When you do Honest work for a company and they decline to pay you, there is a problem of ethics. Intellishop stated that I had not sent in required data, I proved them wrong; when I appealed my non payment -I was fired. How would you feel if your employer failed to pay you. One of my shopping companies, I have completed over 1500 shops. Only 5 were not paid as the wrong agent was shopped by accident or shopped on the wrong day.

if a company fails to pay you because of their mistake and when you prove them wrong they fire you. its a ethical issue. How would you feel if your company Fired you unjustly. It was vindication. Clients should be made aware of how the shoppers are being treated

I have and do work for several companies. All of them pay as promised except Intellishop.

They did get the message. I emailed the person who scheduled the shop twice, I called the office once and talked to another staff member, then I emailed the Director of Shopping and he pursued my Termination that day; a Friday afternoon. I sent emails all the way up to company Owner, Only one responded; I sent all email data proving that I was the shopping Director stated in short that they do not put up with shoppers who question thier actions. The company that got the brilliant evaluation has contacted me so many times, I finally informed them that it was a Mystery shop and asked if they had gotten the results; they asked me to please put my positive results in their website.

I am considering emailing the client and explaining what happened and the exceptional results that the staff member performed. Then I will ask the Client to pay me; What do you other shoppers think of that? Would that be ok?

First, you are not an employee so you were not fired. You were given an opportunity to correct an issue and by your own admission did not.

Second, for another company you actually shopped the wrong target or wrong day five different times? Plus 30% of your shops with Intellishop were incorrect? You do realize that is a lot. Most shoppers have completed thousands of shops, for dozens of companies and could count the number invalidated on one hand.

I have the Iphone 6 Plus. The shop had a bonus and was paying 55 dollars; I could have had the Info in -in 10 minutes. Someone was having a bad day and just wanted to exercise their authority and ruin another persons day. But the bible states that you reap what you sow.

@Charlesvanzant wrote:

... The company that got the brilliant evaluation has contacted me so many times, I finally informed them that it was a Mystery shop and asked if they had gotten the results; they asked me to please put my positive results in their website.

Stop shooting yourself in the foot! In the one sentence quoted above, you violated three rules of MSing: never admit that you are a shopper, never ever contact the client, and never make public any information gathered on a shop. You violated your ICA multiple times in this one shop and Intelli had every right to terminate your contract.

Read your ICAs and understand that you are not an employee of any MSC. You are a small business owner. Until you understand the ICAs, you are a liability to yourself.

While Intelli-Shop is not exactly my favorite MSC, I have only not been paid one time and it was my own fault. I was able to successfully re-shop the location I made a mistake with and the scheduler added a bonus since I was willing to do so.

I believe calling them "unethical" is a little bit of an exaggeration, honestly.

This forum's guidelines state "Do not reveal the clients of mystery shopping companies". Additionally, It is probably an ICA violation for you to name both the MSC and client." - Admin

The instructions said to use one word and you chose to use another word....
you learn to follow the instructions!

@stacylholland wrote:

Quoted post deleted. This forum's guidelines state "Do not reveal the clients of mystery shopping companies". Additionally, It is probably an ICA violation for you to name both the MSC and client." - Admin

I've not been paid for 2 out of 100+ in the last year. However, those two occasions were handled unethically by Intelli-shop. I will only do one particular shop for them as a result. I will not risk being stiffed for a fee larger than $7.00. The latest being when they pulled the shop after I had already shopped it, but not reported yet. Not because I was late, but because they were "no longer shopping that location." The ethical way to have handled that shop would have been for intelli-shop to have paid me the $7 fee and the $2 reimbursement. It was NOT the shoppers fault they scheduled the shop for a location they longer shopped. I'm sorry, but it just ain't right when a shopper checks the shop board before leaving the house to perform the shop, only to return home to submit the report, but the report is no longer accessible. Poof! Intelli-shop didn't even notify me of the cancellation UNTIL I contacted them asking why the shop had disappeared from my log.

There are MS that have had shops rejected for no valid reason. However, there are also MS that totally deserve not to be paid for shoddy work.

OP- You said "They have gotten away with No paying me for additional data on several occasions"...well sorry but it sounds like your reports are not complete then. I very, very rarely get a shop back for more information. Maybe twice ever. Perhaps your report writing style just is not in sync with their requirements.?

I shop with them every month and always get paid like clockwork and have never had a report come back to me with questions. One time they tried not to pay me for what was two car shops... Actually, the scheduler sent me the wrong information. I wrote a respectful email and they paid me anyways. I did have an integrity shop that I did not get paid for, I felt I did what they asked and they felt that I didn't. We settled on no mark on my perfect track record and I did not get paid. But again I wrote them respectfully with an explanation. I maintain a score of 10 with them with 67 shops.

If someone fires you, I could not imagine then talking to other employees about it. And if you didn't like how they do business then why would you be fighting to work for them anyways?

Intellishop does well in my book. I hope everyone bases their opinions on their own experience and not someone that is disgruntled over getting fired. I've actually never heard of someone seriously getting fired. I've heard of shops not being seen anymore or being deactivated but to come out and fire someone I've just never heard that before. ha ha.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2017 06:12PM by LeslieKay111.

"Am I able to send money through ... with you."
and "Are you authorized to send money via ...." are two VERY different questions.

If I were the client, I would reject the report as well.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2017 01:54AM by tcurione.

You should get off of your High Horse; sounds like you are an employee of Intellishop; If they keep up these unethical pratices; it will backfire

If they keep up this behavior they are going to qualify for a Class Action Lawsuit.

Lisa, I think the OP said that IS was proved wrong and that the shop was done correctly. We all know that IS terminates relationships with shoppers based on personal whim. Hey, let's face it,...Intellishop is an unethical POS company. They're "big", sure (in this micro MS universe!), but if they ever F with me...I will come down on them (legally) like a sack of nails. Look, I follow my agreements, and I expect (within reason) the MSCs I work for to follow , as well....And I wouldn't care if they fired me....a civil lawsuit , properly presented, can get a judge AND jury to not pay 'much' attention to whatever you signed -- when a MSC is THIS FAR OUT OF BOUNDS!

The ICA is an agreement put in place by MUTUAL acceptance of its verbiage. Period. As all agreements are. Once one side (in this case, the MSC) violates standard business practices, the ICA gets tossed out by a court. Civil cases have been won on far less....You state that one of the three 'rules' of mystery shopping is not contacting the client...(first, who made THAT rule, the MSPA? What a joke~!) but when the MSC unfairly terminates you, and probably uses the report (not sure in this case, but it happens all the time), and treats you unfairly....you have every right to contact the client. It is done in all sorts of industries, regularly, when the s*** hits the fan. They even have classes in law school specifically to deal with this type of law.

Stacylholland I'm sure you thought you were saying the right thing, but there is a huge difference in asking if they are Authorized to send money then, "Are you able?"

No, actually we do not all know anything of the sort.

@winemaker wrote:

We all know that IS terminates relationships with shoppers based on personal whim.

I've only done a handful of shops for IS, and though I wouldn't call them unethical, they most certainly aren't my favorite MSC and some of their editors are frustrating. I've had two issues with IS, the first was because information they wanted for a shop wasn't available because the associate was "out there," and no amount of explaining got through to the editor. The second time, the editor for a dealership shop emailed me stating I had made a mistake on my report, that I had listed the car I was shopping as the car I drove to the dealership. I checked the report and I had listed the correct vehicle in both places. I emailed the editor back and said that what I put in the report was correct. The next day, I got my score: 8/10 because the editor had to email me for clarification. I replied to the email that the editor was confused and that the email was not needed because I had supplied the correct information in the first place. First I got a response that I should have been more clear on the report.Not possible since the question asked for the year, make and model of the car I drove to the dealership. I pointed this out in a follow up email and finally was told in a response that my score had been changed to 10/10.

I note that the comment included being questioned, "In that manner." Is it possible that you caused offense by your tone? Were you rude? I can understand you were angry, but most situations and differences can be resolved in a non-confrontational manner.

From an intelli post today they openly admit the following can be reasons for no pay...Reasons why applications are rejected ....................

1-We have shopped the representative twice already or shops are pending for that representative (SO WE THE SHOPPER HAVE TO KNOW PREVIOUS WHO SHOPPED WHOM)

2-The scheduler has noticed that you have shopped the rep in the past 90 days. Please note that it is the SHOPPER’S responsibility to catch this

3-Client has pulled the locations (SO THE SHOPPER HAS NO CLUE)

Intelli-Shop doesn't have a lot of work in my area, but I've never had a problem with being paid for my work. Reports are not easy to write to suit every quality control editor; it does take some effort and you have to watch for those e-mails!

According to your own post, those are reasons "applications" are rejected. Unless you are normally paid just for applying, it doesn't strike me as any open admission regarding non-payment.

@CANADAMOMMY wrote:

From an intelli post today they openly admit the following can be reasons for no pay...Reasons why applications are rejected ....................

You see it your way I see it as non payment.

@LisaSTL wrote:

According to your own post, those are reasons "applications" are rejected. Unless you are normally paid just for applying, it doesn't strike me as any open admission regarding non-payment.

@CANADAMOMMY wrote:

From an intelli post today they openly admit the following can be reasons for no pay...Reasons why applications are rejected ....................

Sounds like YMMV to me. I just logged in and my log shows 168 shops (out of 252), dating back to 2012. I've never had issues with them as far as getting paid, though I have been dinged for them having to request additional info (mostly due to less-than-optimal wording on their part in their forms). Their shops are not the most lucrative, but I don't feel they are grossly underpaid. The only ones that I didn't feel was worth the pay were hotel audits. A lot of work and a lot of pics for only $25. When they came up again, after multiple begging emails from the scheduler, I offered to do a route of them for a sizable travel bonus, and was turned down.

I do have a current issue with them re: credit union shops. Awhile back they changed the scenario where you are supposed to go through the interaction then be unable to produce a picture ID. These wind up being pretty easy money, as usually the rep will ask for ID straight away, meaning the shops last about 5 minutes. They used to pay $12, but now they pay $10. No biggie since the time involved on site is short, and the report takes about 10 minutes tops, including scanning business cards.

I did a couple of them today, and noticed that, while the solicitation and the Shop Pay on the left hand side of the form was for $10, in the Shop Overview on the right side of the same page remains unchanged at $12. So somebody did not exercise the accuracy and attention to detail that the company expects of their shoppers (LOVE when that happens!)

I emailed the scheduler and requested the extra $2 per location because A) they screwed up with their documentation, and I should get a little something for bringing the error to their attention. Will be interested in seeing how it turns out.

@CANADAMOMMY wrote:

You see it your way I see it as non payment.

@LisaSTL wrote:

According to your own post, those are reasons "applications" are rejected. Unless you are normally paid just for applying, it doesn't strike me as any open admission regarding non-payment.

@CANADAMOMMY wrote:

From an intelli post today they openly admit the following can be reasons for no pay...Reasons why applications are rejected ....................

What am I missing? I must be having a no-brainer moment. If an application is rejected, it means an assignment is not assigned. If an assignment is not assigned, then the shopper doesn't do the assignment and report, so there would not be any payment due. So I don't see how anybody can consider this nonpayment. Somebody please explain to me how denying an application for a shop is the same as denying payment for a completed/reported shop.

Thank you. I don't see how CM can read application and see assignment. The only thing they have in common is both begin with the letter A. Not to mention one begins with "app" and the other "ass."

Edited to stop the stupid comments from people who don't read.
Have a great day.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2017 04:55AM by rebekah.