I have been lurking this website for years but decided to join in order to give shoppers a heads up in regards to an issue that I had with the company.
I had two scheduled smartphone shops for international service check over the weekend. I actually had four, but two were submitted. For the sake of full disclosure, I am admitting that my last two reports were late when I tried to submit them. I did attempt to e-mail the scheduler that I was having connectivity issues and would have the report submitted in the morning, but she never got it. I don't know if it was a mistake on my end, but I am not here to rectify that situation. I'm simply stating it to be honest with you guys and because I did tell the scheduler that I'd be sharing my experience on a mystery shopping message board. I wouldn't want to tell you guys part of what happened and then have someone from the company tell you the other half.
When I sent an e-mail this morning about the shops no longer being in my log, I received an e-mail back from the scheduler stating that they'd removed the shops from my log because they saw that I hadn't viewed the guidelines. For those who haven't shopped with them, the smartphone shops are for company A. The guidelines tell you if you are to say that you currently own phone H or phone N. When you go log in to the website to find out your scenario, you click on "start" and it takes you to a page that lists which phone you have to say that you own, the address of the location, which cell phone carrier you are visiting, how to contact your scheduler, what to do if you arrive to a closed location, etc. This information is not available to see if you don't have a current shop assigned, so that just goes to show how I am very meticulous about paying attention to details and remembering them. On the left side of the page are three links, one which links you to a PDF file that is specific to either phone H or N. These guidelines stay the same if you have multiple shops with the same phone. In all honesty, the guidelines are the same minus the third page or so. This page is specific to the phone that you are to say you use. Remove that page and the guidelines are the same for both scenarios.
There are only two possible guidelines for these shops (like I stated), so once you've printed the scenarios out, there is no keep printing them out for future shops in the same round.
When corresponding with the scheduler, I told her that I did have the guidelines and went back into my history tab in order to locate the exact links to those guidelines. I provided them to her and she still said something along the lines of "in your case we noticed that your paperwork was not opened at all." This was AFTER I e-mailed her the links to the paperwork. This left a very bad taste in my mouth and I will no longer be shopping for the company. It's not the $115 plus gas/mileage that I lost out on that is bothering me, it's the fact that a scheduler could still e-mail me with a straight face and say that I did not look at the paperwork after I e-mailed her the links to the paperwork. I could not have made the links up out of thin air, so how would I have gotten them if I didn't look at them?
I was willing to accept that I did not submit the reports on time and that they were reassigned if she'd left it at that. However, she went on to say that I did not look at the guidelines when I know that I did and she continued to tell me that I didn't after I sent her the links to the guidelines.
Due to the ICA, I won't link the guidelines on here, but if I e-mailed her the links to the guidelines, and she can continue to say that I did not look at them, then there is obviously a flaw in their system and it works against shoppers. I work with another company who uses the same guidelines throughout the month and what they do is hide a code somewhere in the guidelines that is changed every few days. This code has to be entered when entering a report. This is their way of ensuring that a shopper looked through the guidelines prior to a shop. I suggest that ISC go that route if plan on using the same guidelines for a few weeks at a time.
I suggest that anyone who shops with them take screen shots when they look at the guidelines in order to capture the date and time in case they are ever in the same predicament that I was in. I hope that no one else goes through this, but I just wanted to warn you guys that the company can accuse you of not having looked at the guidelines even if you did.
I had two scheduled smartphone shops for international service check over the weekend. I actually had four, but two were submitted. For the sake of full disclosure, I am admitting that my last two reports were late when I tried to submit them. I did attempt to e-mail the scheduler that I was having connectivity issues and would have the report submitted in the morning, but she never got it. I don't know if it was a mistake on my end, but I am not here to rectify that situation. I'm simply stating it to be honest with you guys and because I did tell the scheduler that I'd be sharing my experience on a mystery shopping message board. I wouldn't want to tell you guys part of what happened and then have someone from the company tell you the other half.
When I sent an e-mail this morning about the shops no longer being in my log, I received an e-mail back from the scheduler stating that they'd removed the shops from my log because they saw that I hadn't viewed the guidelines. For those who haven't shopped with them, the smartphone shops are for company A. The guidelines tell you if you are to say that you currently own phone H or phone N. When you go log in to the website to find out your scenario, you click on "start" and it takes you to a page that lists which phone you have to say that you own, the address of the location, which cell phone carrier you are visiting, how to contact your scheduler, what to do if you arrive to a closed location, etc. This information is not available to see if you don't have a current shop assigned, so that just goes to show how I am very meticulous about paying attention to details and remembering them. On the left side of the page are three links, one which links you to a PDF file that is specific to either phone H or N. These guidelines stay the same if you have multiple shops with the same phone. In all honesty, the guidelines are the same minus the third page or so. This page is specific to the phone that you are to say you use. Remove that page and the guidelines are the same for both scenarios.
There are only two possible guidelines for these shops (like I stated), so once you've printed the scenarios out, there is no keep printing them out for future shops in the same round.
When corresponding with the scheduler, I told her that I did have the guidelines and went back into my history tab in order to locate the exact links to those guidelines. I provided them to her and she still said something along the lines of "in your case we noticed that your paperwork was not opened at all." This was AFTER I e-mailed her the links to the paperwork. This left a very bad taste in my mouth and I will no longer be shopping for the company. It's not the $115 plus gas/mileage that I lost out on that is bothering me, it's the fact that a scheduler could still e-mail me with a straight face and say that I did not look at the paperwork after I e-mailed her the links to the paperwork. I could not have made the links up out of thin air, so how would I have gotten them if I didn't look at them?
I was willing to accept that I did not submit the reports on time and that they were reassigned if she'd left it at that. However, she went on to say that I did not look at the guidelines when I know that I did and she continued to tell me that I didn't after I sent her the links to the guidelines.
Due to the ICA, I won't link the guidelines on here, but if I e-mailed her the links to the guidelines, and she can continue to say that I did not look at them, then there is obviously a flaw in their system and it works against shoppers. I work with another company who uses the same guidelines throughout the month and what they do is hide a code somewhere in the guidelines that is changed every few days. This code has to be entered when entering a report. This is their way of ensuring that a shopper looked through the guidelines prior to a shop. I suggest that ISC go that route if plan on using the same guidelines for a few weeks at a time.
I suggest that anyone who shops with them take screen shots when they look at the guidelines in order to capture the date and time in case they are ever in the same predicament that I was in. I hope that no one else goes through this, but I just wanted to warn you guys that the company can accuse you of not having looked at the guidelines even if you did.