Reading through the forums, it seems mystery shopping companies are pulling shoppers' pants down on a daily basis.

With this in mind, who on these boards has blacklisted the most mystery shopping firms?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2017 02:19AM by moosehoose.

Two for me. Cirrus, because of all the horror stories on the forum; and Service Check after the editor accused me of not actually doing the shop despite having submitted date- and time-stamped POV.

Never say never, I guess, but EPMS has a lot of stories about them as well so I wouldn't say blacklisted but definitely not on my "go-to" list.

Cirrus because of slow pay and the stories that I have read on the forum. Intellishop because I just don't want to deal with it . Each to his own but those MSC's are on my ten foot pole list.

I don't think anyone should blacklist a company based on someone else's experience.

@shopper8 wrote:

I don't think anyone should blacklist a company based on someone else's experience.

I look for consistency of issues as well as how the company deals with individual concerns.

Unfortunately a few people can "gang up" on a company and try depict a minimal situation as a major issue. That is why threads like this are more counter productive than good.

I don't boycott any company, but I am picky about the shops I take. For instance, Sentry has a pizza shop I would like to do, but I don't accept due to their payment policy. I suppose that goes across the board. I like the companies that pay the month after the shop or sooner.

If several of people have the same experience then there's truth to what's being shared. You'd be foolish to subject yourself to the ordeal. Personally, if I knew the horror stories of Circus I would not have done a shop for them.

@shopper8 wrote:

I don't think anyone should blacklist a company based on someone else's experience.

Cirrus - never shopped for them, never will
Hilli-Dunlap - failure to pay unless threatened with violence and/or profanity.
Intellishop - I can't get ahold of anyone if needed. I am not doing risky shops with lots of money out there with that kind of record.
Anyone or any company that was related to G3/Spargowski. Thanks for the $1200 write-off loss.

I have worked for Cirrus and never will again. The Apartment shops did pay but very slowly and you have to invoice them. The Swedish furniture shop never did pay and my reports were accepted.

Monthly, I receive their notices of grocery store shops. Yet, RC still only pays $20 for a shop that takes at least 45 minutes in store and another hour's worth of narrative on the report. Topping it off is the warning that "shoppers are on our store's monitors which will be checked for verification" (paraphrasing).

No thanks!

I would not say I would boycott any MSC. However, I have not, and have no plans to work for Cirrus any time soon. (I do not like what I hear about having to chase payment from them). And so far I have not been interested in anything from Intellishop. Does anyone else find the editors for Service Sleuth (sloth) a little too picky? That is the only MSC I have worked for, that I have gotten 8s from. And they are slow payers too. I am starting to rethink working for them, for those two reasons. But as long as I get paid, eventually, I will continue to work for any MSC. And if I ever find a client I really want to do I may even take on the picky editors at Intellishop. (At least I am forewarned...lol).

@Lady Marius wrote:

... Service Sleuth (sloth) a little too picky? ... And they are slow payers too.

Service Sleuth is my go-to MSC for easy reporting. Maybe it depends on the client? They pay at the end of the second following month, but I've always been paid on time--maybe a day or two early, but never late. There is one retail shop I do for Intelli, but no others.

I boycott MSCs based on my personal experience with them, not someone else's opinion or horror stories I hear.

That being said, I won't work for Cirrus because of their slow pay schedule. Another one is Sentry.

If you are fair and give any MSC you work for a chance to respond to your genuine concern....and....they don't respond or take weeks to respond to an issue (especially payroll issues) then it would be 'normal' to drop them like a hot rock. YMMV.

EPMS - I attempted to do one shop for them. Got onsite after an hour drive only to find the rental office and complex were in different places. Called to ask how to do the onsite questions and the person said they had no shopper with my name or shopper id and no shop with the shop id. I asked to speak with someone else and was told to submit a question on their website and someone would get back to me the next day. The next day I got a rude email acting as if it was my fault the shop was not completed. Uh nope.

Ardent - I don't like being told it would be nice if I actually would read the directions when I did indeed read and follow the directions.

Cirrus- too many horror stories for types of shops I don't like anyway.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2017 02:17AM by bgriffin.

Gotta chime in here and put my 2 cents on the only 2 companies I won't shop for at the moment - Sentry and Inside Evaluators - for their lack of payment. I might consider Inside Evaluators again if and when they get back up and running. Sentry - probably never because who can trust those guys?

Read the ten foot pole list.... same stories.....

Market force, intelli shop. They are both awful. I have had luck with epms for many years

Everyone has their own experience and blacklist. For me, the no shop list are usually companies that are slow to pay (over a month and a half), or have bad shopper support systems.

1. Sentry (Payment process is a mess)
2. Bestmark (they asked me for encyclopedia style detail for a $5 shop, no thanks).
3. strategic reflections (several months to pay, and when they do, they go old school and mail checks, ughhh)

I will not shop for Sentry. I did a shop in December, completed and now they are denying that I did it. I have been mystery shopping for 15 years and have not an issue with any other company. Any other company I have worked with has a record of every shop I am assigned but they removed the completed shop and now are claiming I didn't do it. What a load of bs!!!

@ChicagoShopper wrote:

Gotta chime in here and put my 2 cents on the only 2 companies I won't shop for at the moment - Sentry and Inside Evaluators - for their lack of payment. I might consider Inside Evaluators again if and when they get back up and running. Sentry - probably never because who can trust those guys?

Yikes, are people still not receiving payment from IE after contacting them? Joan, their project manager, posted on here that if people e-mailed them, they would make good on payments. I haven't done an IE shop in over a year. For each of their shops I completed, I had to contact them in order to receive payment. From the time that they became at odds with their shopping platform company, I have kept my distance.

One company I would never shop with again is NSite. I found their reporting requirements to be unreasonable for a shop with minimal interaction. I also was turned off by having to chase them for payment.

I don't boycott companies because of pay timeframes. Do I wish Cirrus paid earlier than 90 days, yes, but I've always been paid within the 90 day timeframe after the report has been edited.

I base my work on schedulers that are available to help me when a shop turns to cow patties. I do not expect any scheduler to be available 24/7. But the schedulers who answer emails promptly or have a phone number are my go to people.

I've been very lucky; I've found schedulers that go the distance, Sally A. Craig is my absolute favorite. Tracy and Robin from RBG have never done me wrong. Dawn and Deana from NIM are great. My Cirrus schedulers are always on top of their game.
The schedulers I've worked with from About Face and MaritzCX get the job done. I love CI. schedulers and their outside scheduling people.

I believe I have a different attitude towards this business than most. I may be the boss when I choose my shops. But when I'm shopping I consider my scheduler and the MSC my boss. If I don't have the scheduler, the MSC, plus the editors; I don't have a job.

Everyone eventually decides what works for them and what doesn't.

edited because I'm verbose without making sense



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2017 12:45PM by MA Smith.

Cirrus, intellishop, Ardent and a few others only because they never have anything worth my while. Boycott is a strong word, but companies that take over 8 weeks to pay is not on my to do list....no reason they can't pay within two months, give me a break.

My lowest scores are from them. I have not received a 10

I have only been shopping for 6 months and luckily, most companies have been a pleasure to work for thus far. There are 3 however that I will no longer perform shops for:

1) Cirrus: slow pay and still waiting to get paid for a furniture shop from back in September that was approved, well-graded and invoiced. Told I'd be paid but never have been (was paid for 2 shops in Oct. and Nov. from them, however).
2) Intellishop: too much work for what is paid, in general. Though, payment was accurate and fast.
3) Maritz: difficulty with submission and too much work for low pay in my opinion.

That said, I agree that it is up to everyone to figure out which companies work personally for them. I have seen some companies named that others have said to avoid that I have had zero issues with.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2017 05:14AM by jhawk737.

I've done several for Intelli-shop and no problems. I did ask for a"Swedish furniture shop" from Cirrus and when I got the paperwork I realized that the shop could take hours and only pays 30 dollars so I dropped it!. And my worst score to date was an 8 from Service Sleuth for a badly worded question that I had misinterpreted. I ended up with a snarky remark on my report. So I agree that their editors are a bit rough. On the upside. I like Marketforce, SeeLevel shops the best and Premiere for their luxury car shops as they pay well.

MOD note: Edited to remove ICA violation

I'm confused. I've never had any issues with Intellishop. ??

Intellishop... they are pretty bad

I think it was Cirrus that deactivated me the first month after I started mystery shopping because I followed the instructions and the report was unfavorable. The editor told me to change it and I refused, because I had followed the instructions and reported the truth. Here I am several years later and I think I would probably still report it the same way, but I may have been smarter during the shop, but I'm not sure it would have changed the outcome.

I get not wanting to work for Ardent, they were nice in the beginning, but they will let you burn yourself out and make yourself sick, then toss you out like old socks, rather than let you have a few weeks to recoup.

I understand Intellishop too. I did enjoy working for them most of the time, and they pay pretty quickly. But if there is a problem, any problem, no one will respond to you. And none of the phone numbers worked to try to reach someone directly. But all things being equal, I would work for them again if the opportunity were to present itself.

My average score is low on Service Sleuth because of snarky editors. And because their instructions are vague and sometimes difficult to understand. I've eaten a few shops for them because I was not willing to drive several hours to go back and re-do something that made me uncomfortable the first time I did it. I haven't worked for them in a while, and I don't seek them out.

I have to say though, that there are very few companies that I will just refuse to work for. For the right pay, or for a scheduler that I like I'll do what they ask just for the continued goodwill.