Sorry MDavisnowell but I must completely disagree with you on offering an opinion. Luckygirl is correct, she has no clue why an employee might give bad service, nor is it her job to speculate. In fact, doing so is a guaranteed rejection from this MSC. I, too, was contacted in an afternoon and told they needed additional information by that evening or my shop of a massage service would be rejected, even though all information was filled out. In fact, I was told that if I did not write a minimum of 4 paragraphs about the actual massage itself, and a minimum of one paragraph for every other area on the questionnaire (even though every area had a narrative already), I would have my shop rejected. I let the shop get rejected and will never work with them again.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2015 07:40PM by HughMannity.

@squireparty wrote:

@nanabelle wrote:

No jobs in my area but they have a glaring TYPO on my job board about people "coping and pasting"......LOL

LOL I'm going to burrow this phrase if I may and drop it into conversation once and awhile. Sorry, it's going to be awhile,
I'm coping and pasting lol lol lol.

Have a hard time coping with my son-in-law I was pasting him all over the sidewalk when the police showed up. The wife the daughter and the grandkids all said that he fell. I was just trying to help him up and then I fell on top of him thats why my knuckles are bruised.

Well, my message from yesterday has been removed from this forum and I have no clue why. I did an $18 shop for them and about 10 days later, I get an email stating that my shop is being rejected because I failed to respond to their "numerous requests for additional information". I never got an email or phone call from anyone asking for additional information. (yes, I checked my spam and junk mail). I have done quite a few shops for Sentry and never had this happen before. I have sent several emails to the scheduler and the person who sent me the email about the rejection and have not had the courtesy of a reply from either of them.

@lkshopper52 wrote:

Well, my message from yesterday has been removed from this forum and I have no clue why.

I don't think your message from yesterday was removed, there is just more than one Sentry thread. Here is your message from yesterday: [www.mysteryshopforum.com]

To see all your messages, click on your name and you can see a list of all 15 of your posts.

@lkshopper52 wrote:

Well, my message from yesterday has been removed from this forum and I have no clue why. I did an $18 shop for them and about 10 days later, I get an email stating that my shop is being rejected because I failed to respond to their "numerous requests for additional information". I never got an email or phone call from anyone asking for additional information. (yes, I checked my spam and junk mail). I have done quite a few shops for Sentry and never had this happen before. I have sent several emails to the scheduler and the person who sent me the email about the rejection and have not had the courtesy of a reply from either of them.

At this point I'm considering myself lucky, very lucky indeed that their software is so shopper unfriendly and that I was not able to submit my completed shop.....I have done more research here on the board in regards to the Sentry Brand and what can I say? I just feel lucky that I wasn't even able to submit a shop for them. One thing I have learned here - any new MSC I sign up for, I will do my due dilligence from this point forward. Certainly there have been enough negative posts of Sentry here to get the general sense I shouldn't have signed up for them - I have to take responsibilty for this and in the future do my due dilligence.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2015 03:44PM by squireparty.

I did want to say one positive thing about Sentry though - there is a scheduler there - her name is Kate - and she is an absolute gem. So understanding and easy to work with. My post here may not get her name up in lights but I did want to say something nice about one person I interacted with at Sentry.

@HughMannity wrote:

Sorry MDavisnowell but I must completely disagree with you on offering an opinion. Luckygirl is correct, she has no clue why an employee might give bad service, nor is it her job to speculate. In fact, doing so is a guaranteed rejection from this MSC. I, too, was contacted in an afternoon and told they needed additional information by that evening or my shop of a massage service would be rejected, even though all information was filled out. In fact, I was told that if I did not write a minimum of 4 paragraphs about the actual massage itself, and a minimum of one paragraph for every other area on the questionnaire (even though every area had a narrative already), I would have my shop rejected. I let the shop get rejected and will never work with them again.

If these requirements as to narrative and length of narrative were not made clear in the shopper guidelines, I would say you made the not only right choice, but the only choice. If they want that level of narrative fine but it needs to be made clear for shoppers - calling with a request for more info or we won't pay just doesn't cut it in my book. Once again, as long as this is made clear to shoppers upfront then I'm not down with bailing.....

squireparty

If you are going to refrain from shopping for companies that use the Prophet software, you are going to cross more than a dozen companies off of your list. Moreover, the issue you experienced could occur on any platform used by any mystery shopping company.

The issue that you experienced was caused by validation that is programmed into the form to prevent incorrect content from being submitted. While I understand that this can be frustrating, I don't see it as a reason to abandon the shop. In the same situation, most other shoppers would have simply saved their work and submitted a support ticket or contacted their scheduler for assistance. In fact, when our operations manager and I reviewed your shop, it only took a few minutes to determine what was wrong and how it could be corrected. Unfortunately, by this time you had already informed the scheduler and our operations manager that you were not going to complete the report.

I'm a little confused by your comments regarding being amazed that your account was deactivated (http://www.mysteryshopforum.com/read/6/434878/434967#msg-434967) becuase you stated "Should you need to deactivate me, I totally understand" in your email to the scheduler.

It is your perogative to discuss your experience with our company on a public forum, but I think you owe it to forum members and the company team members that you interact with to be accurate in your recollections. Our operations manager did offer to help you resolve the issue you encountered (as it is in our best interst to do everything we can to prevent a shop from being rejected or abandoned) but you kept telling her that it wasn't worth the time or effort. The issue you that you experienced may have been frustrating, but is not different than issues encountered by other shoppers each day. We would have loved to help with the issue if offered the opportunity.

I was very impressed with Dave at Sentry. He took the time to research an issue that I was having and we came to a mutually agreeable solution to the problem. I will continue to do shops for Sentry. I do agree that their website is confusion since they have changed over to the new system. It looks like the old system is still up and I sometimes get directed to the old site by mistake. I will be happy when the old site is gone completely.

Ok. Thanks for that information. I don't visit the forum very often.

I just had a horrible experience with them also, no problem with the scheduler, but the survey was all over the place and would negate my answers and tell me I was wrong etc and at the end it wouldn't accept it, around and around,and around it went till morning when I found a friendly/unfriendly reminder that it was overdue?
Ire submitted and was immediately told I had done 4 things incorrectly and needed clarification, then was switched to another editor, who treated me as a dumb animatron, who needed to jump at every concern, most of which were already answered if you read the report, which explicitly asked for no redundancy. All this all day while I've three other reports that payed more and zero problems. After resubmitting 4 more times, she decides that the person who asked me for my name, and I gave it to him was sposed to ask for the registry name, but that's NOT what they asked for they asked for MY name which I gave them. He was wearing earbuds and typing into a computer and waiting on two others, whicH I had already reported... So now the editor writes back you didn't give him the correct name therefore I cannot use your information this report is rejected. Oh by the way if you wait for 12 minutes to be assisted and you weren't assisted, and the report asks 'How long did it take to receive assistance' and you answer, '0' as I wasnt assisted. is this incorrect? I was in this big infants store for over 35 minutes for $8, plus 2+hours on the survey and 8 hours of snappy e mails
.I finally went beserk on her, Stefany, Jersey style! Mr. Dave retired me.

fabu's account was rejected because he:

- sent an abusive email, including profanity, to our editor
- did not perform the assignment according to the guidelines
- refused to revise the shop

I have had great experiences with Sentry though the reports are quite long, I will admit. They offer some great activity shops with Feedback Plus with awesome reimbursement and if you are lucky enough to get the Brazilian steakhouse, it makes the lower paying fast food shops worth it. The schedulers have been awesome, even when i have dined in rather than taken my order togo or vice versa, they work with me to get me reassigned and never are rude. Perhaps just like we as shoppers have bad days, the scheduler was having a bad day as well?

@nanabelle wrote:

No jobs in my area but they have a glaring TYPO on my job board about people "coping and pasting"......LOL

Clearly, they should have said "coping and pastaing" because when you can't cope, you really pasta!

@ShopSouthTexas wrote:

I have had great experiences with Sentry... if you are lucky enough to get the Brazilian steakhouse, it makes the lower paying fast food shops worth it. The schedulers have been awesome, even when i have dined in rather than taken my order togo or vice versa, they work with me to get me reassigned and never are rude.

I've done several burger and coffeehouse shops for Sentry and had minor problems with the software, but never with the schedulers and editors. To me, they seem like a good company that's currently going through so much restructuring that there are bound to be some things falling through the cracks. Certainly nothing to go ballistic over. I've backed off and haven't taken a shop from them for a little while, because they're doing a massive overhaul to their payment system... but when the dust settles, I've been planning on taking one of those churrascaria shops because it's right up my alley.

I used to do quite a few shops for Sentry when I lived in another part of the country. Now they only have the burger and brazil shops in my area. I tried the burger shops once and decided it was not worth my time for the payment amount vs. the level of detail and length of the report. I would like to do the brazil shops, but they specify no kids on the shops. Still when I did more shops for them, they always paid (after 3 months on my last shop for them in Feb.) and I while the website is cumbersome, I was able to find my way around it. The schedulers have always been communicative, especially Jennifer. I like that Dave monitors the forums and is proactive in addressing issues. I don't have any issues with them other than I think the burger shop is too long of a report for the commission. I don't like companies setting up accounts for me automatically. I would rather receive a notice and do it myself, and honestly, I have never heard of any other companies with that type of practice. I'm not sure if they set one up for me since it's been quite a while since I've shopped for them. I suppose there is some good and some bad with Sentry. The best part of being an IC is we can decide for ourselves, vs. my FTJ, where I have to take my assignments like it or not.

I attempted to revise this at least 4-5 times during the course of an afternoon, As stated earlier the editor was acting as if I was an animated computerized person and treating me as such, till 6 pm when she just stuck out ner lil tongue and said rejected... its ok tho as you see I've a 9.5 rating with your company... G'BYE!

Prophet is not difficult to use. Sassie is much more intuitive and I prefer working on that platform, but as Dave said, if you shy away from companies using Prophet, you will miss out on some great companies and opportunities. You just have to get used to it.

Yes, yes, Kate is amazing and an honest, helpful, and attentive scheduler as well. It's funny that she worked with the other notoriously mean editor/associate for an otherwise fantastic company and got out while she could . Would go out of my way, and have, to help her with anything she needed if able to. The best!

I second this. Kate is a gem and Sentry is very lucky to have her.

I did their shops for peanuts and they deactivated me for not seeing a follow up request a week later. Never bothered telling me. I didn't even know for months because one of their schedulers still sent me requests begging me to do the shops. Just poor communication on their part. I see they still can't fill the shops in my area.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2015 02:49AM by Sportsfamily1215.

In my market and in my experience, I can make a lot more money in much less time with Marketforce and Maritz than I can with Sentry Marketing. Now that they changed the Mexican Food guidelines to only allow for two tacos instead of a burrito or sandwich, I won't be doing any of those shops anymore either. The only thing that keeps me from deactivating myself from their system is a nearby hotel that has stay/bar/restaurant opportunities that are decent.

I am still considering ditching them, however, because of all the annoying emails I get. So many URGENT opportunities that are so URGENT that they do not have a bonus. Or, they offer a bonus, but the email won't tell you how much the bonus is. Then, when I research the bonus, I find that the bonus is only 1 or 2 dollars. The emails are often phrased as requesting personal favors for the scheduler and/or company. "Can you help us out again?" "We urgently need this shop done, can you help us out?" And despite this, the shops are still offered at a pitiful amount of pay compared to the amount of work required. The new BBB shops are the personification of this company's way of doing business.

Mod note: name of hotel removed to confirm with Forum's rule of not linking an MSC with its clients. This is probably also a breach of your ICA with the MSC

You can turn the email option off.

Note to mod, you removed one ICA violation and missed a second