Hey everyone,

Anyone work for Freeman lately and been paid ? I am gettting a incredible amount of job offers from them, but I don't want to take any of them if they are still running behind on their payroll.

Thanks...

Of course folks don't come on forums generally to announce they got paid on time, but the complaints I have seen relatively recently (you know the threads) don't appear to be any improvement. 5/24 payment for a job done 1/14? And that with multiple contacts with the company and unfulfilled promise of 5/21 payment? Doesn't sound promising.

Payments seem to be getting later from the posts I've, rather than them catching up as promised...a year ago.

Can everyone just stop taking shops for them and put them out of their misery?

It's like watching a crippled horse limp around in the pasture for a year!

SteveSoCal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Payments seem to be getting later from the posts
> I've, rather than them catching up as promised...a
> year ago.
>
> Can everyone just stop taking shops for them and
> put them out of their misery?
>
> It's like watching a crippled horse limp around in
> the pasture for a year!


I have no clue why people are still taking shops. I have seen the explanations here and Violation, and how some people write after months of begging for payment that they would still take a shop from them, since they finally paid.

People need to understand that they are a bank, affording interest-free loans to this business and it's founder's jet-setting, five-star hotel lifestyle. If you have the money to do that, and consider it a worthy cause, then by all means take their shops. However, realize that that is exactly what you are doing, and that you would probably be better off paying your your 40 dollar a night hotel by doing a couple of extra shops that pay on a timely basis to pay for it, and hence paying off the CC bill quicker.

Who cares how easy the report is, or how well they used to treat their evaluators back in the day? The bottom line is that for the past two plus years, they haven't been able to honor their own contracts in a timely manner nor to their terms, which is pretty appalling since they created the terms and are free to change them. However, notice they haven't? Because if they told people when they would actually be paid, the reality of it, they would not have a chance of filling their shops. Instead, they hand people non-communication, excuses, and sometimes an extra $5...while Freeman himself stays at fancy hotels across the world. Are you doing that on someone's dime without writing a report for it afterward? No? Why fund his business and his trips, then?

I agree with Steve. Stop taking jobs, force them to either right their business through legitimate ways of getting loans or to go out of business due to poor financial management in a bad economy.

Edited to add-even Orilio, as unscrupulous as his dealings were getting in the last year of operation, paid squeaky wheels faster than these folks.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2010 06:56PM by dee shops.

dee shop,

I understand how you feel of not being paid on time and I agree with you that we should stop taking shops from them due to the lateeeeeeeee pay and their lame excuses.

I personally completed three shops for them last month since I know nothing about them and I also needed the accommodation. After I found out how bad they are with payment issue, I quitted accepting any shop and would rather pick and pay for my own place to stay. I think prompt payment is very critical to shoppers and companies with good reputation always pay shoppers quickly.

One last thing, are there any other mystery forums criticize its late pay issue? The more shoppers hear the noise, the more shops they remain.

potatopotato Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> I personally completed three shops for them last
> month since I know nothing about them and I also
> needed the accommodation. After I found out how
> bad they are with payment issue, I quitted
> accepting any shop and would rather pick and pay
> for my own place to stay. I think prompt payment
> is very critical to shoppers and companies with
> good reputation always pay shoppers quickly.
>
> One last thing, are there any other mystery forums
> criticize its late pay issue? The more shoppers
> hear the noise, the more shops they remain.

They are widely criticized for this. Anywhere shoppers gather, it's being discussed.

Feel happy that you found a forum that gave you usable data, potato, so that you avoided laying out more money for them at this time. :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2010 06:59PM by dee shops.

I think they are being criticized everywhere. I imagine the only way they are getting shoppers is that new shoppers who don't know about them are taking shops like potatopotato did .... and then as soon as they figure out the non-payment issue, they stop. But Freeman is probably surviving by grabbing new shoppers......I know they are sending frequent "begging" e-mails in my area ....the shops just don't seem to be going very fast.....

thanks GOD I go to this forum first before doing the job they asked me to do, all right I wont accept it then...

U know everybody is quick to criticize FG. If u need money that bad then do not do the shop. I have done 3 shops for them and had to wait to be paid but they did pay plus a bonus. I spent my own money and knew that I was eventually get paid. I love doing the hotel shops. josi434

josi434 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> U know everybody is quick to criticize FG. If u
> need money that bad then do not do the shop. I
> have done 3 shops for them and had to wait to be
> paid but they did pay plus a bonus. I spent my own
> money and knew that I was eventually get paid. I
> love doing the hotel shops. josi434


I don't mind spending my own money and I do enjoy hotel shops. What I don't enjoy is waiting over five months for a payment that was promised three months prior to that. I also don't enjoy getting the run around for inquiring about said payment. Oh, and the five dollars they sent as a bonus for my wait was a joke.

Some of us that are "quick to criticize" have had our own money held hostage by them without our permission. My first and last shop for them was a $125 dollar dining shop that I had to beg and plead and finally go to Freeman himself to get paid. Yes, I got paid, but they used my money for 9.5 months without my permission and against their contract terms that they had me sign.

I signed up to do a job, and had I turned it in 9 months late, instead of within 24 hours, they would have refused the job and deactivated me. But they feel free to not pay on time, ignore emails, lose paperwork, and only pay the squeaky wheels.

Perhaps you should be less quick to criticize folks who believe in getting paid per the contracted terms. Who cares if they gave an extra $5 (and for me they did not, and I had fees deducted for the method they used via Paypal...) And NO, I do not feel "grateful" that I was reimbursed my own money "eventually." I did a job on time and to their specs and I deserved to be reimbursed on time, not ignored and jerked around for 9 and half months. I did my shop in April 2008. I don't see that anything has changed at all. It's been more than two years.

If you paid your mortgage 9 months late, would the bank not foreclose? Maybe *you* like giving them a loan, but most of us don't, and it isn't what we signed up for.

Edited to add:

And josi, how do you KNOW you WILL be paid? You can only know that they have eventually paid you in the past.

You, as a non-officer of FG, do not know whether or not they are on the verge of bankruptcy...And if they are, you, as an unsecured creditor, will never see that money. Try asking shoppers who got left holding the empty pocketbook when Orilio and others went BK and left shoppers in the lurch, sometimes for thousands of dollars. Be smart. Stay away. And if you choose not to, please do not come here to complain that you got left holding the empty bag, since you came here to criticize those of us who think that what they are doing is wrong, if not fraudulent.

It also seems that just a couple of months ago you were here asking how to get payment from them...correct?



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2010 03:18PM by dee shops.

I agree with everything you said Dee!!!!!

Well, maybe since I edited it, you don't any longer, but I will choose to think you do, fitey. LOL. :-)

meina_w Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> thanks GOD I go to this forum first before doing
> the job they asked me to do, all right I wont
> accept it then...


Good move! :-)

And josi, I will add to this thread that there is an excellent shopper here with whom I interfaced many times on a different, "non-volatile" forum. She probably only escaped being out *a few thou* on her last shop for Orilio because I tipped her off privately on what I knew from elsewhere and my own issues with getting paid by them, and so she got them to front her the cash before she did an expensive trip for them. Had she not done so, she would have been one of the many shoppers who got taken for their cash when Orilio quietly filed BK the last week of December 2008. There were lots of people affected, and some were out enormous amounts of cash that they could never recoup.

When companies are slow to pay, there is a problem. I would never encourage another shopper to take a shop for a firm with ongoing non-payment issues, even if I was willing to do so myself, for whatever reason I chose to (though I always choose not to...) Even Flash, who has stood by FG more often than not over the past couple of years, tells people while she has done shops, and might or might not continue to do so, counsels others to be cautious, and now she herself seems even more so than in the past.

Believe me, this is not to protect our own money trees. In these kind of instances, it is to protect the money trees of our peers. That is why people share these kinds of experiences.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2010 08:22AM by dee shops.

dee shops Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
Even Flash, who has stood by FG more
> often than not over the past couple of years,
> tells people while she has done shops, and might
> or might not continue to do so, counsels others to
> be cautious, and now she herself seems even more
> so than in the past.
>
> Believe me, this is not to protect our own money
> trees. In these kind of instances, it is to
> protect the money trees of our peers. That is why
> people share these kinds of experiences.

I have certainly tried to make it clear that my personal position is to hope that FG can survive return to their former integrity because formerly they were good to work with. Any jobs I accept from them will be with the full knowledge that my entire outlay of time and cash is "at risk" and I am willing to be "at risk" only because of the years that they were good to work with. Shoppers who did not have that experience in the past have little, if any, reason to work with them. I currently have no jobs pending for them and have not worked for them since the last payment received which was mentioned here months ago.

I propose a new rule that anyone who posted here previously not be allowed to come back to this thread and complain when they perform a shop for Freeman and loose their money.

Instead, they will have to post in the Mystery Shopping Scams thread!

But seriously....is there a precedent for a MSC coming back after loosing this much integrity?

Freeman is like the alcoholic cousin that used to be really cool, but just drank all of your good vodka and let your dog loose after they passed out with your front door wide open while house-sitting.

We are talking about a company that knowingly misleads shoppers about payment schedules in order to get assignments filled. That's a bit more serious than just putting the word 'fun' in the job description.

Perhaps the integrity was never really there to begin with and they were on good behavior for a while.

You guys obviously have a bigger axe to grind with them than I do.

Steve,

I have that cousin

I admittedly have a chip on my shoulder for any company that knowingly misleads people and puts them in a harmful financial situation for their own profit.

It's not just limited to Freeman, or MS companies for that matter.

I have no axes to grind, but I do have two issues with this thread.

First, I have an issue with any person, company, entity, country or politician that intentionally lies to or misleads people for their own gain. This company is beyond the state of just realizing there is a problem...they are actively exploiting people by continually giving timelines they will not meet. It borders on fraudulent activity.

The other issue I have is shoppers who complain and ask for help one second, then get paid and all of a sudden start throwing stones at those who are not willing to risk their cash on a maybe payment that will come long after the due date.

If you choose to call these "axes", then that is your choice.

Dee said: "First, I have an issue with any person, company, entity, country or politician that intentionally lies to or misleads people for their own gain."

I think you've just described 90% of the world's population.

Wow. I must live in the same Lala land as Kelly Bensimone on the RHoNYC. Lol. Next I'll get invited on yacht and have a public meltdown. Tee hee.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2010 09:27PM by dee shops.

Hi guys,

I rejected the project from freeman group, and I told her that I heard the payment from freeman group is late, and this is the answer.
what should I do? In Indonesia 100 USD (that's how much I should use my money first to buy food, drink and merchandise for this project) means a lot we can use it as a meal allowance for 30 days.
So? need your help

Meina,

I will make sure you are paid within 30 days. Yes there has been a delay in payment in the past, but, rest assure our payment turn around will be faster.

I really can't afford to lose you for this shop.

Please reconsider.

Dionna

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
From: Meina Widu <meinawidu@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:11:24 -0700 (PDT)
To: Dionna Matlock<dmatlock@freemangroup.org>
Subject: Re: Reminder: Your Hard Rock Cafe Mystery Shop

Dear Ms.Matlock,

I have joined a mystery shopper forum for couple of months ago, and yesterday I tried to search for your company (since I should use a large sum of my money) and shockingly I find out that usually the payment from your company will pay us late.
Since I have just enough money (1 month is ok for me longer than that with no exact time is not ok for me) every month, I am so sorry I cant do the project.

regards


meina

--- On Fri, 6/18/10, Dionna Matlock <dmatlock@freemangroup.org> wrote:


From: Dionna Matlock <dmatlock@freemangroup.org>
Subject: Reminder: Your Hard Rock Cafe Mystery Shop
To:
Date: Friday, June 18, 2010, 2:38 AM

Hello-



This is friendly reminder about your scheduled mystery shop assignment. Please read through all of your training materials and let me know if you have any questions along the way, I am happy to help. This is a fun shop and I hope that you enjoy your experience.



We thank you for being a shopper with us and I look forward to working with you on this project!



Enjoy your day.



Dionna Matlock // FreemanGroup

Project Manager

Celebrating our 25th Anniversary: 1985-2010

T: (972) 479-1345 | F: (972) 331-2499

3501 Token Dr. Suite 100

Richardson, TX 75082

www.freemangroupsolutions.com

dmatlock@freemangroup.org

Join us on Facebook!

It is impossible to tell if Donna will indeed be able to make certain you are paid on time. The only advice I can give is that if you cannot afford to lose the money or wait months to be paid, it is probably not wise to do the job. I specifically asked on the last job I performed for them when I would be paid before I did it. I was told it would be 8 weeks. It was 17 weeks and that was after multiple contacts to them to try to get paid.

If you cannot afford to wait at least 6 months for the money, run the other direction. No matter what they tell you, it is the same story they are telling others. The reason they "cannot afford to lose you" is that the list of shoppers who will NOT work for them at this time is far larger than the pool of people they can find who will. DO NOT DO THIS SHOP.

This is the exact sort of situation I was referring to above that steams me.

How can anyone in good conscience ask another to spend their month's food budget on this shop when payments are running behind?

The restaurant in question was designed to make money from wealthy tourists, not the locals who will have to endure a great expense for a meal there. I can imagine as a scheduler trying to fill a restaurant assignment in Indonesia how difficult that would be, but there has to be a limit. It's all in the name of customer service and filling the shop quota, and this is just irresponsible business practices as far as I am concerned.

I don't know what's more disturbing; The possibility that evaluators are paid quicker in areas where shoppers are desperately needed, or the possibility the Dionna is outright lying to get the shop filled.

I wonder if the cafe management has any idea of the hardship endured by these shoppers, considering their overt publicity about making the world a better place to live.

The other possibility is that she might not be lying that she would try...but it doesn't mean she will succeed.

I have seen instances posted on shoppers forums of the company expediting payment for "special shoppers." What the criteria is to be special, I can't state.

Like you, Steve, I find it beyond troubling that the company would knowing ask anyone to spend their entire month's food budget, especially given their proven inability to pay in anything close to 30 days.

Dionna Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I will make sure you are paid within 30 days. Yes
> there has been a delay in payment in the past,
> but, rest assure our payment turn around will be
> faster.


That's more than just a promise to try in my book.

Is there any shopper that has been paid in under 30 days by this company in the past 2 years? 90 days?

Still running way behind.

STAY AWAY FROM THEM.