I did a bank shop and reviewed the interaction as short and rushed. The employee told her manager that I said I was in a hurry, which I did not. Now the mystery shop company has deactivated my account, even though I shopped successfully for them for over a year. I did hundreds of shops for them and now they just cut me off. Is there something i can do about it?

Wow. That's harsh. Have you written the MSC yet? Unfortunately, companies have learned that they can challenge bad shops and get them thrown out. Some of them will flat out lie in order to avoid the repercussions (many of us have experienced this even with video and/or photographic evidence.) If a company pushes hard enough, the MSC would rather stiff the shopper than worry about problems with the account. It sounds like the scheduler overreacted, though. If you are interested in still shopping for the company, you should pursue it first with her and then over her head. Based on my experience, though, you're not going to get paid.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2016 09:17PM by PasswordNotFound.

If the company has deactivated your account over this, it sounds like there might be more to the situation than just you reporting an interaction as "rushed" and the employee saying you said you were in a hurry. That discrepancy might be a reason to refuse the report and not pay you, but by itself it should not be enough to deactivate you, unless there were more to the story. Is there?

You probably can ask to speak with a supervisor or manager and discuss it, but, if the company is intent on deactivating you, you really have no recourse. You are an independent contractor and if they decide they don't want to work with you, they really do not have to work with you. You shopped for them for over a year and did hundreds of shops. How many exactly did you do? Like 30 or 40 per month every month for a year? Or is "hundreds" an exaggeration meaning that you have done 3 or 4 shops a month for a year or so?

If you name the company, some of us could probably give you much better advice. Different companies behave differently and have different ideas. There is no one answer for every company.

damn, that's rough. they must've watched the footage of the transaction before deactivating you i'd have to assume. maybe they decided he/she she wasn't rushing you. was this a teller shop, or platform? i dunno, i definitely would try to do everything I could to contact people in the company and plead my case.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2016 10:43PM by jay225.

Does a deactivated account always mean u r deactivated from the msc or can u just be deactivated from that shop or location?

I guess that would depend on the circumstances and the MSC.

1st of all, are you sure it was YOU the employee was referring to...maybe there was another customer who was in a hurry?

I would email them and state my case and ask to be reinstated

It's sad that an employee can dispute a report and have it be totally believed by the client, without a fair investigation.

I would push for a fair review of this shop.

Another poster suggested that they may have confused you with another customer.

I also understand the MSC is going to side with the client in most cases (but not always).

At best, see if you can get activated back in the system, should you decide to work with this company again.

Wow.... It seems to me as if bank shops are particularly susceptible to being challenged. I've only ever had problems with two reports, and they were both bank shops. In both cases, the bank challenged my contentions regarding what the customer-service rep did or didn't do. I was positive of my observations and my report, and refused to change it. Both reports were accepted and I was paid. But not without a fight. I was lucky, though, that the MSC believed me and went to bat for me. Even if they checked the video, these challenges involved verbal interaction, so I guess the banks couldn't prove what they said!

I would definitely request a review or the opportunity to present your case in more depth. Or see if they will give you more detailed information about why the bank is being believed and not you. Good luck!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2016 02:42AM by BirdyC.

i think it's KEY to audio record all shops too. very easy to do with an app, and would come in handy in a situation like this.

That is not legal in all states.

@luckygirl0100 wrote:

That is not legal in all states.

Even in two-party states, it may not be illegal. In some states it may be OK, depending on the purpose of the recording, whether it's to be shared with any third parties or not, etc. It's not cut and dried, depending on the state. But, certainly, anyone planning to audio record a shop should find out ahead of time what the interpretation is in the state in which they live or will be shopping.

Not legal in many places, jay.

JAY225: Do you recommend an ap for recording audio?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2016 01:02AM by raincade.

If you are in an other party state (I am) unless your instructions state recording the visit is allowed, the second you reveal that you recorded the conversation you have admitted to breaking the law. This is because you had a private conversation. Using the recording to prove what was said opens the door for the other party to sue you. The client might also have cause.

If I am asked to clarify any quotes or what someone said/didn't-say, I would never refer to having recorded the interaction, unless as stated the recording was allowed.

I have signed a form with my company that consents to be recorded on incoming calls. If a walk in mystery shopper would submit a personal recording to back up their report, I would be able to sue them.

Yes, certain states have certain laws about audio taping and even if they have liberal laws about audio taping any one without their knowledge, there may be some very restrictive rules concerning financial institutions. In Florida, we cannot do audio or video shops in banks at all.

OP never came back...

Actually, it's only been two days since the OP;'s post. Not everyone is like me, visiting the forum daily. There are forum members who, believe it or not, manage to go a week or longer between visits here. The OP may be back in a few days ..... or not .....

Banks have very sophisticated video and audio. The Bank is going to have everything said in detail during the Shop.

@AustinMom wrote:

... There are forum members who, believe it or not, manage to go a week or longer between visits here. ...

Wha--? Don't they miss us?

Not in the dual consent states that I frequent. I have never given any bank permission to audio record me when I visit them. They can have silent videos, but that is it in PA and DE.

@woodyca wrote:

Banks have very sophisticated video and audio. The Bank is going to have everything said in detail during the Shop.

A lot of businesses use video surveillance. Even in my single party consent state, no business owner I know uses audio.

I don't know the answer to whether or not audio is recorded on bank surveillance, but I'd hazard a guess that if they were recording audio I would have heard at least one bank robber asking a teller for money when the bank was robbed. Law Enforcement often releases still photos and even videos when they have trouble identifying someone. Hearing that person's voice would make it easier for the public to identify the thief, so I have to imagine that if they were capturing audio I would have heard someone say "give me all the money in your drawer". Which is what I assume they say given my extensive experience with bank heist movies.

They do in California. All the time and, have for as long as the technology has been available. Police departments, Convenience stores. Its rarely released for reasons some have mentioned. It is released if the crime warrants it. Crooks don't sue too often!

They hand the teller a note in real life.

Woody, California is a two party consent state. Just how is the bank getting your consent to be audio recorded?

When I worked for the Bank. It seemed as though no one was concerned about that. For all I know it probably exists in fine print somewhere when you open an account. When you call in on a phone to customer service you are informed that its being recorded for "quality and training purposes". You sign off as an employee when your hired. Long after the Bank I worked in Public Safety. Trust me I have heard more than I probably should have.

Note: With all that has been said on this topic. I DO NOT recommend to anyone nor do I want to imply that it's ok to record your Shops. Of Course the Shops that require it have the authorizations in place for that to occur. Just want to be clear.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2016 11:38PM by woodyca.

On the phone the customer is giving consent if they remain on the line after the announcement. As an employee it is not uncommon for you to give your consent and is the reason we can often perform video shops including audio in two party consent states. I'm more curious about a customer walking in off the street. Obviously a potential customer inquiring about a new account will not have signed anything. Is it possible you worked there prior to the laws being enacted?

I'm pretty sure it's always been the law. I think its probably looser now with all the new technology. I think the privacy we all like to think we have is gone in a seconds notice. We are all probably having our Privacy violated every day (Mostly by mistake) I hope! When law enforcement listens on a cell phone they actually here several conversations
It is up to Law Enforcement to determine which of the conversations is the correct target.

There is much confusion and grey areas about recording in "public" and wiretap phone call law that has been co-mingled and there are even some states that have court cases that have gone both ways. If you are in a public place and are recorded, it is not the same as if you are recording a telephone call that has an expectation of privacy.

I would not want to be the one to challenge public recording vs some statue that has been used by LEA to defend them and used in a public area with no expectation of privacy. I audio record in a two party state and do not share my recordings with the MSC and only use them to generate quotes for my reports. I doubt I'm going to have an irate fired server have the juice to find out who I am and file a civil case against me.

I think people are taking this too far. Two party state = don't share your personal recordings.

OTOH, I can strip the audio out of a video recording that I will make with my hidden camera and I provide time stamped frame grabs of my video to back up events and score a 10 and a nice note in the Sassie platform for what takes me 10 seconds to grab a screenshot of the video with VLC player.

VLC: [www.videolan.org]

Also, if you call into a company and they play a recording before you can speak to a representative that states that YOU ARE GIVING CONCENT for them to record the call then the concent is a two way street. You are also allowed to record the call as they have given concent to recordings!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2016 05:30AM by scanman1.