So I received an email from an editor at ACL last month, perfectly reasonable concern over a shop I did. I replied, then received another notice four days later saying she really needed a response or the shop would be dropped. I responded again, thinking maybe I forgot to hit send last time (though I certainly wrote something out.) I just now checked on the status of the shop and it was gone. Not even in the "removed" section.

So I wrote to the editor and also the company's info email address. I heard from the info address stating I had been sent three notices and then a cancellation. It was very terse. Only I have those emails in my sent inbox, never received a third notice or the cancellation. It's clear they have zero interest in finding out if they screwed up on their end, so I'm strongly considering a small claims case.

The hell of it is, this is the second time with them. I sucked up the first one, because I had some marginal fault in that one, but I like hotel work. Well, all I've seen from them is really low rent hotels, one of which had a reward program on a punch card. I am well done with these people, and I think I have a genuine case for claiming the reimbursement since there's a definite paper trail.

Jack,
Do I have this right? You are going to sue for reimbursement for a shop that was never assigned and you didn't perform? If you are through with the MSC I suggest you just drop it and move on.

My apologies. I reread your post and realize that you completed the shop. However, i would still drop it and move on.

My experience with them is that if the editor does not hear back from you in time they pick up the phone and call. When there has been a question I have most frequently been returned the shop to deal with any clarifications to text. So your experience does not sound like ANY experience I have ever had or heard of from credible sources. I use Gmail and have never NOT received an email sent. My History tab on their website also shows every email they have sent me.

Fast Jack, reading your email I did not notice you saying you had copied them on the paper trail. Perhaps you did. If you do in fact have proof of actually sending the responses to them and within the time frame specified this would have been a good thing to have forwarded to them at the first contact you had with them to rectify the situation. I try to remember, but fail most of the time, to actually copy myself on email communications when there is an issue. That way I actually have proof I received the email I copied myself on as it has a time stamp when it came into me which would be proof it was sent (by pushing send) to the company as well. I also find a phone call a good way to handle an issue when it becomes an issue rather than an email. Phone calls allow you to calmly explain your situation fully and give a response immediately to something which they say that does not seem right to you rather than waiting for another email response to be handled by yet another inconclusive email. And double check the email address where you sent your responses to make sure they were sent to the right place.
It also sounds like you are still allowed to shop for them. If these are shops you really want to do and they have not de registered you as a shopper you might want to do some of their lesser shops to prove yourself so that you can work your way back up to the level you were at. Suing them will ruin your chances to work for them again so think carefully before you do so.

Just threaten them with small claims court and they will probably give you your fee. If not, go to court anyways because we mystery shoppers can't be treated like this no more. Injustice to mystery shoppers anywhere is a threat to mystery shoppers everywhere. No more bending over....time to take action.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I have a policy to closely watch shops after receiving any requests for clarification. So if it wasn't reviewed within 24 hours of my response, I would have been following up to be sure they received my email.

Bad advice, IMO, from DavePi. Is it worth the $15, $25 or even $100 to file a lawsuit and destroy your relationship with this MSC. And perhaps more repercussions?

If ACL requests a verification, don't they reopen the form and require an update to be resubmitted? As for your last paragraph, are you actually complaining about the quality of the shops that you otherwise saw enough merit in to request and perform? Best to remain factual and put emotions aside.

Yeah, the fact really is, if they're going to dismiss me out of hand over something that happened on their end, I am quite happy ruining the relationship.

As for the last bit from isaiah, I was under the impression that they'd have slightly higher end (at least mid-range) places, but around me it mostly looks like mediocre hotels in questionable neighborhoods. Not like I knew that before signing up and then qualifying.

Anyway, I'm giving them a chance to actually respond, and did send the proof of emails. I'd like to play nice before I play nasty, but they don't seem interested in even having a discussion.

@LIJake wrote:

Bad advice, IMO, from DavePi. Is it worth the $15, $25 or even $100 to file a lawsuit and destroy your relationship with this MSC. And perhaps more repercussions?

Excellent advise because during registration on some of our clients they ask "Have you taken action or sued another business or company"? I hope you can solve your situation in the most amicable way but suing them when there is "Arbitration Clause" does not work. I fear you might get blackballed and end up without clients to shop for. Suing is overrated, it only make's enemies instead of bringing people together.

So the shop was last month, you emailed them today and because they told you they didn't get your previous responses you said, "It's clear they have zero interest in finding out if they screwed up on their end." I do think it is too early to assume they have no interest in finding where the breakdown occurred. Then we have the whole issue with email. You can prove you sent them, you can't prove they got them. I'm not saying your proof of responding shouldn't be sufficient to work out an equitable solution because it absolutely should. Just it isn't enough proof they screwed up if it was never received.

It can be a pain to have to follow up multiple times, but the second notice was an indication something was amiss and time to pay closer attention to what was happening with the shop. I have yet to find a problem that couldn't be resolved if handled quickly. Weeks later you face the problem of the shop being reassigned completed and submitted already.

I think DavePi was kidding.

@LIJake wrote:

Bad advice, IMO, from DavePi. Is it worth the $15, $25 or even $100 to file a lawsuit and destroy your relationship with this MSC. And perhaps more repercussions?

What else is new? DavePI almost always gives bad advice. It is his thing; it is a game to him.

Jack, ACL has recently hired new editors and schedulers. This could very well have been a new person who is trying to cover their rear. If it was me, I would make copies of everything pertinent and then send a registered letter explaining why they owe you the reimbursement, using only facts - no opinion, no emotion. Put a time limit on it by which to respond.

They're one of my favorite companies, but they do have one person that I don't find to be highly ethical. Maybe it's her, or maybe someone new.

I don't know what may or may not have happened with the e-mails that the OP sent in response to ACL's questions, but this makes me wonder yet again why people seem to have forgotten how to use the telephone.

@LisaSTL wrote:

Hindsight is 20/20, but I have a policy to closely watch shops after receiving any requests for clarification. So if it wasn't reviewed within 24 hours of my response, I would have been following up to be sure they received my email.

I wouldn't even go that far. If an email's sent, it's sent. So the ball is on their court. I guess we can always utilize read receipts and delivery confirmations with emails, but that's just another thing to keep track of.

@Fastjack

I guess my observation/question was over looked.

Any time ACL has requested that I provide additional information, or clarify something, I am directed back to the survey. The section(s) that need to be updated are flagged. I correct the issue and resubmit the survey. Did your emails ask for a response by email, or require that you use the survey like mine did?

You've never shopped for MarizCX I'm guessing.

I did have an issue with an MSC where I went online, resolved the issues, submitted it, only to see the shops sit on my account. I called five times, only to either receive an automated message, or to be told they would call back. They did not. As a result, I lost the income. $108 to be exact.

I manipulated the legalities so that I can sue them in small claims in my state if necessary. I have chosen not to do so because I still shop with them. If they deactivate me in the next two years, I might sue them. I'm 8-0 in my home court, my big one being getting the divisional VP of Ford calling me for resolution. That was fun.

All said and done, in Mystery Shopping, I look first at the exact nature of my wrong. The first shop I was denied payment was that I thought I corrected the error to get the information that the client wanted. I fumed and felt self-pity for awhile. Then I looked at my part in it. Where did I go wrong.

Easy. I did not contact my scheduler and give her a heads up. Maybe if I did, I would have gotten paid. Once I realized this truth, I recognized that my error was fatal. I gave up hope to get that money. And I am at peace. Except evey time I go to the Shop Log for that company, it's the first thing I see that they throw up on my face.

Coming soon....Sassie's focus on the negative.

It's amazing what people will go through to avoid picking up the phone and calling.

Exactly and I'm not sure why the attitude against following up. If I contract with someone for work and an error is made I expect them, the contractor, to be following up with me, the client, not the other way around.

@LisaSTL wrote:

Exactly and I'm not sure why the attitude against following up. If I contract with someone for work and an error is made I expect them, the contractor, to be following up with me, the client, not the other way around.

We might be talking about two different things. Of course, if you know there's an error your Work submitted to the Company, the Contractor (us) should be expected to do his / her due diligence and follow up with the Company.

However, if it's simply correspondence to Clarification emails from the Company, I'd have to disagree with tracking whether the Company replies to it stating indicating it's "received" or not. It's another thing to keep track of whether the Company replies to your clarification response or not. At some point, we have to rely that the email servers we use (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) have sent an email when it's seen in the 'sent' folder of our emails. If it's an issue with the Company's email server, it should be their responsibility to contact us or we would receive some sort of notification of an email not being deliverable (i.e. a rejection email or an auto-response for additional direction if the email was sent to the wrong person or the person is out on vacation, etc.).

In my experience, some people reply with a 'thank you' or a 'received' email in response to Clarification emails; some do not reply to it at all, but I haven't really experienced any issue with acceptance and payment for the Work. Sure, you can inject a 'please confirm receipt of this email' and / or even throw in Read Receipts attached to your email, but I still don't think it's necessary, as I find this as a hit or miss and another thing to keep track of.

"If it's an issue with the Company's email server, it should be their responsibility to contact us." This reminds me of how a lot of photo audits want pictures of every "no" and we often ask how we can take a picture of something that is not there. How does a company let you know your email was not received if they don't know it was ever sent?

@LisaSTL wrote:

"If it's an issue with the Company's email server, it should be their responsibility to contact us." This reminds me of how a lot of photo audits want pictures of every "no" and we often ask how we can take a picture of something that is not there. How does a company let you know your email was not received if they don't know it was ever sent?

By Company, I meant the MSC. If the Company / MSC is having issues with their own email server, it should be the MSC's responsibility to notify us (not shoppers being expected to notify them). If us shoppers receive some notification that our message wasn't delivered to the MSC, we should be notified of this with a rejection or something similar. Basically what I'm getting at is that no email response from the MSC does not mean they did not receive our email; if it's sent, it's sent.

On a similar note, if the email servers us shoppers (Contractors) rely on are having issues, the email server we use (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) typically have automatic messages to notify the us of this. If it's not in the sent folder, it may not have been sent.

If it's a typo with typing the correct email address (regardless of which party it is, the MSC or the shopper), that's a whole other issue altogether.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2016 04:56PM by Tarantado.

Are we forgetting here that this is ACL? A company whose website I have never seen down except for scheduled maintenance in the more than a decade I have worked with them? Where typically there is a response within 24 hours to a shop submitted that it has been accepted or needs additions/changes/corrections and once these are sent the shop will be accepted or contact made within another 24 hrs? Because they do send that final 'thank you for your shop', any shop not receiving that email needs to be followed up on and the site does let you see emails that have been sent to you in your History in case your or their email failed. Editors also bend over backwards to contact you by phone if you don't respond to email and if they still can't reach you the shop gets kicked up to a supervisory level to email, phone or attempt to find some way to salvage the work. This is not just for some shoppers, this is for all of their shoppers. So I'm finding the OP's comments don't ring true with me unless the OP is using some obscure email service or has email settings that exclude almost everything. Even then, just routine follow up should have revealed there were still unaddressed issues within a time frame that could have allowed the shop to be accepted.

@Flash wrote:

Are we forgetting here that this is ACL? A company whose website I have never seen down except for scheduled maintenance in the more than a decade I have worked with them? Where typically there is a response within 24 hours to a shop submitted that it has been accepted or needs additions/changes/corrections and once these are sent the shop will be accepted or contact made within another 24 hrs? Because they do send that final 'thank you for your shop', any shop not receiving that email needs to be followed up on and the site does let you see emails that have been sent to you in your History in case your or their email failed. Editors also bend over backwards to contact you by phone if you don't respond to email and if they still can't reach you the shop gets kicked up to a supervisory level to email, phone or attempt to find some way to salvage the work. This is not just for some shoppers, this is for all of their shoppers. So I'm finding the OP's comments don't ring true with me unless the OP is using some obscure email service or has email settings that exclude almost everything. Even then, just routine follow up should have revealed there were still unaddressed issues within a time frame that could have allowed the shop to be accepted.

Agreed; ACL contacts us shoppers both by phone and email whenever something's off or if they need something. If it was sent by ACL to the shopper's email, the worst case that may happen will be that the email is somewhere in the Junk / Spam folder, if it's not received in the normal Inbox.

If the error was due to wrong email used, whether the Shopper used the wrong email or ACL used the wrong email from Shopper, then hey, maybe OP does have a reason to complain and it does happen. A good example from my experience on this kind of scenario happened with another very reliable and trustworthy MSC. My sister coincidentally has an almost similar, but still different email address. One day, she contacted me asking why an email with my name regarding a project I was on was sent to her. Anyways, she ended up just contacting the MSC on the issue and got it properly addressed. Would it have been my fault if my sister hadn't contacted me about it?

But regardless, we don't have enough detail to understand the situation or even think what the actual issue was altogether. Thus, I also agree that there is still not enough clarity on the OP's story and with my experience with ACL, nothing has come close to this kind of experience... Ever.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2016 05:24PM by Tarantado.

It's one thing to assume that your clarification e-mail in response to a first request was received. But, if one receives a second request for the same issue and/or the shop is still showing as incomplete, then the shopper should follow up with the MSC to be sure that his or her response was received. We just can't assume that the e-mail was received and that the person at the MSC has lost it or is otherwise screwing up.

Sometimes a phone call to say, "I just got a duplicate request for information, but I've already sent it. Did you not receive it" is worth the effort. Not just another e-mail. If they didn't get the first one, they may not get subsequent ones!

It amazes me how completely some people trust technology! "I sent the e-mail; they must have gotten it. I used Spell Check; how could my narrative have spelling and grammar errors? I didn't get any voice mail; they must not have called."

Sometimes people don't receive e-mails--for many reasons. Spell Check is wrong as often as it's right, and voice mail doesn't always work properly. My damned phone doesn't notify me half the time when I have one, and even when I save an important VM, it can "disappear" into some black hole somewhere.

Alas, sometimes good old-fashioned methods of communication, checking one's work, etc., must be used. As inconvenient as it may be.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2016 05:27PM by BirdyC.

@BirdyC wrote:

It's one thing to assume that your clarification e-mail in response to a first request was received. But, if one receives a second request for the same issue and/or the shop is still showing as incomplete, then the shopper should follow up with the MSC to be sure that his or her response was received. We just can't assume that the e-mail was received and that the person at the MSC has lost it or is otherwise screwing up.

Sometimes a phone call to say, "I just got a duplicate request for information, but I've already sent it. Did you not receive it" is worth the effort. Not just another e-mail. If they didn't get the first one, they may not get subsequent ones!

It amazes me how completely some people trust technology! "I sent the e-mail; they must have gotten it. I used Spell Check; how could my narrative have spelling and grammar errors? I didn't get any voice mail; they must not have called."

Sometimes people don't receive e-mails--for many reasons. Spell Check is wrong as often as it's right, and voice mail doesn't always work properly. My damned phone doesn't notify me half the time when I have one, and even when I save an important VM, it can "disappear" into some black hole somewhere.

Alas, sometimes good old-fashioned methods of communication, checking one's work, etc., must be used. As inconvenient as it may be.

First off, OP detailed they received the first 2 Clarification emails from ACL, but didn't state the 3rd. Was the 3rd email even received?

I don't believe OP stated the RFI was duplicate or completely separate RFI's. If the RFI's were identical, I agree that this should be a red flag to verify with ACL about.

At some point, you do trust that an email was sent. Basically all email servers I've ever had experience with provided some kind of rejection email or delivery issue message if there was issue with sending it or delivering it to the email receiver. Like I said, there's ways to cover this, such as Read Receipts or Delivery Confirmations, but I don't even think the free email servers like Gmail even offer that option or not.

"Checking someone's work" shouldn't mean for us to babysit or follow up if a 'thank you email' isn't received. Yes, I understand we're talking about ACL, but there has been shops where I did not receive a 'Thank you for submitting your report' email for at least 2-3 days after submitting my report. Should I have followed up with ACL? If my voicemail is empty, no missed calls were received and my email is empty of anything ACL-related, I'd say the ball was passed to ACL's court, at that point, and nothing else is needed from me.

@Tarantado wrote:

Yes, I understand we're talking about ACL, but there has been shops where I did not receive a 'Thank you for submitting your report' email for at least 2-3 days after submitting my report. Should I have followed up with ACL? If my voicemail is empty, no missed calls were received and my email is empty of anything ACL-related, I'd say the ball was passed to ACL's court, at that point, and nothing else is needed from me.

I have found that if I don't have the 'Thank you' or a follow up question within 24 hrs, something is likely to be wrong and it certainly makes sense to check their website to see if something is amiss. About a year ago there was such a situation. I went to their website and saw the shop was gone but in History the shop was there and there was no email notice. I got on the phone. The editor was new and didn't remember to send the email. All was well.

There are many many companies we ignore no follow up because they just don't follow up unless there is a problem. This is one of the things that makes ACL different and because of their consistency, a variation should be a 'heads up'.