers shoppers.

This thread kind of shines a light on a large problem with the MS industry. Companies are free to claim all sorts of things like having the greatest pay rate, highly trained evaluators and amazing reputations while shrouding themselves in the secrecy that is so paramount to the industry, and offering little or no facts.

The truth is that there is basically one pool of shoppers out there in the world. MSCs are free to be selective when deciding whom to work with, but by no means have sole access to those shoppers as ICs, so their reporting platform and personal connection with the clients is the only thing that differentiates them. If they are using an industry standard reporting platform, then it's simply their personal connection with the client that stands out.

The CHC website boasts “Expert advice, with a low price” so I find it somewhat hard to believe that they are paying the highest fees in the industry, as mentioned by Mandy in this recent post defending the company:
[www.mysteryshopforum.com]

I see fees posted by her on the job board that range between $40 and $125 for casino shops. Unless they are paying $40 to have one drink at the casino bar and write less than a page of narrative, those are not the highest fees in the industry.

I am doing an assignment for this company in a couple of days and I expect it to be tedious as it's a casino shop. I'll report my findings. I have had nothing but a great experience with scheduler Mandy so far.

I know another IMSC member who did a job for Mandy in Philly for a casino as well and he had no reservation about it. I'll ask him how the report was for him though.

Well written post, Steve, and greatly appreciated.

Joe, I'm looking forward to reading about your experience.

Great timing. I was considering taking a casino job. I see they do NOT allow you to keep your winnings although other casinos do. I think I'll wait on this and see reports from others.

Would be interested in casino shops in Arizona.

I was once approached( by email) by a CHC scheduler. (I did not apply for a shop)
I was offered $50 for an 8 interactions casino shop.
The fee sounded WAY WAY WAY low to me for 8 interactions.

I asked to see a copy of shop form or sample report before committing.
I received a response back that other shoppers were lining up for the shop and they would not send that info (okay, then why are you soliciting ME for the shop??)

I feel $50 for 8 interactions on any shop to be ridiculously low

I've been reading through these forums for a while now, and don't normally post a whole lot. Typically, I read through early in the morning before i head out on my shops for the day. I'm a full time shopper, and work with many highly reputable MSC. The recent negative posts about this company makes me want to stick up for them.

I have worked with both Mandy and Hallie for almost 2 years now. To me, the fees they pay are reasonable for the work required. The shops are detailed and require time and effort to get them done. The shops are NOT quick and easy like gas stations, banks, or cell phone stores. Rather, they are multi hour and possibly overnight shops. The shop details are pretty cleary explained in the guidelines, and every time I have had questions before, during, or after a shop both Mandy and Hallie have been there to answer them. My first shop with them took me quite a long time to finish both on site as well as finishing the reports and then working with Mandy and Hallie to finalize with editing. After that, I have been able to put together a system that works for me when I am on site, and the time to finish has gone down substantially. Remember your first shop, where it took such a long time to complete. After that, you laugh at how long it took you to do the visit and report.

A typical Casino Resort might require interactions with restaurant staff, Security, hotel desk clerks, Valet attendants, plus all the other Casino Gaming staff. It is a lot of people to keep track of and the client wants to know how each person treated you. Then there is the food and beverage quality, the overall facility condition. Meals to eat, Someone mentioned about 8 different interactions in a prior post. If it was just 8, then the time on site could be pretty quick. I know some other MSC ask shoppers to complete Casino visits, and have seen fees of $25 to $40 plus reimbursements. There were some posted on the job board here earlier today or yesterday.

Casinos have cameras everywhere, and they are able to verify pretty easily what we report. They do check the videos against what is submitted, and I have been informed by both Mandy and Hallie about this. Nothing negative about me, rather that the client confirmed what I had reported.

I was on a trip for CHC and there were air travel issues. Cancelled flights, late arrivals, bad weather, you name it. What was supposed to be a 1 1/2 day short visit turned into a 3 1/2 day ordeal. Mandy and Hallie worked with me both in fee adjustments and some other travel issues. When I was stuck in an airport, Mandy offered some phone shops for one of their clients. It wokred out, and the next few trips have been pretty great with pay as well as seeing some parts of the country I never really thought I would get to visit. I only wish that I could have extended 1 trip another couple days to be able to sight see.

I know people comment about not being able to keep wiinnings if they are lucky while on a shop. This was a concern to me at the beginning, but I came to understand where the MSC and the client see things when it comes to gambling winnings. Bottom line with winings is that the Casino operators pay CHC for the reports, and reimburse the expenses. They want the shoppers to concentrate on providing accurate information instead of trying to win money. There are loss amounts that get reimbursed too. Most trips I leave with losses that are not the maximum limit on the shop, but if it happened, I am covered. If I have winnings on a shop, I put the amount on my expense report, and it offsets my other gaming losses at the location, reimbursements, or possibly even paying the majority of my fee immediately and have a small check come in the mail.

I know that this is pretty long, but I hope everyone will see things a little more clearly.

Thanks for the input, jangler64.

While some of the posts above may be slightly negative in tone, I certainly don't see this thread as bashing the MSC. The OP claims there are better companies to work for. I think that might be true. Mandy added one short post that appeared to be taking a jab at lazy or inexperienced shoppers and another forum member appeared to be offended by that. Yet another member was concerned about not being able to keep winnings and then some final concerns about the fees being a bit low for what was asked.

You have reported that the fees are reasonable, and that sounds about right. All casino shops are a little different, but it sounds from what you say that there certainly are worse casino shops, and I can attest to the fact that there are better ones. I work for one casino that pays me in advance for all expenses, AND lets me keep any winnings that I receive. If I manage to come out ahead with gambling, I am free to keep the entire advance as a shop fee. That's a great shop! I wish it were available more often, and it never hits a job board....because it truly is one of the best paying shops in the industry. Once your shops have to go out to the boards to attract shoppers, there's a pretty good change you are probably not amongst the highest paying MSCs in the industry.

My hope was simply that there would be some disclosure to go along with any claims that have been made about this MSC and we have a bit of that now. Sounds like CHC offers reasonable fees, and is communicative and helpful to existing shoppers. They also seem to have a high expectation for what is required of shoppers and potentially equally high degree of self-importance that may rub shoppers the wrong way.

No you don't get to keep their winnings but their report is virtually to every other casino ive done for other clients. There wasn't a single out of line or unsual request in there except there being a chance you might have to make 20 bucks last 30 minutes at a slot machine which is silly.

The on the phone person I talked to did a good job explaining things and it's quite clear they have had issues with people not following directions properly. Apparently there confusion on what "You are required to get all names of staff and are allowed to ask if their badge is not showing" and jobs are being rejected. The no keeping of winnings was a big bummer though and you're also not allowed to use your own cash during the assignment so everything is tracked through your players card.

I anticipate the assignment will take 2-3 hours on site and the report another 90 minutes max. Its' your typical casino job so youre just doing several little reports. The largest one will likely be for your food assignment and all the other aspects are going to be maybe as big as this post was. Assuming you took proper notes on site and key things in when ya get home it doesn't appear too bad. My first one though I had a negative reaction. I did so poorly score wise and it took so long. I was a newer shopper for casinos and was my first multi shop (one job with a bunch of standard mystery shops all at once) Now though since ive got a system I'm pretty confident.

Will give a final review afterwards. The fee and dinner is okay, and I will consider the job again on those terms assuming I can trim down the total on site time to about 2 hours and report to one. The only thing you get ot keep is any giveaways and all points earned on your players card. >They do the job often so if the rewards are worth it (somehow i doubt it) then it might be viable. Otherwise it's one of those I'll fill if I got nothing better to do that day because the hourly rate isn't enough for me to make a special trip or prioritize it above other things.

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.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2015 11:11PM by jrossetti.

Wow. Thank you for your very thorough and honest review, including admitting your own mistakes. That's not always easy to do. It actually lends credence to the entire post - which I read from beginning to end. That's unusual for me as I tend to get bored easily and skip or skim the long posts.

I still went and did the job as best as possible but man that tested my patience. I'm glad I am a huge foodie. For us the food ended up making it about a 12 or so per hour job for one person. Not super terrible but not worth it still IMO. There's just too many other shops that you can make a lot more on and way less stressful.

I'll try anyones job once lol.

I am getting so sick & tired of all these Mystery Shopping companies! They all suck in one way or another! They want you to memorize stuff that no one can memorize without some help. How the hell can you go in and order a food item at a sandwich shop with 3 different stations & you're supposed to tell them to the second what time you entered the store and what time to the very second you reached each section but not write it down? And then it takes 20-30 min to fill out all their stupid questions when you get home. And for what? A free sandwich? That's B.S.!

I am getting so sick & tired of all these Mystery Shopping companies! They all suck in one way or another! They want you to memorize stuff that no one can memorize without some help.

I can't memorize @#$%& the first time. I keep a copy of instructions on my smartphone, and I use an audio recorder, or text notes, to myself so I dont forget them or can at least go back and review.

I just want to be clear that I did not witness anything unprofessional that offended me personally. I was annoyed i was being asked for reports before the 24 hour window, but I was not hassled about it after the second time I was asked. My issue soley resides with the reimbursement vs the effort and that will change if and when they are unable to find shoppers to fill their jobs and probably not a minute before that. An MSP's job as with any other business is to find the cheapest way to get the job done that they can and I can't fault them for that.

Casino jobs are tedioius by nature, but if you have exceptional notes it was all literally filling in the blanks, and then a narrative about the interaction. Its simply no different than any other job.

My report was accepted today with one negative about it which was that I wrote the descriptions all wrong. I'm taking that as in I didn't follow their formatting, which is entirely possible. She said all of the right info was there and would let me do another one.

I will, if there's entertainment, or either a higher reimbursement or can keep winnings, otherwise no way. For someone who doesn't mind closer to minimum wage you CAN get that much out of these jobs assuming you take good notes. Really the key thing I can give is...take...good...notes. Every single time there is an interaction you have to text/read out to your audio recorder, a note. Every time. 100% of the time. To be honest, 100% of jobs are a piece of cake if you do it that way which is why I do. You're literally just doing multiple choice tests with the teachers key in hand at that point with an essay question for every narrative (which is easy...IF you got the notes)

Under no circumstance should any newbie or learning individual consider this assignment. You're going to murder a child or at least kick a puppy if you do. I repeat, newbies or first time casino people may want to avoid this unless youre an exceptional note taker.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2015 05:10AM by jrossetti.

Back to my post above
Now I know why they did not want to send me a shop form to review before accepting

I don't think I could do a shop where I have to rely on my audio recorder that much. I'm so afraid it will shut off without my knowledge. I once had my app close on my cell during a FF shop and that was enough for me to not want to trust electronic equipment. Even in my full-time career I did undercover audio/video with very high-tech equipment that failed. It just makes me too nervous. I don't know how y'all do it. Much respect to video shoppers and those who consistently use audio recorders with success. Electronics hate me.

I think I love you Mr Rossetti. Thanks for the info. Not a chance I'll be doing these. I haven't done a casino job for under $300-$500 (fee) in years.

Thanks for the feedback, J Rossetti.

Taking the concept all casino shops having variances into account, I still contend that there are both better and worse casino shops. The offensive part to me is the apparent attitude from the MSC staff, and their lack of understanding about where they really stand in terms of quality of fees for the work required.

While some MSCs are extremely vocal about how much they appreciate shoppers, there is also that feeling you get from other MSCs that seem to have an attitude about shoppers being somehow lucky to be able to perform assignments for them. While we (shoppers) may receive $45 for our time on a single assignment, it seems apparent that the partners who operate this MSC make a living from it. IMHO, some appreciation for the people who make your business possible would go much further than hurling insults at shoppers who take issue with your fee structure.

jrossetti's review of his assignment with CHC Solutions, along with Steve's comments, might make a good article for the magazine.

You need to pay shoppers for what the client wants. YOU got Nothin without a good shopper. WAKE UP!