American Mystery Shopping Providers $36 Lifetime Membership Fee

Has anyone paid this fee and received awesome information?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2016 06:59PM by spicy1.

Create an Account or Log In

Membership is free. Simply choose your username, type in your email address, and choose a password. You immediately get full access to the forum.

Hmmm. I suspect that if someone were selling that information openly it would not take long for the MSCs to get a restraining order.

I don't (and wouldn't) pay a fee to an MSC.

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

i was told to never pay to ms. everything is free here.

Their website promises to connect you to MSCs. 176 in fact. There are more than that listed here. IMHO, a good way to waste $36.

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

I did not have to join because all the posters in the know, they said it was a waste of money to all other question asking friends. Very happy I listened to friends over claims that break the rules of the IC contract. What education can you get from them you won't learn here?

I think that's what we all say. You can learn a lot more here than from any site you have to pay to join.

@Flash
If they allow Shadow Shoppers to charge a monthly fee, and be a MSPA member, they aren't going to do anything about this outfit either. In reality, MSP isn'tdoing anything illegal, they are taking advantage of people though and tarnishing our business.

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 03/21/2016 03:10AM by isaiah58.

Besides, I may have a contract that says something about the MSC and Client combo mentioning but do they?

Also, most MSC's have their clients listed on their front page, just saying.

I wouldn't pay Shadow Shopper for their service, but how are they different thanthe Jobslinger Plus aggregator? I have, in the past, paid the Jobslinger Plus subscription because the service saved me a lot of legwork in emailing me notifications of shops in which I was specifically interested. That saved me time.

Has anyone actually paid them to know what they are doing? My impression from looking at their site is that they are going to provide a list of abut 175 MSCs and provide some general information about mystery shopping. I didn't see anything that actually said that they were going to list the MSC and clients and/or specific jobs.

There is a big difference when it comes to JobSlinger. JobSlinger is run by the company which operates the Sassie system. Presuambly the Sassie companies can decide whether their shops appear on the master aggregation site (JobSlinger).

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

There are no similarities between them. JS plus is a tool that some shoppers may find helpful to track their shops with. SS copies publicly available info, sensors it to hide key info, then misrepresents the info as private. They also sell our contact information to anyone that will pay for it, they do not vent anyone that registers as a provider. Somehow they also registered several places as a MS company, even though they are not one.

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 03/21/2016 03:21AM by isaiah58.

Of course it is the company's choice as to whether or not they post their client's name as part of a job post. Many do not even let you know on their website who the client is until you have accepted the job as a generic 'restaurant' or 'electronics' or 'telephone' shop. Clients mentioned on a company's home page are not necessarily current clients and some may list as clients those for whom they have done some consulting at some time, whether it was through mystery shopping or not. Schedulers obviously have a little more leeway to disclose the client when they post shops for a company than do shoppers. There have certainly been a handful of 'pay to play' as well as free job boards over time. There are none of these that directly award shops to a shopper based on a shopper's registration with them, but rather they serve as a referral service to tell the shopper where to register.

The OP's original post to which I responded (before it was edited) indicated they were under the impression that they could get a list of who shops whom and it was that to which I originally responded.

Thanks for explaining what the OP was. The comments that followed were not making a lot of sense. Before editing an entire post to remove the crux of the conversation, people may want to consider the responses and how they will read to others.

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.

The OP was asking if this company could provide the MSC and their clients.

But, since I was scolded, yet again, I decided to delete that part.

It's pretty exhausting trying to keep up with the aggressive put-downs on this site
so that is my resolution.

Scolding? None of the posts that followed were scolding you for anything and none have been edited.

I do not know if this company can provide clients and their MSCs. Probably not. OTOH, some question whether schedulers and MSCs can publicly post the names of their client and the answer is definitely yes. The contract between the scheduler/MSC or MSC/client is not the same as the contract between the shopper/MSC.

I receive emails from MSCs asking for referrals for specific clients. For example, I have been solicited about shoppers for Roy Rogers. This would require telling others which client it is for and telling them to directly contact the MSC, identifying myself as the referrer. One of the MSCs doing chocolate shops has made similar requests.

IMHO, the only way anyone can offer a comprehensive list of clients by MSC is either; work for Sassie or MSPA and have full access, be a long term shopper/scheduler, running a scam using misleading claims.

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

@isaiah58 wrote:

IMHO, the only way anyone can offer a comprehensive list of clients by MSC is either; work for Sassie or MSPA and have full access, be a long term shopper/scheduler, running a scam using misleading claims.

Considering how many excellent companies do not use SASSIE, outside schedulers or belong to the MSPA, the only persons would could compile a good list would be a shopper registered with many companies. I certainly encourage shoppers to make their own 'who shops whom' list because you never know when a new client will open a location in your shopping area. And because our ICAs with the vast bulk of companies indicate we are not to disclose anything they might consider to be proprietary, the shop list you create can be for your own use only.

As for making referrals. If ABC MSP is looking for a shopper in central Oklahoma to shop their XYZ retailer I am likely to contact a shopper I know in that area to suggest they sign up with ABC (if they aren't already) because ABC has a retailer in their area that is a reasonable shop with I good fee. I won't disclose that which should reasonably be expected to be kept confidential, even if ABC MSP gave me the specific name of the client. If the shopper indicates interest I likely will contact the scheduler who made the request to suggest they should watch for registration by that shopper.

@Flash

Very well stated and explained.

I am finding that most people are only interested in being a secret shopper if they only have to answer a short survey. This frame if mind is why the Box Store check scam finds a higher level of success than most other scams. Also why we see new shoppers not being paid when they do not follow instructions. Lately we are seeing shoppers with some experience not fully preparing for shops outside their area, ending up at the wrong location and/or a incorrect address.

I'd like to see a new sticky be put together addressing the most important things every shopper should know and prepare for to be successful.

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

Another variable is that a given MSC often has different clients in different parts of the country, or even in a different part of the same state if they have banks for clients, for instance.

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

@myst4au wrote:

Another variable is that a given MSC often has different clients in different parts of the country, or even in a different part of the same state if they have banks for clients, for instance.

That tends to be more the exception than the rule. And the exception seems to appear when one regional district or regional owner of many franchises contracts for shops rather than the contract being done by the home office for the chain. This can also lead to multiple shops being done at the same location for different entities. Generally if you see a chain shopped in your state, if locations appear in your shopping area they will be shopped by the same MSC.

You also run into situations where the same location is shopped by different clients to confirm product presentation.

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login

American Mystery Shopping Providers $36 Lifetime Membership Fee

Create an Account or Log In

Official List of Mystery Shopping Companies

Mystery Shopper Magazine