I signed up with Market Force beginning of this year and I never heard back from them. One day I decided to email them about my account. A couple of emails were exchanged and they decided to deactivate my account. Below is what was said.

@John wrote:

Hi,

I could not log into my account. Please assist me with my account.

Thanks,
John

@Simone wrote:

Good afternoon John:

We have opted to discontinue our Independent Contractor Agreement and will no longer be offering you any future assignments. Thank you for your past efforts on our behalf. We wish you professional success in your present and future endeavors.

Simone
Shopper Advocate
Market Force Help Desk
www.marketforceshopper.com

@John wrote:

Is there any particular reason why?

@Julia wrote:

Hi John,

We hope that you can understand that we cannot share the specifics regarding why you are no longer being given the opportunity to select new shops as that could reveal some of the most confidential and proprietary aspects of our business. Because Market Force is unique in this industry, we are not at liberty to share the decisions behind how and why shops are or are not offered to certain shoppers. However, we have had to remove your name from our shopper database and we will not be able to offer you any more assignments.

Julia
Shopper Advocate
Market Force Help Desk
www.marketforceshopper.com

The "thank you for your past efforts on our behalf" part sounds like they are copying and pasting old responses. Funny thing is, I have never completed one assignment from them.

The "confidential and proprietary aspects of our business" part sounds really suspicious. I wonder if they are not accepting new shoppers anymore?

Based on the posts I read throughout this forum, I ended up stop caring about Market Force. There are lots of negative posts about Market Force, specifically the low pay and the random deactivation. This does not surprise me much. I would not want to work for an unethical company paying below minimum wage for the kind of work that requires lots of time and dedication.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/2016 05:28PM by JohnT.

@JohnT wrote:

Based on the posts I read throughout this forum, I ended up stop caring about Market Force. There are lots of negative posts about Market Force, specifically the low pay and the random deactivation. This does not surprise me much. I would not want to work for an unethical company paying below minimum wage for the kind of work that requires lots of time and dedication.

I agree you should move on and not let this bother you. There are a lot of MSCs to work for. Being deactivated by one of them is not going to ruin a mystery shopping career.

Market Force has a huge group of shoppers so they regularly purge their shopper base. The responses you got are probably in fact "canned" responses that are provided to any and everybody who is deactivated. These are statements approved by management for the MF employees to send in response.

MF is a good company. One of the reasons they get so many very, very angry posts about deactivation is that people like working for them so much, and many are shocked and hurt to learn they have been deactivated. It is super easy to sign up with MF, shoppers can self-assign, their instructions are usually pretty clearly written, they pay like clockwork, and their reports are so easy I think a 3rd grader could do shops and complete the reports. Although their shops usually pay low fees, the shops and reports are much easier than most MSCs, requiring far less time and almost no writing ability.

MF is a good "starter" mystery shopping company. Once a mystery shopper gets a little more experience and hones his writing skills, he can move on to other companies with more difficult, time-consuming reports and better pay. You will just be moving on sooner rather than later. Best wishes for happy shopping!

Maybe it is because you never did a shop for about half a year. You don't share a computer or phone number with anyone do you? That might get you kicked out.

I completed four shops with them before they decided to deactivate me. Didn't have any issues with the shops I completed (or if they did, they never told me and still paid me). It's annoying, but there's plenty of other companies out there. Based on their current client list at the time I was active, at least for my location, I wasn't particularly upset since most of their shops were businesses that I wouldn't patronize anyway.

OP, I would encourage you to try again. Market Force tends to deactivate shoppers who haven't done any work with them for a while. Since you have never shopped with them, this is likely the reason. The person you interacted with may have been unaware of this. If you want to shop with them, try again. Be sure to explain that you have never performed a shop and were inactive for some time.

This probably won't help if you have had more than one account with them or if you share a computer, address or phone number with another shopper.

Perhaps the OP got banned by them before under a different login?

@JohnT wrote:

Based on the posts I read throughout this forum, I ended up stop caring about Market Force. There are lots of negative posts about Market Force, specifically the low pay and the random deactivation. This does not surprise me much. I would not want to work for an unethical company paying below minimum wage for the kind of work that requires lots of time and dedication.

Sorry you got deactivated, but don't be misled by those who have been deactivated and are posting their sour grapes here on the forum about Marketforce. Many who are deactivated are furious because they love working with Marketforce and they are devastated at losing the easy money. This is not an unethical company and it does not pay below minimum wage. And, typically, the kind of work that Marketforce has does not require lots of time and dedication. The pay is on the low side but the reports may be the easiest of any company around. The pay is actually pretty fair because the reports are so short and easy. I make more money doing a $10 Marketforce shop that takes me 10 minutes to report than a $15 or $20 shop with another company with a report that takes over an hour.

OKAY - quick rant - EXCEPT when their website has problems and you can't log in to complete reports!. OKAY, rant over. Still a good company, but annoying when their website is inconveniently down.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2016 01:19AM by Jay C.

The best thing to do would be to send a simple email to helpdesk explaining that you had never done any shops for them but had been deactivated, and that you would like your account to be reactivated with them so that you can have the opportunity to do your first shop for them. Like others have stated, being inactive for a period of time will get you purged from their database. After you get reactivated, check their job board frequently until you find a shop close to home. Try to do at least 1 shop every 3 months or so. They generally do not send out emails notifying you of jobs, you have to check their job board. Every once in awhile you will get an email about a job in your area, or phone calls from schedulers.

They have been down for two days! Anyone know what going on?

Hi John,

I would be pretty upset if they had done that to me so you have every right to complain. I have been doing shops for several companies for about 10 years part time (or a couple of hours per week). The one consistent thing I have seen with many of these shops is the office staff are often idiots who choose canned answers before doing any investigating or even carefully reading your email. You would think that people who are in the customer service business would be more professional and practice the same respect for their shoppers as they do for the companies they service but often times this is not the case.

Having said that, if I were you I would persist, just because Market Force does have some good jobs. Compared to many other companies MF typically does not require writing essay after essay for a $10 job that would equate to an earnings of a few dollars per hour given assignment/travel/reporting time involved.

Diana

No idea but it's a little aggravating because I had to cancel a scheduled assignment yesterday and was not able to because of system problems :-(

The site is "almost" back up. i was able to see my login page but didn't get through. They say to do scheduled shops and we will not be penalized by turning our reports in late.

maybe mf deactivated all forum members so none can log on.

Yeah that is what happened.

I checked the daily email box,and get a list of shops everyday.

I logged in today with no problems.

@JohnT wrote:

I signed up with Market Force beginning of this year and I never heard back from them. One day I decided to email them about my account. A couple of emails were exchanged and they decided to deactivate my account. ...

John, other shoppers, new and old, have experienced this. As you have not completed one assignment for them, it would seem that you could have done nothing wrong:{ You got canned responses, indicative that MF made zero effort to research your inquiry. Other members have reported they persevered, and overcame. Check to see if email from MF (bulletins, etc.) made it to your inbox, or went to spam and bounced back. The latter could be the reason for deactivation.

Yes, there are other fish in the sea. However, injustice is a hard pill to swallow. Decide what it's worth to you.

I have been deactivated on the Blue Portal, but I know it is because that I have not done anything for that portal for over a year.

what is the Blue Portal? Like from the Matrix?

LOL Ninja. They have a merchandising side and a mystery shopping side. One is blue, one is purple, I think (I never paid attention to which is which). I had signed up for the merchandising side and kept looking for decent jobs, but they didn't pay well enough for me so I didn't do any. I am not sure if I have been deactivated from that portal or not since I never look anymore.

I'm pretty sure they sold off the merchandising clients to Spar Business Services, and only retained the movie theaters on the purple portal.

I signed up with Market Force beginning of this year and I never heard back from them. One day I decided to email them about my account. A couple of emails were exchanged and they decided to deactivate my account. ...
[/quote]


John, other shoppers, new and old, have experienced this. As you have not completed one assignment for them, it would seem that you could have done nothing wrong:{ You got canned responses, indicative that MF made zero effort to research your inquiry. Other members have reported they persevered, and overcame. Check to see if email from MF (bulletins, etc.) made it to your inbox, or went to spam and bounced back. The latter could be the reason for deactivation.

Yes, there are other fish in the sea. However, injustice is a hard pill to swallow. Decide what it's worth to you.[/quote]

[/quote]


John, other shoppers, new and old, have experienced this. As you have not completed one assignment for them, it would seem that you could have done nothing wrong:{ You got canned responses, indicative that MF made zero effort to research your inquiry. [/quote]

I KNOW this is true, and so far I have found that Julie is the very worst for this. I have never known her to read the first email, EVER. Send them another email il and put in the subject line "NOT FOR JULIE" or "ATTN: Julie's boss". Then explain how u are getting canned emails and would appreciate a response from someone who actually read your email. Be super polite. Make certain u explain u have never done a shop for them and would like reactivation. MF does indeed deactivate shoppers for not doing any shops in a certain number of days (as well as other reasons unknown).

Got deactivated today, after shopping with them for over 8 years. Have no clue why. My husband and mom also deactivated.