Has ANYBODY been paid from GFK recently?

They don't answer my emails, got good scores, but nothing for pay. What's UPPP?

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More Discussions About GFK Mystery Shopping (All Companies)

If it has been over 21 days since your shop has been completed, file a MSPA Code of Ethics complaint. The form can be found here [www.mspa-na.org]

Arguing with fools is like playing chess with a pigeon...
...No matter how good you are, the pigeon will s@^t on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Not scheduling for ANY company.

Received very large $$$ on 7/24/15 (in accordance with their payment schedule) via PayPal. While I criticize their mode of operation they always have paid me on time and are current.

Several shoppers have informed me that they are currently late on payments. One shopper is on day 25.

@parkcitybrian wrote:

Received very large $$$ on 7/24/15 (in accordance with their payment schedule) via PayPal. While I criticize their mode of operation they always have paid me on time and are current.

Arguing with fools is like playing chess with a pigeon...
...No matter how good you are, the pigeon will s@^t on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Not scheduling for ANY company.

@DanteScheduler wrote:

If it has been over 21 days since your shop has been completed, file a MSPA Code of Ethics complaint. The form can be found here [www.mspa-na.org]

Really? One day over their payment schedule and you'd file a complaint against the company? Not call the company and make sure the OPs emails are going through and there isn't some kind of miscommunication?

Shopper in California's Bay Area

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2015 03:52PM by CaliGirl925.

When the company ignores your attempts at communication, then it comes to that. Do you think they accept your shop report if it's late? It's all about mutual respect, or lack thereof.

They require shops to be reported within 12 hours of shop completion. Their own ICA states that shops are paid via paypal within 3 weeks of shop completion. Therefore, when the MSC does not pay out within the time frame outlined in the ICA, they have breached the contract and need to be held accountable.

@CaliGirl925 wrote:

@DanteScheduler wrote:

If it has been over 21 days since your shop has been completed, file a MSPA Code of Ethics complaint. The form can be found here [www.mspa-na.org]

Really? One day over their payment schedule and you'd file a complaint against the company? Not call the company and make sure the OPs emails are going through and there isn't some kind of miscommunication?

Arguing with fools is like playing chess with a pigeon...
...No matter how good you are, the pigeon will s@^t on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Not scheduling for ANY company.

@DanteScheduler wrote:

...
They require shops to be reported within 12 hours of shop completion. Their own ICA states that shops are paid via paypal within 3 weeks of shop completion. Therefore, when the MSC does not pay out within the time frame outlined in the ICA, they have breached the contract and need to be held accountable.

Sure, but that's the nuclear option. How would we on this board react if an MSC deactivated a shopper the first time a report was not submitted when the 12 hour deadline arrives?

I know you have a history with GFK. I'm not defending them, but it seems like other shoppers (on this thread and others) are getting paid. If it were me, I'd want to try another method of contact with them before immediately resorting to filing a complaint. There are other threads full of issues with email addresses, so the fact that the OP hasn't been paid by Paypal (associated to her email address), and hasn't received an email response might be related. I think your reaction is a little too severe for the situation described by the OP, but you probably think I'm giving them too much benefit of the doubt, so I'm OK with agreeing to disagree.

Shopper in California's Bay Area

GfK has generally been pretty good about paying out on time within their guidelines, with a couple of exceptions in the past few months.

Currently they *are* running behind. My last payment from them was on 8/03, with the first shop in that batch being on 7/18. (16 days, awesome!). They had a bunch of payments go into pending today which *should* pay out today (this is the late batch), with the first shop in that batch being on 7/25 (24 days, not so awesome.)

Another exception that stands out in my mind was a shop that was paid out on 6/23, shop conducted on 5/30 (24 days, again).

I did talk to someone at GfK who said they're working on going back to how payments used to be, which was like clockwork. I used to be able to set my clock by GfK paying out on Friday, within 2-3 weeks of shop completion. Looking forward to it going back to being that way.

It may not seem like a huge deal to some, but for me, I will undervalue my time a bit and do work for GfK if I need fast cash, knowing that I can pump cash in a little quicker than I can working for other MSCs, even if the value of my time per hour comes out being less on one of their 5 hour audits than it would doing other work.

Somewhere in the Midwest, shopping / auditing full time since 2014. Will use PV-500 for food!

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2015 06:41PM by AlexG.

I've only done one shop for them recently. Got paid my $20 on time. Maybe it's different for the ones that are owed a lot more? Could be if they're having cash flow issues...

it's because Donna and a couple others dont oversee the mystery shopping anymore. She was the one that kept it organized. Now it's nothing but disorganization. With the exception of one shop recently I've been paid on-time. I just account for that sloppiness by charging a higher bonus then I normally would. I've received huge bonuses for shops that normally pay 15 so their lack of organization is costing them more money.

= + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = +
There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==
When you try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody

I just hope they clean their act up. Payment is now "pending", but nothing in my PayPal as of 7pm. Don't expect to see the cash until tomorrow.

Somewhere in the Midwest, shopping / auditing full time since 2014. Will use PV-500 for food!

I received my August 5th and my July 27th payments like clockwork. I haven't had any work with them since because nothing is in my area, but so far so good with me.

I feel your pain. I was terminated from the [client name deleted] program due to a false allegation made from a manager about me due to her not taking responsibility for a failed audit. The first time I audited that location, the manager on duty informed me that she requested that he be mean and nasty to all auditors, so clearly she had some mental issues. It looks like another auditor was terminated from the program after auditing this [client name deleted] right before me and I received grades of 10/10 on all audits last month when I was terminated and I performed the audit flawlessly. I didn't get paid for the audit and I met up with 3 attorneys and apparently the only way they could help me is if I file a class action lawsuit which requires 50 people in New York so I will fill out the Code of Ethics complaint.

Daniel

Mod note: Please do not name the client as the MSC has already been mentioned. It is against forum rules and an ICA violation.

Actually, everyone that was owed money should have received their PayPal deposits.

Arguing with fools is like playing chess with a pigeon...
...No matter how good you are, the pigeon will s@^t on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Not scheduling for ANY company.

8/19/15 @ 8:57am (mountain time)...just received PayPal notification of a large deposit made by GFK for assignments that I had submitted on 7/27/15. While GFK has had, and continues to have major issues with their assignments, contradictory and confusing guidelines and low fee structure (insist on bonuses, btw) they do pay in accordance with their stated schedule (at least for me).

I received payment with full $100 bonus today for a shop done 7/31.
While there are legitimate gripes about GFK with misleading reports, unclear guidelines, many unresponsive schedulers, low offered pay...

They CONTINUE to be reliable with on time pay and fast pay for this industry. I wait for bonused shops.

I think the gripes above about payment issues are unfounded .
Try and keep the griping on legitimate points

A "gripe" about late payment is a legitimate gripe. Other shoppers were, in fact, paid late. Some by as much as a week. Do you think if a shopper tried to complete a report a week late, they would accept it? I know they wouldn't. Your payments may not have been late; however, the shoppers that commented were being truthful; so their complaints were valid. Most MSC's ICA are very slanted in favor of the MSC and clients, but in this case, the ICA was violated by GfK and needs to be addressed.

@jackaroe wrote:

I received payment with full $100 bonus today for a shop done 7/31.
While there are legitimate gripes about GFK with misleading reports, unclear guidelines, many unresponsive schedulers, low offered pay...

They CONTINUE to be reliable with on time pay and fast pay for this industry. I wait for bonused shops.

I think the gripes above about payment issues are unfounded .
Try and keep the griping on legitimate points

Arguing with fools is like playing chess with a pigeon...
...No matter how good you are, the pigeon will s@^t on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Not scheduling for ANY company.

I did a hugely bonused shop on 7/30 and was paid in full on 8/19.

I was paid yesterday for a shop completed 7/26.

I was paid yesterday for a shop completed on 7/28. It was also a low value ($20).

Although payment from 7/25 did take a little over 21 days to come in, I have to hand it to GfK. They paid out today for a shop conducted two weeks ago. Here's to hoping they stay with it!

Somewhere in the Midwest, shopping / auditing full time since 2014. Will use PV-500 for food!

Hopefully, they were able to fix what was wrong and maintain a payment schedule that is in line with their ICA going forward.

@AlexG wrote:

Although payment from 7/25 did take a little over 21 days to come in, I have to hand it to GfK. They paid out today for a shop conducted two weeks ago. Here's to hoping they stay with it!

Arguing with fools is like playing chess with a pigeon...
...No matter how good you are, the pigeon will s@^t on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Not scheduling for ANY company.

I was paid 8/21 for three retail audits conducted the first week of August.

Schedulers for GFK must have the most difficult job. Between the ridiculous tests that actually make the instructions more confusing and the irritating hidden questions, I am never doing another shop for them... no matter how "easy" they say their shops are.

I just got paid for the (retail store) audit I completed in July. Luckily I was prepared for getting terminated for any nonsense reason and I had a backup job just in case so that's working out for me. So now GFK is struggling to assign (retail store) audits in my region because they decided to fire most of the auditors that would audit these locations. It was their decision to self destruct themselves like this, I feel bad for the schedulers who are trying so hard to assign these locations now but not for management, they did this to themselves. They fire contractors now with no proof, just smoke or made up propaganda. It sucks because those audits were really unique and easy to perform after a while.

Mod note: client name removed as it is against Forum rules and probably also a breach of your ICA to link the MSC with its clients

I have been paid for retail audits, it seems to take a bit but I am patient. After all, they were extremely patient when my reports were late while I learned to be more tech savvy.

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