Has anyone had difficulty getting replies from HS Brands/Service Sleuth?

I've completed two shops for them. One of the shops the reimbursement amount is incorrect. I contacted the scheduler through Sassie and they did not reply. A week later when I followed up they told me to contact payroll. I contacted payroll a week ago and haven't heard back. I get that I should have contacted payroll to start, I know that now - but is it normal for a week to go by before a reply?

My other shop with them, I got a low score on the evaluation and the editor's comments say that I did not include things that I did actually include. I emailed the scheduler (different scheduler from the first shop) and after a week of no reply, I followed up. She replied and said that she is unable to help as it is the reviewer's responsibility. I asked how to get in touch with the reviewer or get it resolved but there was no reply.

Is this normal for this company? I don't want to be a pain in their butts, but it would be nice if emails were replied to.
Is there any way to resolve a low score - it's difficult if we can't speak with anyone about the situation.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2016 08:04PM by jgoodwin.

They are slow paying and slow to assign. Everytime I apply for their movie shops, I wait and wait, someone asleep at the wheel, have to wonder. I have limited myself to their oil changes. I have always gotten paid, and only go through them, not a scheduling co./



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2016 10:22PM by Irene_L.A..

They are also dishonest. I did a bunch of cable shops for them. The only one at which the service was poor was the only one they did not pay me for. They did not pay me because the service was poor. Ari, I think his name was, gave some bogus reason for not paying me. Odd that the 13 out of 14 at which I did receive good service I was paid for. I haven't worked for them since.

This is definitely not a dishonest company. I've worked with them since 2008 and my only complaint is that they take 2+ months to pay. And, since I know before accepting jobs that it will take them 2+ months for payment, clearly this is not a deal-breaker for me. This is a company of nice folks who go to great lengths to help their shoppers and accept reports. I have completed many shops over the years, some with very positive reports and some with very negative reports. One report was extremely negative and it concerned appalling store manager performance. I got a 10 on that report, just as the other reports, and was paid, so I would say a negative report does not influence shopper payment.

As for how long it takes for a scheduler to get back to you, yes and no. Service Sleuth tends to be scheduled by scheduling companies, and the schedulers are not employees of HS Brands. KSS does a lot of their scheduling. Some KSS schedulers are more prompt than others.

As for appealing a low score, how low is the low score? Not being nosy intentionally. But if the score is an 8 or 9,and you are getting paid, I would let it go. It's not worth the hassle to argue over it. If the score is lower than an 8 or you are not getting paid, and you are sure that you included the things the editor said were not included (and you saved a copy of your report to document that you are right), it might be worth arguing. If you did not save a copy of your report, I would forget it.

Thanks for the replies.

The score is an 8 so my inclination is to let it go. It's just frustrating that I have the audio recording and the report so I know what I reported is accurate. But given that I can't even find out who to contact, I'll probably let it go and hope it doesn't happen again. Just wasn't sure if this was an ongoing issue with this company. Feedback seems to be mixed so I'll continue with caution.

One of the slowest paying MSC's around. I am still waiting for a shop that I did in April. They do pay but for me it is just too slow. They are an established company that has some interesting shops that do not require much up front. It is just their pay system is sooo slow.

One of the slowest paying by far. I have for whatever reason done quite a bit with them recently. When you do this full time and you have steady payments coming in from other companies its not as big of a deal as they do pay per their stated terms which all shops done in month 1 get paid at end of month 3. So 2-3 months. Depending on the client not the msp there are some clients that will not pay negative reports and of course the msps would rather keep the client and not pay the shopper for the negative reports then risk losing the client. Its crap but true. So as an IC we choose to either do said client shop and risk a negative report thus probably not getting paid or skip said client. Now there are some who will do said client and lie making report positive so they get paid.

Try lisa.malkowski@hsbrands.com. She's in accounting and will actually respond if it's about payment.

As far as editing, I think we are seeing more and more outsourced. Unfortunately when that happens and the "reviewer" has already been paid, they aren't apt to respond. They are especially not apt to respond when they have made an error. It has cost me more than once. I make copies of what I send in. The problem is that if the report's been edited and sent to the client, usually your score is permanent.

I completed a slew of shops for HS Brands in Nevada three weeks ago and found them to be quite responsive. In fact, one of their schedulers (Christa) answered emails that I sent within several minutes, as well as being responsive on the telephone first thing in the morning. My expectation with payment will be within 60 days of submission, less withholding taxes. I'll check back with them toward mid-August payroll.

Eric
Problem is mystery shopping in Nevada is a whole different ball game as you must be or work for a Private eye there. HS brands is one of few who has the ability to shop nevada and in nevada if shopping for them your an employee.

No, I don't work for a private investigator. I have a Nevada work card, which is required for those to work in Nevada. The only reason why I replied to an HS Brands thread is due to working their Nevada shop locations, which the OP never specified.

Either way, from what I understand, HS's payroll disbursements are similar.

HS Brands is a licensed PI in NV.

Like I said, I work for a private investigator. Lol.

Performed my first and last shop for HS Brands last fall. They did not pay when they said they would, because their client had not paid them. My IC contract did not specify that I had to wait for the MSC to be paid before I am paid. Unacceptable. I moved on.

That's an important insight because it is actually the core of the business model for many slow-pay companies. I don't think most shoppers realize what is happening and the fundamental reasons why they are a "slow pay." The companies are utilizing you because you essentially finance their receivables. They give their client terms to pay, perhaps Net 30 days or Net 60 days, etc., and they are able to do that with your money, not theirs, by just withholding payment to you. It is a key to their profitability and capitalization requirements to try to only pay the expenses of a job once they have been paid for it. Most businesses with employees, or contractors whom they pay soon after a job is finished, don't get to use other people's money for free to fund their financing of their clients. When you accept a job with these companies, that is what you are agreeing to do, but probably without realizing it.

I'm not sure the MSC would agree that it's the "core of their business model". This MSC has one of the slower pay policies. If they pay me for shops done properly within the time frame that they've outlined, I don't have any problem with that. Other shoppers might. That's their right to refuse to work with the company due to their pokey ways.

I, too, would feel that they hadn't lived up to their end of the bargain if when their payment to me was due I heard "well, you did the job properly, but we haven't been paid by our client yet, so...". Nope. That wasn't our agreement. But I haven't heard widespread reports of that.

I honestly can't quite believe that the "key to their profitability" is based on paying me what is essentially about 30 days later than most MSCs in order to rake in the benefits of leveraging my $40 oil change reimbursement.

I don't think I have ever received a reply to a question I've had about any shop I've done for them. If it's something simple like rescheduling a shop, the only way I'll find out if it's been rescheduled is to repeatedly go back and check the assignment status. But now I have a serious problem with a shop I performed for them that required guidance from them, because what happened during the shop wasn't going to allow me to correctly fill out the report. I sent the scheduler a message with all the pertinent details and asked him how to proceed. All I got were repeated automated notices about the report being late. I have a total of three messages sent out about this and no replies whatsoever from a human being. Eventually they invalidated the report, which really upset me. I've been trying to figure out how to reach a real person to dispute this.

Good luck! I got passed around from person to person, before giving up and moving on.

The whole situation is quite sad because some are great and some are worrisome. I think they have serious communication problems at times within their staff (likely due to locations). I've found Christa rather responsive. They have a shop I love doing but they expect edits back in 12 hours and sometimes they email just before you go to sleep and don't get it then you wake up to go to work and...edits! Had some issues with pay and am waiting payment/reimbursement before giving them another chance. I find them reputable and nowhere near the sewage which is an 'Intellishop' but due to the amount of money I have to spend on certain shops to be reimbursed and the complexity involved I'll likely stick to the more simple and obvious shops which mostly require the ability of someone to know "shoes go on feet and not on ears" with minimal amounts of money needing reimbursement.

Done 9 shops with them (bar integrity). They do take a couple weeks to accept reports. Haven't been paid yet, as I just started with them.

I did apply yesterday to perform two jobs for today but I did not hear anything back from the scheduler. I even emailed her directly this morning just to see what's up. Heard nothing. So......no jobs being performed today.

I am on the neutral fence here.

My trouble isn't so much communication as it is accessing their platform. It keeps telling me that it my java script isn't working and then gives me a step-by-step to fix it, which doesn't work. I spend about 5 minutes trying to find my way around the login system so that I can put in my reports. They are the only ones I have the trouble with. I enjoy working for them but this issue is making it harder and harder to want to accept any jobs.

I have the same issue. Might depend in part on internet connection. The fix is when you go to the main page you have to wait a while for it to finish loading. It takes forever to load...then you click on it and you're good to go. If you click on it when the circle is still going (on the web address w/ firefox to the right) you get that error message. Once it stops you can click submit and you're in.

I must be one of the lucky ones as I have enjoyed working with this MSC and scheduler (Alysia). She has always been very responsive to the few questions I've had and replied in a timely manner. I did have a pay issue when I first started working with them, but Lisa handled it promptly. Her contact email is listed above in this thread. So, at least for me, I give this company two thumbs up!

P.S. Yes, the pay cycle is on the slow side, but they clearly state what it is upfront, so I knew what I was getting into to begin with...

I haven't had issues working with them. My scheduler has worked with me on fine dining, and on the oil shops. They are a slow pay, but as stated above, they tell you that in the beginning, so you know what to expect.

They are nicknamed Service Sloth for a reason. Those shops that require a large outlay (casinos) are supposed to pay more quickly than the others. It doesn't happen. I have always gotten paid, just not usually when promised. As for the oil changes, I was over the reimbursement anyway and my local Meineke runs $15 specials. No report, no waiting on payment, no hassle.

Yes, the complaint wasn't the speed of payment, as that is known in advance. The initial complaint was about lack of responses to questions or discrepancies.

I'm guessing that you didn't provide (enough) supporting comments for all of your "no" answers.

Try waiting for the webpage to fully load after entering your log in information before clicking the log in submit button...give it a few seconds longer and be patient

@schylarsok wrote:

My trouble isn't so much communication as it is accessing their platform. It keeps telling me that it my java script isn't working and then gives me a step-by-step to fix it, which doesn't work.

True. Let it finish loading for best results. You can also try a different browser.

@schylarsok wrote:

My trouble isn't so much communication as it is accessing their platform. It keeps telling me that it my java script isn't working and then gives me a step-by-step to fix it, which doesn't work.

I've been getting this error for the past two months. First, it was off and on when I used Chrome til one day it wouldn't load no matter how many times I refreshed the screen. I switched to FireFox and it worked great for a while but now about half the times I try to log in I'm having to reload repeatedly to get past the javascript​ error.