With Maritz trying to post more and more of their bonuses exclusively online (i.e. schedulers saying there's a bonus on it, but we [the schedulers] can't see it, so please check it out), there is a definite flaw in their system (other than the fact that their schedulers can't see the bonuses on our boards!)
The bonuses disappear at a certain radius from your home zip code, and I'm not sure what that radius is. Further, I think that there must be another factor involved, something like if you've done the location before, you can see the bonus no matter what the distance is from your home zip code.
Finally, I don't know if the bonuses are specific to the shopper. You may see a $6 bonus at 20 miles out, but I may see it as $17 at 50 miles from me.
Some of you know each other and know where each other are. If there are two shoppers who live 20-50 miles apart, would you be willing to compare notes on the bonuses that you each see on your individual board? If Shopper A and Shopper B live 30 miles apart, west to east, and Shopper B sees a bonus on a location 30 miles to the east that she has never done before, and Shopper A can also see it, then we know that the bonus radius is at least 60 miles. If Shopper A can see a bonus 50 miles to his west, and Shopper A can't see it, then we know the radius is less than 80 miles.
Easy to determine would be whether there's a difference in the bonus being offered to each shopper.
My goal is two-fold.
1) Let the schedulers know when they're calling and asking me to sign up online with the bonus on a distant shop that I actually can't see it because I can't see any that are more than X miles away from me (and to tell their supervisor that they really will have to entertain an offer from me, instead of ignorantly and repeatedly referring me to an invisible online bonus).
2) Try to get them to change their system so that we can see all the bonuses everywhere. I'd like to provide accurate information to each Team in the hopes that someone will forward the concern to IT.

If anyone conducts this experiment, feel free to PM me if you don't to post your findings under your own Forum pseudonym.

If I have any success with helping to change their system, I'd next like to convince their higher-ups to make it possible for each scheduler to see what is posted on each shopper's board, and to make it possible for shoppers to distinguish on the top level of the job board whether a shop is monthly or quarterly.

That may be nice and I hope you can get the cooperation that you need, but I gave up on that company awhile back so I am not able to help.

I've noticed that the "Gold" (or bonused) shops will only appear in what Maritz defines to be my home area. This really stinks, because if I'm trying to see a bonus when I'm on a long distance route, I can't see them. I've also attempted to ask their schedulers, and it seems as though they can't see them either.
I'm not sure what radius I can see bonuses w/Maritz at, but I wish they'd post them for all shoppers so I don't have to negotiate a bonus (that may be smaller than what's actually on the board), or I could snag a shop as I'm passing through a small town anyone? Some are in the middle of the tinieist towns ever...) and not waste my time doing it at base pay.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2015 07:42PM by AlexG.

I see the bonuses even for places thar are too far for me to shop. I do see bonuses for cities that i have never been too.

I am seeing 13 gas station shops in mine (does not change whether I set the search radius from 1 to 80 miles).

The bonuses range from $10 to $40.

The farthest away (225 miles one way-small town) is a $40 bonus. The next farthest - 215 miles) is a $10 bonus. That one is a college town. Similar pattern as I work my way up the list.

I have noticed some of this too. What really irks me is that the schedulers call and tell you to go to the site to find out about bonuses and such. What is the point of calling me if you can't tell me what the bonus is and can sign me up then and there? I'm not sure if this is a cost saving tactic to try and get shoppers to use the website more, but I don't always have time to get on and hunt around for shops on their site, especially when they only offer an additional $5 for something 25 miles away. If someone calls me with a decent shop with a bonus, I will take it, but when they just refer me to their site, they are pretty much just wasting both of our time. I have a feeling this will not work out the way they planned. Hopefully, when they can't get all of their assignments done on schedule, they will pull their head and go back to the way they used to do it. I'm not a diehard Maritz fan, but I used to do a good amount of bonused banks and gas stations for them, but the number is dwindling with their new tactics.

I too gave up on Maritz. Lovely people, but their system was just too inefficient, their pay too low, and their way of dealing with technology too 1990s. And yeah, I know - my leaving them means more work for others in my neck of the woods. That's fine.

You're right, they're a little backward on the tech. I inquired about a problem with a paycheck and discovered their system will only list a certain number of jobs on the stub. Therefore the amount was too much for the numbers listed and didn't match up. They solved it. This time they sent me two checks for the same pay period. All right then, got a work around going here.

I find it very difficult to determine if I have been paid the proper amount on a check after doing many shops in a 2-week period. One of their new schedulers failed to add my $15 bonus to each of three shops and silly me, I didn't document the bonuses. After going to a lot of trouble to do the shops, when I invoiced I was just offered the flat rate for the home improvement shop. They had no record of my request for a bonus, though I had replied to their "make us an offer" email, and these shops had a small $3 bonus on the day that I asked for $15. So when you get a check for a different amount than what you expected it is very hard to determine what shop of the many wasn't paid off as agreed.

And the problems with seeking bonuses--from the above it appears that some shoppers see bonuses 250 miles away from home, while myself and most others only see them 100 miles.

@jilummer wrote:

I find it very difficult to determine if I have been paid the proper amount on a check after doing many shops in a 2-week period. One of their new schedulers failed to add my $15 bonus to each of three shops and silly me, I didn't document the bonuses. After going to a lot of trouble to do the shops, when I invoiced I was just offered the flat rate for the home improvement shop. They had no record of my request for a bonus, though I had replied to their "make us an offer" email, and these shops had a small $3 bonus on the day that I asked for $15. So when you get a check for a different amount than what you expected it is very hard to determine what shop of the many wasn't paid off as agreed.

I totally disagree. If you keep a detailed Excel spreadsheet or other electronic record of all shops including base pay, bonus pay, reimbursements, mileage, etc., it is very easy to know exactly who still owes you money, when you got paid and how much. As mentioned many times on this forum, there is a spreadsheet already created for MS'ers until the New Members section of this forum.

I use my own spreadsheet and with a click or two, I can filter by MSC, by client name, by date and many other options. It takes about 10-20 seconds to find what I need. You don't need to be real tech savvy to use a spreadsheet that has already been set up. Creating one from scratch is a bit more of a challenge but there are many resources out there.

P.S. Maritz prints the Job IDs right on the check stub. Since I have a column for Job IDs on my Excel spreadsheet, I just look up the Job ID, check that the amounts match my records, deposit the check via an app on my cell phone and mark the shop as paid in the paid column. Easy Peasy.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2015 03:11PM by Sybil2.

@Sybil2 wrote:

@jilummer wrote:

If you keep a detailed Excel spreadsheet or other electronic record of all shops including base pay, bonus pay, reimbursements, mileage, etc., it is very easy to know exactly who still owes you money, when you got paid and how much.

My issue had everything to do with Maritz having no record of my bonuses, but not with my knowing how much they owed me. If they don't have the record because the scheduler failed to make a handwritten note (Martiz said this is policy), they can't pay the bonus. Also, my experience is the same as mdavis above... not all of the shop numbers are printed on a receipt. I did 52 shops, and the three that are in question don't appear on the check, so I have to call accounting to get clarification.

As for all the data entry that you do to track your shops, I'm not a full-time shopper so I couldn't justify spending the time to do more than a simple save page of the bonuses offered. I forgot to do this on the three shops so I am not getting paid for them.

jillumer, here's how to document what you're due on any shop with Maritz. Click on the job number. Now look at the page and you'll see something with a link like "A list of all shops for this project" or something like that. Click on that link and you'll see a page you can print that shows you exactly what they're going to pay. If you don't see the bonus on that page you won't be paid that bonus. Do this BEFORE you do the shop. For proof of bonus due, staple this page into your job folder.

If an agreed upon bonus doesn't show, call and ask about it. If they have no record you have time to straighten it out or tell them no thanks, can't do it.

@jilummer wrote:

As for all the data entry that you do to track your shops, I'm not a full-time shopper so I couldn't justify spending the time to do more than a simple save page of the bonuses offered. I forgot to do this on the three shops so I am not getting paid for them.

I have a FT job and MS on the side. I also go to school but I have the summer off right now. Keeping good bookkeeping records is just as important for FT shoppers as PT shoppers. You still have to report ALL of your PT income to the IRS.

MDavis brings up a good point about printing out the list of all assigned shops. If a bonus was negotiated, it is listed in one of those columns. If you don't see it, you need to call them right away AND before you actually perform the shop. Most MSCs will put bonus amounts in an email so you have written proof but Maritz is not very email-user friendly.

Once I had a bonus not show up when I went to invoice. The scheduler had forgotten to add it. I called him personally, and he remembered being on the phone with me and the two of us coming to an agreement on the amount. He contacted accounting and they fixed it, although I had to go ahead and invoice for base pay before they could.
My point being, they are not trying to cheat anyone. Human error happens. Call them and try to work it out.

I'm just guessing that this project would be a massive violation of the ICA. Kinda like AlexG's post up there naming a client.

What post?

Please keep me posted in case anything can be done to change how anything works anywhere.

Sybil is right about keeping good records. I had to learn the hard way. I agree Maritz is a great company and I like doing jobs that they offer. My mistake was, and I take full responsibility for, not saving any record of the bonus that was negotiated. Had I done so before I invoiced the shop I would have noticed that the bonus wasn't listed. The scheduler's told me that if I had contacted them before I reported the shop that they could have added the bonus. My error and it cost me $45 ($15 bonus x 3 home improvement shops). Even the small $3 bonus that was being offered when I got the email asking me to make an offer was not added to the shop.

Now, if Maritz could figure out an invoicing system a little more like Market Force that would be so good, because its so easy to invoice at Market Force and I've never had a bonus not show up on the CPI. But I'm not complaining, I'm very happy with Maritz.

Thanks for taking ownership of your oversight. More forum members need to follow your example.

@bgriffin wrote:

I'm just guessing that this project would be a massive violation of the ICA.

I had thought of that, but don't think it would have to be. It could be something so simple as saying that in a particular town, the only GS shows a bonus of $X, accomplished entirely without naming the client.

I thought maybe I could try this on my own and changed my address and preferred zip code to a rural area far, far away where there would have to be many bonused locations. Lots of shops came up in the new area's search. No bonuses on any of them. Most of the shops with bonuses in my actual location showed up again on that 30 mile search as an appendage to the search. Could it be that what we're being shown is tied in to our User ID and not our location?

OK, I'm obsessing. When I use the search feature "View Available Shops at Previously Visited Locations," none of the shops have bonuses vs. the same locations being bonused on my regular search.

Yes, you are obsessing. I honestly believe that your time could be better spent.

Agreed that you can back check commissions through a spreadsheet but it would be a lot easier and more convenient if Maritz put both the job number and amount paid next to it. Shouldn't be that difficult. Any discrepencies in payment and bonuses would be immediately evident.

I agree it's hard to tell what's what on those Maritz checks. I check off the paid folders and add them up and if it's a real close ball park I call it quits. I have the skills to account to the penny but it's not worth it to me. If I call them up and say "hey, you're minus $2.79" it will be a waste of my time for whatever we work out. Close enough is close enough.