SeeLevelHX.... How is this even possible?

January 26, 2016 02:10AM

So, around this time of the month I'm always checking the job board in SeeLevelHX for one of my favorite casual restaurants. There aren't many that are close to my usual routine. I check this morning, they aren't posted yet... I get the e-mail a few minutes ago, as I was checking other e-mails, and I have a quick shortcut to login to the site. By the time I login - No more than 1 minute after I received the e-mail - All the locations near me are gone!!! Third month in a row!! How is this even possible? Are this shops being assigned in advance to someone else? Why even bother advertising them if that's the case?

So I'm just ranting because I like going there and can't seem to get any shops for it... But I just can't believe the shops are gone in less than one minute. And I'm sure I'm competing for them against the same shopper all the time...

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January 26, 2016 02:21AM

Your competition beat you to the punch,by not waiting for the email. Note the time of email for new shops. Remember it for next month. Realize that prior to email being delivered, shops were already posted on SeeLevel's website, and self-assigned. The early bird catches the worm for shoppers who do not wait for emails.

January 26, 2016 02:36AM

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Mystery Shopping! Once you have been doing this long enough, you never have to rely on bulk e-mails ever again. I am already booking into the third week of March. Do you think that happens by waiting for bulk e-mails to hit my mailbox?

January 26, 2016 04:13AM

I was on SeeLevel's website this afternoon and if it's the same restaurant, there were no shops. I got an email an hour later that shops were available, but by the time I logged in a few hours later, one of the two locations near me were already taken.

We are the people our parents warned us about ~ Jimmy Buffett

January 26, 2016 04:31AM

Surprisingly I see many of these still available in Southern Californa. Sadly I cannot do the one closest to me due to other scheduling. I wish they would post thiese a little further in advance.

January 26, 2016 05:59AM

I sometimes get emails from a certain MSC that states it was sent the previous evening but arrives in my inbox at 4am or some obscure time. By the time I check in, the shop is obviously gone. There may be a shopper that does exactly what you are doing, on the other hand, and their connection is *that* much quicker that it's scooped up before you can get it.

There's a location near me that isn't a big deal, but I have NEVER gotten it through one MSC. It seems to have changed MSCs for good and now, its mine over and over. The other paid higher reimbursement but still, its a shop I don't mind doing and at least this time I GET to do it! Good luck! Maybe soon they will go back to numerous shops at the same location for the same month. That should help spread out the shops. Oh, and its quite possible someone within the company lives nearby and scoops it up too. You never know!

Doing what I can to enhance the life of my family! I LOVE what I do

January 26, 2016 12:04PM

How many locations are in your radius? I am pretty sure that one person is not monopolizing this client.

I saw the shops, in my area, posted just before the email went out. They are still there. The lunch ones go very fast around here, dinner sits around. I try to do these on a Tuesday (take advantage of the wing special). I also prefer lunch, take-out is my trifecta. Double Trifecta if a bonus comes around.

My posts are solely based on my opinions and for my entertainment, contact a professional if you need real advice.

When you get in debt you become a slave. - Andrew Jackson

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2016 12:08PM by isaiah58.

January 26, 2016 01:28PM

And sometimes being the early bird doesn't matter. I reached out to a scheduler in early January about a series of pre-security shops at an airport for a route I'm doing next month. She gave me a day to contact her. I did first thing in the morning on the day she told me to...she had assigned them to another shopper.

"To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful." Edward R. Murrow

Thou shalt not steal. I mean defensively. On offense, indeed thou shall steal and thou must.--Branch Rickey

January 26, 2016 01:37PM

Did you use the link in the email for your state or did you go directly to the site?

Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It's not pie.
"I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag." -Molly Ivins
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of your time and it really annoys the pig.

January 26, 2016 03:31PM

Oftentimes, they will send out an email for a certain shop, you get it and open it immediately and they are all full. All cities have been taken. It's just the nature of the beast.

January 26, 2016 09:40PM

Well, certainly I'm not a newbie... I had been shopping the same restaurants for the previous MSC while I lived in Minnesota, and the switchover coincided with me moving to California. Since then I've only gotten 3 shops with them in 6 months.

I had checked just 3 hours earlier in the website, they were not posted.. I get the e-mail, login and puff most are gone. Whether there's only one shopper monopolizing all I don't know. Unfortunately there's only 3 of them that are convenient to me because of my daily commute, they are gone right away, as well as the ones I could potentially do over the weekend.

As to how I login, I got my username and password stored in my browser, so it takes me two clicks to login, then off to the job board. I also click the state link in the e-mail afterwards to see what I missed, that's when I see them all gone in addition to them not showing.

Who knows... I'm just bummed I can't seem to get one for the past 2 months... I used to get 3-4 per month with the previous provider in the Twin Cities area

Oh well, the realities of mystery shopping. Back to find some other ones!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2016 09:40PM by jnoyolapicazzo.

January 26, 2016 09:43PM

The only reason I asked is my own experience is Sassie emails tend to include locations that have already been filled. I find that more frustrating. You may be dealing with a situation where a shopper or shoppers has them assigned before the shop hits the board.

January 26, 2016 11:01PM

@LisaSTL wrote:

The only reason I asked is my own experience is Sassie emails tend to include locations that have already been filled. I find that more frustrating. You may be dealing with a situation where a shopper or shoppers has them assigned before the shop hits the board.

That is exactly my thought and what I was trying to imply in my first post

It would be nice to get some shops every now and then...

January 26, 2016 11:24PM

I was happy to see dinner went back up to the $25 reimbursement it was when it was with the former msp. I got one scheduled for tomorrow at my closest location.

Shopping Western NY, Northeast and Central PA, and parts of Ohio and West Virginia. Have car will travel anywhere if the monies right.

January 26, 2016 11:58PM

@jnoyolapicazzo wrote:

@LisaSTL wrote:

The only reason I asked is my own experience is Sassie emails tend to include locations that have already been filled. I find that more frustrating. You may be dealing with a situation where a shopper or shoppers has them assigned before the shop hits the board.

That is exactly my thought and what I was trying to imply in my first post It would be nice to get some shops every now and then...

And now that I recall and makes me think someone is getting these shops behind the scenes... A couple of months ago I was also unable to schedule because all the dates showed grayed out...

January 27, 2016 12:03AM

That was actually what I was trying to say. So it won't matter much how quick you are. Why don't you try contacting the scheduler. Maybe you can get on the short list.

January 27, 2016 12:05AM

I did. No reply, even though all my shops with them have received good grades

January 27, 2016 12:07AM

Is it the same scheduler you've worked with before? If not, maybe contact the other one to put in a good word for you

January 28, 2016 04:20AM

I got an email of an available restaurant shop. Went to the job board and it is still available but all of the dates for this month and next are grayed out so I can not self schedule or even request it. I am eligible to do the shop according to the rotation requirement. Just sent an email to the scheduler. I have had this happen before but never received a good explanation. Either the shop is available or it's not.

January 29, 2016 07:16PM

@kenasch wrote:

I got an email of an available restaurant shop. Went to the job board and it is still available but all of the dates for this month and next are grayed out so I can not self schedule or even request it. I am eligible to do the shop according to the rotation requirement. Just sent an email to the scheduler. I have had this happen before but never received a good explanation. Either the shop is available or it's not.

Yup, that's exactly what's happened to me a number of times. Either someone is really stupid when configuring the shops in the system, or someone is playing games when "giving out" the shops.

January 29, 2016 07:30PM

Not all Internet providers transfer mail as fast as others. I recently sent some files to myself from a library computer and didn't receive them at home for a full 24 hours.

January 29, 2016 10:38PM

@jnoyolapicazzo wrote:

@kenasch wrote:

I got an email of an available restaurant shop. Went to the job board and it is still available but all of the dates for this month and next are grayed out so I can not self schedule or even request it. I am eligible to do the shop according to the rotation requirement. Just sent an email to the scheduler. I have had this happen before but never received a good explanation. Either the shop is available or it's not.

Yup, that's exactly what's happened to me a number of times. Either someone is really stupid when configuring the shops in the system, or someone is playing games when "giving out" the shops.

The shop I had been following now shows some dates available in February. Too bad I'm not available at that time.

January 30, 2016 05:45AM

@kenasch wrote:

I got an email of an available restaurant shop. Went to the job board and it is still available but all of the dates for this month and next are grayed out so I can not self schedule or even request it. I am eligible to do the shop according to the rotation requirement. Just sent an email to the scheduler. I have had this happen before but never received a good explanation. Either the shop is available or it's not.

FWIW, one scheduler told me that they can offer only so many as self-assign. After that the shop is still available to be done, but it won't be set to self-assign so you have to email the scheduler.

January 30, 2016 06:57AM

I offered to do the shop on a certain date via my email to the scheduler but did not even get a courtesy reply.

January 31, 2016 03:19PM

@kenasch wrote:

I offered to do the shop on a certain date via my email to the scheduler but did not even get a courtesy reply.

You have to be considerate and realistic - imagine if each shopper was expected to do a "courtesy reply" to every single e-mail announcement from each scheduler to say that they weren't interested in the shop - and spend 2 minutes typing a kind, and brief yet thoughtful reply.

Now consider how for every e-mail sent out by a scheduler, there are THOUSANDS of shoppers. Even if just 1% of the thousands of shoppers replied to them saying "Hey, I can't do it on the dates 2/1 through 2/9, but I can do it 2/15. Can you sign me up?", or "it says for 2 people to do this shop, but I can't find anyone. Can I do this by myself?" or "Can you use a coupon for this shop?" Imagine how many e-mails the schedulers get. And keep in mind many are paid by the shop they assign, not paid by the hour to reply to hundreds of e-mail replies that are all "no".

Us MSers can't stand lengthy narrative responses for low paying shops. Imagine how schedulers feel if they had to reply to all of the requests that are simply "no" answers, when many of them, too, are paid simply by the shop assignment, and aren't getting paid for the hours it would take to check each shop requirements for the client requirements, then type a reply to each MSers that requests a different date or deviation from the guidelines!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2016 03:20PM by STL_shopper.

January 31, 2016 04:37PM

@STL_shopper wrote:

@kenasch wrote:

I offered to do the shop on a certain date via my email to the scheduler but did not even get a courtesy reply.

Us MSers can't stand lengthy narrative responses for low paying shops. Imagine how schedulers feel if they had to reply to all of the requests that are simply "no" answers, when many of them, too, are paid simply by the shop assignment, and aren't getting paid for the hours it would take to check each shop requirements for the client requirements, then type a reply to each MSers that requests a different date or deviation from the guidelines!

I understand what you are saying but to be clear I was not requesting a different date or a deviation from the guidelines. I was just offering to do the shop on a date that was within the date range specified in Sassie. All of the dates were originally grayed out so I could neither self assign or even request the shop through the Sassie system. My only recourse was to email the scheduler. I have received replies from schedulers in the past for similar emails. I guess it depends on their workload.

January 31, 2016 08:29PM

If the date if grayed out in Sassie then it is unavailable to you. Sometimes it is a rotation issue. Sometimes the dates are too close to a shop done by someone else at the same location, so one location may have excluded dates that are different than another location. The overall range is generic. I frequently get shops from various MSCs that have date ranges which are acceptable to me, but when I look, no dates are available to me. When I then read the detailed rules, I find something like "can not have shopped the same location for 720 days" [no joke, I had one like that] and when I bother to check, yes, I indeed went there in February 2014. Usually it is more like 60, 90, or 120 days. If I check and I am out of rotation by one day, and it is a scheduler whom I "know" I will send an email offering to do the shop. Some assign me. Some respond with "thanks but no thanks" and many are just silent. I understand why many don't respond.

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

January 31, 2016 08:51PM

If I haven't logged in yet to the site as when I am replying to a link in a Jobslinger email, the system can't know if I am out of rotation. However as you stated, it is more likely due to another shopper having the same location recently. Maybe the system is "waiting" for the shop to be completed before new dates are opened up. I can understand that the date range is generic and may not apply to all locations.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2016 08:52PM by kenasch.

February 01, 2016 11:30PM

I noticed today they seem to have added a note to this shops. Something along the lines of 2 shops per location and the shops can't be within 5 days of each other. Still does not answer how can all shops been taken when they have just published the list, but it seems to answer the riddle of the greyed out dates when "available".

Still sounds like a crappy job of setting up the schedule.

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