my 2 cents: You gave your own opinion that the employee needed to be trained. In shops I do, I do not give opinion, I just state the facts. 'The employee did not know how to operate the kiosk.' 'The employee said the kiosk was broken, so he directed me upstairs.' Something along those lines. I've never worked for Intellishop but have done work for some tough MS companies where they just want the facts.

Deleting something is not necessarily falsification. You suggested the employee needed further training which could be construed as telling the client how to handle their business. Stick to objective facts and let the client determine the best course of action.

@rebekah wrote:

I noticed that my comments in one section had been changed. My original comment was not negative, but indicates that additional training might be required. IMHO it is unethical for the editor to delete comments a shopper has made. Is that not falsification of records? '

IMHO, no. The client has not hired you and is not paying you. The client has not communicated its guidelines and goals to you. The client hired the MSC and communicated directly with them. The client may have provided a lot more instruction and information to the MSC than has been provided to you. The MSC hired you, gave you guidelines, and will accept or reject your shop, edit it, and provide it to the client. The MSC is paying you for your report. The report belongs to them. Any report they buy from you is theirs to do with as they please. Whatever report the MSC provides to their client is between them and their client.

@rebekah wrote:

I think this does a disservice to the mall employee, does it not? Just sayin'

IMHO, we are independent contractors. We work for the MSC. The MSC is our customer. The client is the MSC's customer. My viewpoint is that I will do the best job I can for my customer, the MSC. I want my reports accepted and I want to be paid. The client is the MSC's customer to handle. There is no business relationship between me and the client and I am not privy to any direct communications with the client. The MSC knows what their customer wants. My job is merely to provide an accurate account of what happened on the shop and to answer all questions honestly to the MSC. It is beyond my business to make subjective determinations of what the client needs to know, whether employees need more training, or what is "fair" to an individual employee. By providing an accurate story of what happened, with NO opinions or subjective determinations, the client will decide, after any editing by the MSC, what needs to happen based on their management goals.

@roflwofl wrote:

The MSC is paying you for your report. The report belongs to them. Any report they buy from you is theirs to do with as they please. Whatever report the MSC provides to their client is between them and their client.

QFT

This post was fairly long and I think this small part is important enough to pay special attention to.

You submit a repirt that says "worst store ever" and the MSC pays you for it. It is then their property not yours. If they want to send it to the MSC as "best store ever" that is between the MSC and the client. Not your concern at all.

The opinion that more training is needed, may be the problem. The MSC does not want your OPINION unless they specifically ask for it. That was one of the very first things that I learned as a shopper and it is now taught in every basic MS training that I have ever encountered. So, I do NOT express an opinion that there was understaffing, or that more training was needed or that "most customers would find something good/bad/dangerous/ugly/pretty/frightening" or anything else. When the shopper violates a fundamental rule in the report, the MSC should have its editors trained to remove the statement that was an infraction. Not falsification, correction is what happened.

Here we go....I deactivated myself after they wouldn't pay me and gave me a one for a Dealership I did and they paid a 17.00 fee. Tons of work and the Editor said i didn't make an appointment, but the instructions said not too, just call and ask about a specific car. I had worked for them for a few years, always thinking their fee is too low and they take forever to pay. I haven't looked at their site since I deactivated over a year ago, however, after reading this thread I decided to take a look and see if I'm missing something. I see a restaurant (FF) near me I would do. I was able to reactivate and self-assign this restaurant, which I didn't do because it's due tonight. I'm writing for all members that tell people never deactivate, not true, with this company you can easily reactivate, so, if you feel you need to deactivate, just do it, the sky won't fall. Editor's will be unfair, and i think we should listen to someone that is telling their story and not always assume the MSC is right. I happened to get a hard core Editor that threw away a good report to prove she has power. The average Editor is fine, and wants to work with you, but then there are the others.....

@rebekah wrote:

Before anyone gets their shorts in a knot my comment stated: I asked where the XXX was and the employee took me to a mall map. He did not know how to operate the touch screen, but told me the kiosk was on the upper level in the XXX hallway. (So he did assist me, but needs additional training on the touchscreen.) My comment was changed to: I asked where the XXX and he told me the kiosk was on the upper level in the XXX hallway. I think this does a disservice to the mall employee, does it not?
Just sayin'

I agree with those above who expressed that the MSC owns the report. Having submitted the report, it is no longer yours.

That said, your report was corrected. You made assumptions. Regardless of whether your assumptions are correct or incorrect, your original comment went beyond a factual incident report. The changed statement correctly reports exactly what happened without your opinions and assumptions. The editor did you a favor by correcting your statement without changing what happened. I think your report, with assumptions, actually did a disservice to the mall employee. Thankfully, the editor corrected it to show only the facts. The client can determine whether the mall employee acted as they wish him to act and draw their own conclusions. Unless you are specifically asked for your opinion, your role is to report only the what happened.

I have been doing shops for Intellishop for about 9 months. I've done a lot of shops in that time. Underpayment for some shops is an understatement. There are also a couple that you know that if you wait long enough, they'll add a bonus to get someone to do it. Back in October I got into a dispute with a scheduler about whether I had sent in a copy of a receipt to be reimbursed. I actually sent it twice with the correct numbers on it and I had proof I had sent it both times. But he kept saying I hadn't faxed it (I didn't have a camera at the time that I could hook up to my computer). After the second fax I asked him if he wanted me to send him a copy of my fax proof but he never responded. He then on a phone shop that I had to apply for kept rejecting my application even though I had done it previously (outside of the minimum number of days between shops) and gotten a 10 for it. I know that was pure spite. I applied for it over and over again about 10 times before he finally gave in and accepted it and again I got a 10. I also had a problem with a site evaluation shop where I had to go and look for problems, take pictures of the problems, some of the employees, and some of the locations around the site. I had printed the guidelines because they were complicated and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything, It took me over 2 hours to do this for a lousy $10 fee. When I got home, and started doing the evaluation, I found out that in addition to the picture taking requirements listed in the guidelines, they wanted me to take pictures of the inside of the bathrooms!!!!! I immediately sent an email to the scheduler pointing out that not only was this not mentioned in the guidelines, it was probably illegal. The scheduler did not respond to my email except he yanked it off of my shop log and put it back on the job board. 2 hours plus wasted for nothing. I hate that with a lot of the shops they require a lot of repetitive answers and narrative that just repeats the previous answers. And you have no idea how complicated the shop is going to be until you've accepted it. I did one today that was very complicated, over an hour for the shop itself and another hour for the evaluation that kept asking the same questions over and over again. Again it was for only $10. I won't ever do this one again. I'm not even sure I put enough into the narratives so I may have to spend another hour later trying to come up with more detail. What's really dumb are the recorded phone shops even they're mostly pretty easy. The reason they're dumb is that even though they have the recording, they still want you to detail what was said during the call. How does this make any sense?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2017 04:56AM by sassymmmm.

Sassy, that last shop sounds exactly like one I did yesterday, letter 'J?' Sounded simple enough, report was insane, live and learn! The only thing that saved me to be able to do the narrative was that I had used a digital voice recorder. Still the report took over 90 minutes to complete. My two other shops with them have been more reasonable in amount of work for the fee.

I am posting to say after my 1 score and my deactivating myself from Intellishop, the 1 score has been bothering me for a year. I reactivated and took a small job just to get that 1 off the site....so i'm happy this morning when I woke to a great email thanking me for a job well done and well deserved 10 score. I am now a happy camper to have resolved this (at least in my mind).

I am a new shopper and extending considerable effort into excelling. I received two FLAKE citations on my intellishop page. I'm SO discouraged. There was a mandatory 3 day wait to submit follow up information. I completed my evaluation and received follow up information. I attempted to submit several times, unsuccessfully because of the mandatory 3 day wait. This morning I received a FLAKE citation for both shops I completed that day, and will not be paid. I appealed to the editor/reviewer and staff coordinator with no success. I don't understand why I received the citation when I completed the evaluation.
Her reply was "we both lose" and "no, there is not enough time to read each evaluation" WOW!!

Exactly right. grrr