Inspections and grocery shops

Wow, I must be doing something wrong. Whenever I ask for PAD, I say it's for travel expenses and my request just sits for days until another shopper gets the job. Did you get an extra $18 in PAD, or just the regular fee plus PAD total of $18? If you got an extra $18 on top of the regular pay, KUDOS to you!

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More About Grocery Store Mystery Shopping

@HonnyBrown Are these pretty quick and easy? And how much PAD did you get? One is available in my area.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2016 10:45AM by Kristie6923.

@xenshopper wrote:

Wow, I must be doing something wrong. Whenever I ask for PAD, I say it's for travel expenses and my request just sits for days until another shopper gets the job. Did you get an extra $18 in PAD, or just the regular fee plus PAD total of $18? If you got an extra $18 on top of the regular pay, KUDOS to you!

$18 on top. I think i am the only person in my city who takes the inspections.

I like Trendsource. I do shops for them all the time because I get my money back for groceries. It helps limit my weekly spending and it works. They are easy..they are always calling asking if I could help out. Staff are great. Pay is low but you can also get distance pay if asked.

Yes, I requested and received PAD of $10.00 recently because they needed 2 stores done PRONTO, but the stores were at opposite ends of the city! So I asked for and received the $10.00 PAD, on top of the regular pay. I appreciated that.

I applied for a business inspection with Trendsource several weeks ago and asked for a PAD. They gave it the job to someone else and listed me as backup. The MSC called me Thursday and asked if I was still interested as there had been an issue with their first choice. I took the inspection and called the contact to make an appointment. She insisted she was not really the contact and tried to push off the appointment until a new contact person started working in July. After several emails back and forth with Trendsource, they have put it on hold. All this backstory gets me to a question. Does Trendsource pay anything in this situation? I am already in to this for some time but can't find any documentation to cover this. Ideas?

Some days you just have to create your own sunshine.

I have been paid a partial fee by TrendSource when I made phone calls and for one reason or another, the client cancelled the request. If it is on Hold, it might eventually happen. TrendSouce would probably just pay the original fee, but it you email then and outline how many phone calls you made and the time, you might get an extra $4 or $6 or maybe a little more.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

You should have some documentation because you are supposed to log the calls you make or receive, so if that is in the system, you should at least get a few bucks out of it...

I have logged my calls in their system and have the multiple emails back and forth with TrendSource. I just wonder how long I need to wait until this is closed out.

Some days you just have to create your own sunshine.

@mamx44 wrote:

I have logged my calls in their system and have the multiple emails back and forth with TrendSource. I just wonder how long I need to wait until this is closed out.

I had an instance when I called and they had the wrong contact listed. It was on hold a long time. Finally it came off hold and it came back out as an available inspection. I accepted it again only to find out the contact person wasn't corrected. I explained the situation again and it was canceled. I was paid a small fee for those situations (can't remember how much) and eventually did the inspection. I didn't have to do anything more to get paid. I didn't even expect payment so was surprised when I saw it in my checking account. As far as back and forth emails, I have had all great experiences with Trendsource and they respond to emails quickly. Right now I have an inspection on hold because the business that is to be inspected has not finished being built. I knew this before calling because it is a huge project in my city. Bummer, that is the one I got the $18 PAD.....and that building is nowhere close to being complete.

I've had pretty good experience with these shops, and I enjoy doing something different that requires person to person conversation. Some of these are ridiculously easy--just a couple of exterior photographs of a business and a handful of questions about its location. Others are more complicated. Most that I've done have been a distance from my rural location, so I always request and usually get PAD, and I try to combine these with other routed shops or trips. Some of the more challenging ones have been large, rural properties which were difficult to effectively photograph, so it's good to always Google the location and get a streetview so that you know what to expect and what kind of footwear is required, etc.

Background checks are common when you are performing shops that allow you to get confidential information from the company you are reporting on. Depending on the work, some companies even require drug tests to work for some clients. I have worked for TrendSource for years, and they are a great company. Six dollars is cheap, and like others I have paid more. From TrendSource, you can request "PAD" which is additional travel pay, but is not always approved.

I have worked for them for several years, and recommended them several times.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2016 05:10PM by rebshopin.

Whether or not your PAD is accepted is normally due to the availability of other shoppers in the area. In their FAQ section, they do offer a recommendation for PAD amounts.

I have been working as a mystery shopper for 12 years. From my experience, the regular fees offered by almost all companies equate to minimum wage. The key is to sign up for multiple companies and do shops from 2 or more companies on the same day and in the same area. As we are Independent Contractors, we can do this. If you want to make more money you need to work for a company for awhile and get a reputation of being reliable and filing good reports, which is what I've done, and then schedulers start calling you and offering bonus pay.

Trendsource's jobs are pretty easy and straight forward, but geeez. The company's shop pay for the vast majority of assignments has to be among the lowest in the industry.

LOVE TREND SOURCE. I've been with them for years, the $6.00 background check is well worth it, you can deduct it at the end of the year, and no doubt you will get it back with first job. The longer you stay with them the better the shops become. Have to get your feet wet first, remember that. We all have paid our dues.....

@mamx44 wrote:

I applied for a business inspection with Trendsource several weeks ago and asked for a PAD. They gave it the job to someone else and listed me as backup. The MSC called me Thursday and asked if I was still interested as there had been an issue with their first choice. I took the inspection and called the contact to make an appointment. She insisted she was not really the contact and tried to push off the appointment until a new contact person started working in July. After several emails back and forth with Trendsource, they have put it on hold. All this backstory gets me to a question. Does Trendsource pay anything in this situation? I am already in to this for some time but can't find any documentation to cover this. Ideas?

@mamx44 wrote:

I applied for a business inspection with Trendsource several weeks ago and asked for a PAD. They gave it the job to someone else and listed me as a backup. The MSC called me Thursday and asked if I was still interested as there had been an issue with their first choice. I took the inspection and called the contact to make an appointment. She insisted she was not really the contact and tried to push off the appointment until a new contact person started working in July. After several emails back and forth with Trendsource, they have put it on hold. All this backstory gets me to a question. Does Trendsource pay anything in this situation? I am already into this for some time but can't find any documentation to cover this. Ideas?[/quote

After the same thing happened to me they paid me $3 for my time. I was glad to get something but TS is VERY cheap. They used to pay $25 for business inspections and lowered the pay to $17-21. I think for an inspector, a photographer and a report writer it should have stayed $25. There is also (as others have mentioned) a "preferred guy" in my area who gets most of the jobs. They even told me that, once. Also,as mentioned, any PAD requests usually sit for days until someone else gets the jobs. I don't work much for food, and I find their grocery shops to be too little money for too much trouble unless the store is very small. Unfortunately, for me, I LOVE business inspections. I just love them. So I do any I can get while grousing over how little pay I am offered.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2016 04:34PM by Crickettt.

Asking for PAD is risky, saying you most likely won't get the job. they'll find someone closer. Where I live, we stay awake to see when the jobs come in, and first to self-assign get it.....providing you don't ask for pad. I haven't paid for food in four years, do I like Trend Source...well, yes!!!!

Live consciously....

I'd like to add in CA where they are located, so many jobs, so little time, however, getting 8 grocery stores (that I shop in anyway), 19.00 adds up to 152.00 a month. I rarely get the business inspections because there is a very greedy shopper in my town who lives for them. I find their reports easy peasy!!

Live consciously....

Another comment about PAD--if you request PAD, TS sometimes calls and counteroffers with a lower PAD--just something to keep in mind. Much of this is dependent upon location. If you are in an urban environment with many shoppers, you likely won't get PAD. More rural areas have fewer shoppers but also fewer shops! I try to always value my drive time and auto expense. If you apply for PAD, expect it to take several days. Unless the job is overdue and urgent, TS will try to find someone closer and/or willing to do the job with lower or no PAD. Applying for PAD makes sense from my business standpoint, and trying to pay the least PAD possible makes sense from theirs.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2016 08:17PM by SunnyBrook.

I really like Trendsource, the pay is not always the best but the staff is excellent imo. That means a lot to me.

****************

Motivation increases when we assume large responsibilities with a short deadline.

They are one of my top 5 companies...I do many grocery stores weekly, love the quick pay, the best. I try to get the business verifications, but someone always beats me to it. Very popular in my town, however, I have no trouble with the grocery stores,. They ae all within 5 miles of me, so for the pad, no way Jose!!

Live consciously....

I haven't worked for them for about a year. I just got a phone message for an inspection with a good fee but they want 25 photos. Last few times I worked for them, the photos took FOREVER to load, adding too much time to the shop. Anyone have recent photo load experience? Thanks!

Shopping Central Jersey Shoreline. WHAT? I'm an adult?! When did this happen?! How do I make it stop?!

I would say it takes a long time to load the photos. Next time i do one I'm going to really pay attention and see how long it takes. I'm curious to hear if someone has uploaded photos recently and can give a better answer.

They have a photo MB size recommendation, and if your photos exceed it, the system manually shrinks the photo size during the upload. If you know how to use it, try using software like PhotoShop or GIMP or other conversion software to reduce the image size to their recommendations before uploading...or reduce the image size before snapping the pics.

Scheduling with TS can be a little tricky, because if you request PAD, you often don't get an immediate response from schedulers. In addition, you may experience difficulty contacting the customer in order to schedule the shop, which may throw off your timing on a planned route to include that particular shop.

As far as the background check goes, having one is essential because of the sensitive information TS's mystery shoppers learn, such as whether or not and what type of security system a business has, and whether private customer data is stored securely. Some of my shops have been of bank and law enforcement locations, so I understand why TS requires the background checks and tries to ensure the shoppers at these locations are trustworthy.

The inspections are simple. You are given a form, get the answers from the target, and take the required pictures.

@Kristie6923 wrote:

@HonnyBrown Are these pretty quick and easy? And how much PAD did you get? One is available in my area.

"I told myself to quit you; but I don't listen to drunks." -Chris Stapleton

There's a new scheduler in my area. She called me to tell me she still has that 1 hour, thru the mountains with 18-wheelers that kick up rocks, job. Buuuuut, she doesn't like to pay pad, she likes to adjust the schedule for me instead. I've been adjusting my schedule for them for a long time now. I don't know why I was so upset once I hung up the phone. I would do the two small towns around here for them. I would ask for pad once and then go without pad the second time. Now, I'm not going at all. I hope they get a new scheduler soon.

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