I edited this post so things remain positive, can you tell me if you think Sinclair's way to enter your data has crashed, made you lose all your input adding aggravation and frustration? Their shops are not easy because the software crashes and if you don't watch everything close, you get stuck in Limbo by adding too many details. My grievance is the software issues others have had, I will delete what others wrote about lying because that's not cool!


Edited the title to be professional.

Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 02/29/2016 08:27AM by Pennies4Shops.

Pennies,
I am not sure what group you are referring to concerning consensus. And I have not heard or seen anything about having to lie to get the input system to work. However, I don't shop for Sinclair, so perhaps I have missed posts to this effect?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2016 06:45PM by walesmaven.

I deleted data about some offsite forums who cheat on Sinclair's reports because they got burned once the website crashed only to have to enter all their data again. People get angry when its no fault of their own and more mad once your pay-out hits $6 a hour because the shops can take up to 1 hour if you can't interview enough people the employer is not happy. Imagine you walk in to a store where only 1 person is on the entire sales-area like a big hardware store, their all in the back working.



Would you return to your shop 30 minutes later because you could only interview 2 people during a 60 visit? One of my friends was told by this Store they dumped their shop because only two people got interviewed during a 60 minute visit. The store also had the Scheduler send a email (I saw the email and will ask them to post it where the Scheduler is upset too, the Scheduler was very kind and understood you can't interview people out of thin air!) they did not want to send because they knew it was not fair. The MSC's Company wanted the Shopper to leave the store after they spent 1 hr and return to spend another 30 minutes to 1 hr to find more people!


Their shop was not honored because the store's employees were all behind closed door except two cashiers up front. How fair was that, if you add in all the time they spent following instructions and add another 1 hour extra orders from management, you have someone spending over 3 hours for less than $20.00 Their website lost the Report and the shopper had to spend another hour fighting to get all the information back in, their new wage ended up being $20 for 4 hours of work!

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2016 09:14PM by Pennies4Shops.

I have never had an experience of needing to input false data in order to get a Sinclair report to 'take'. I don't find them in any way difficult. I did once do a thorough write up of a car shop only to have it blow up because nowhere did it indicate that my 'thorough narrative' had to be about 25% of the characters used when I wrote a 'thorough narrative'. I don't find them more time consuming than an average shop that requires a little bit of narrative. I do find that it is not always clear when you are to answer question 6b or leave it blank based on your answer to 3a, so when I do a page turn I may need to go back and clear answers because of the warning with 6b that 'due to your answer in 3a, this question should be left blank'. There are only a few of Sinclair's very few clients that I will bother with, but that is due to personal interest and/or client requirements rather than anything devious or annoying. Any questions I have had back were legitimate and I have never had a shop rejected.

Flash did they punish you for putting in extra data or did the software crash? I agree the reports don't take a rocket scientist to perform. When I did my report their site kept crashing and losing my data having me end up making less than minimum wage!

I kept getting "warning messages" and "you can't leave this blank error" even though the answer was blank! These reports would be easy to put "No" in areas where a yes leads to a dozen more variables, I learned a valuable lesson.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2016 07:11PM by Pennies4Shops.

I crashed the software. I could log off and log in again, but as soon as I cut and pasted the text in I crashed it again. Next business day they turned the issue over to their tech and a couple of days later the explanation came back that there were only X characters allowed in the field while I was trying to put in more than 4X. I pruned my narrative, copied in and we were off to the races.

What's with the private forum consensus? This is a public forum - nothing is private. Everything is viewed by all - including people from Sinclair.

Have you ever heard of the Dark Net, the best search engines are limited to what their allowed to access. If you did not get a invitation, you will never have access to their world.

I do shops for Sinclair, and have never had a problem. The pretzel shop is fine. I have begun doing bank shops, and the pay is quite reasonable for the time involved and the report is easy. I would gladly do more. The used to have other shops in my area, and I never recall having a problem with any of them.

Referring to some secret website which we don't have access to is not really productive. I only do shops which make sense economically. I am not part of any consensus which claims that Sinclair is unreasonable.

Sinclair was the first company I completed assignments for back in March of 2013 (A run of like 15 pretzel shops that were bonused). I love their pretzel shops because they are very easy and a great "filler" shop (5 minutes at the location, 5-10 minute report). The only issue I have with Sinclair is the payment method. I prefer Paypal, not checks; but this is a minor gripe, as they always pay on time, according to their ICA.

Gina Hernandez and Bobby Withrow are great schedulers and I enjoy the business relationship we share. I would also recommend Sinclair to new shoppers trying to get their feet wet in the industry. I've done the pretzel shops, one specific pizza shop, and the marketplace store assignment. If they had other clients in my area, I would definitely complete those shops as well.

I've been watching the show "Billions" on Showtime and I can't wait for the episode where the billionaire hedge fund manager and his wife start secret shopping and talking about it on forums on the Dark Net! LOL!

The concept of someone wealthy being paid a princely sum for their opinion isn't exactly new or even a secret for that matter. The reality is the person who can afford a Lamborghini isn't going to offer up an hour of their time to write a review of the car or dealer for $15 or even $150. I'm sure the idea is not just a review, but for the ability to influence other potential customers in their circle.

I personally am not impressed with Sinclair, someone who quit them after getting screwed over showed me all the documents regarding Sinclair's client that wanted Shoppers to remain in their business until their target was set. The Scheduler tried to defend what I feel was wrong, they wanted the shopper to return to their business because the shopper had problems finding company associates.


Sinclair's Client wanted X amount of people engaged, after one hour the Shopper could only locate two who were hanging around cashiers. They put the cashier's names down which made the customer of Sinclair unhappy, they wanted additional names so they asked the shopper to return and perform another shop without adding pay or they were going to dump her shop. The shop finally got paid once the shopper spent almost three hours on commute and store time, another two hours in software Limbo bringing the total pay down to $3.75 an hour. Whose fault is this, the shopper who followed her instructions or Sinclair's client or the Scheduler?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2016 11:28PM by Pennies4Shops.

I know nothing negative was said about the schedulers, however, I was speaking about Sinclair and felt the need to mention that the two schedulers are class acts and have always done right by me.

One time, a pretzel shop location was closed due to inclement weather. Bobby Withrow not only got me paid for the shop, but I was able to shop the location when they were open for the same bonus that was on the original shop.

@Pennies4Shops wrote:

Nobody said anything negative about Sinclair's Schedulers, the fact that one of the Schedulers internal justice was greatly upset her MS was getting ripped off because the manager of a lousy store wanted the shopper to return after they already spent time shows their Schedulers are good people. Its the businesses who are not our friends at some points in a Shoppers life, not the Schedulers who plead for justice on our behalf. I don't understand why you brought up the conduct of the Schedulers because nobody said anything negative about them, I said they were great! Its their software and allowing the crazy demands a cheap stores that force certain people to respond in like. Dante, you know this better than anyone else because you've been on all fronts!

@Pennies4Shops wrote:

Its their software and allowing the crazy demands a cheap stores that force certain people to respond in like.

Their software is no crazier than a lot of the other stuff we have to deal with. You get accustomed to how it works and go from there. I rarely do more than one shop per month for them due to rotations but it is not a problem to remember from month to month how to use it. As for 'crazy demands a cheap stores' I am not sure what you are trying to say.

My experience with Sinclair is limited, as in a total of one shop. Of that shop I can say the pay and reimbursement were much higher than what I consider as similar shops, the requirements were reasonable and the report was not onerous. If it was odd, it wasn't odd enough to stand out in my mind as something to consider before taking another assignment.

@LisaSTL wrote:

My experience with Sinclair is limited, as in a total of one shop. Of that shop I can say the pay and reimbursement were much higher than what I consider as similar shops, the requirements were reasonable and the report was not onerous. If it was odd, it wasn't odd enough to stand out in my mind as something to consider before taking another assignment.

Lisa your not a ordinary shopper, your skills allow you to fly through paperwork, handle software issues and calculate what's worth your time. What would you do if you performed a shop for Sinclair and their client was not happy with the amount of people you interviewed and demanded you return to the store for another half-hour or hour until their quota was filled? The pay rate was less than $20 and you already spent two hours performing the shop, what would you do?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2016 11:32PM by Pennies4Shops.

Nor am I an extraordinary shopper. I also am not in possession of a crystal ball that allows me to know precisely how long a new to me shop and report will take, just experience for comparison. Believe me, it is not an exact science and I have been wrong more than once. My point is other than the typical adjustments of a unique reporting platform, there was nothing strange about the shop or the report.

Generally speaking, if returning to the store was necessary for me to be paid for time already invested and if it was feasible I would return.

I have heard of the Dark Net and this forum is not on it, hence my comment that your private forum consensus is not private.

@Pennies4Shops wrote:

Have you ever heard of the Dark Net, the best search engines are limited to what their allowed to access. If you did not get a invitation, you will never have access to their world.

OP, you can repeat the same thing over and over if that makes you feel good. It would help though if you were discussing something you personally experienced. Providing us with limited information that you claim was posted on a clandestine website is meaningless. All I really get out of this is that a couple of people have run into issues submitting reports, which unfortunately happens regardless of the MSC.

You appear determined to judge a company based on one persons version of one issue. Even the best companies get complaints.

I have not had any problems at all with Sinclair. I haven't done a ton of work but certainly 15-20 shops (?) over the past 2 1/2 years. No software problems, no report problems, etc. I like the schedulers pretty well. The pay is pretty even with the work except for when they dropped the reimbursement for burritos (or was that the pay?).

Also, as someone who is familiar with the "Dark Net" <eyerollemoticon> I'm a, not sure you entirely understand it and b, must be really bored if you are accessing some dark net version of MSF instead of the insanely varied and interesting sites available.

@isaiah58 wrote:

You appear determined to judge a company based on one persons version of one issue. Even the best companies get complaints.

I think p4s is just trying to make sure we all know about their clandestine access to THE DARK NET!
ba ba ba baaaaaaa

A cute and funny blog from Portlandia dealing with debt, real life and break-ups had someone comment about little Sinclair.



"So far I’ve been working for Sinclair Customer Metrics, although I signed up with one other (TrendSource, maybe?) that I haven’t actually shopped for yet, since they keep trying to send me to places that are like 45 minutes away for a $4 payment."
!

[deardebt.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2016 07:36AM by Pennies4Shops.

I haven't seen a single shop from them in my area since September of last year. I thought they were dying off (or at least moving away). I wonder if I have been canned... :-/

I completed nine shops for Sinclair this month. Eight were car shops on a route in Florida and Gina was great to work with in scheduling them. On a route, while you try to schedule accurately, there are times when things come up that cause your schedule to change. Gina worked with me on the car shops, I had two scheduled for Wednesday that, because of a couple of shops that went faster than anticipated and several shops that ended up not getting assigned, I was able to do them on Monday instead. A quick email and she reassigned the date and all was well.

ETA: I've never had a problem with uploading reports with their forms.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2016 02:02PM by GMooneyhan MBSC.

This comment proves whoever posted is clueless about being an IC. We all get job posting emails for shops hundreds and even thousands of miles away. It is what it is, a notice based on a flawed computer system.

"...since they keep trying to send me to places that are like 45 minutes away for a $4 payment."

I have no desire to hear of issues one shopper on another forum had with the company. The opinion of one shopper, regardless of who they are, is never enough to make an educated decision about a company. If the shopper is only registered with two companies it makes even less sense to give their opinion any weight.

@Pennies4Shops wrote:

Sinclair's Software to upload your answers and low amount of companies to find work, have you noticed that?

Edited the title to be professional.

This edited version is professional? I think you need to look up the definition of professional.

And when push comes to shove, Sinclair's software does not crash more than that of other companies. I managed to crash it only because there was no guidance as to maximum number of characters and I wrote way too much. Because it saves page by page as you go, it didn't lose my entire report, which can happen with other software. So even the indicator in the title that they might be more prone to crash than others is really not valid.

Low amount of companies to work for? I work for a company that has two nice shops in my market each month and probably 5 clients total. Of the two they have in my market I do one every other month. Does this make them bad? No, it just makes them one of the companies I do work for. To rely on only one or two companies to provide you with a full dance card is just silly.

I've worked with Sinclair 6 years now and never had any problems. The one thing I did notice is that when I wrote really long narratives, it would slow things down and the editor told me they were too long, (lighten them) so now I keep the narratives shorter.

The OP is correct. Your input is saved at the bottom of each page. You could lose a page if you tried. I've lost pages, but that was usually due to internet problems on my end, not theirs. Sinclair is my bread and butter MSC. I do four to five shops a month for one of their clients. Great schedulers and they pay (yes, by check) on time every time.