IPSOS had a year long mystery shop in which you were required to have a specific phone plan in which you pay first of course and then eventually IPSOS would reimburse you...or so they say. I was reimbursed for the first 6 months no problem and now they refuse to pay my for the balance owed. I was never told the shop ended prior to the posted shop instructions that stated: You will keep the plan going for 12 consecutive months April 2016 to April 2017 and now they claim I breached my contract by claiming emails were sent to me or I failed to do something. I even have payment pending in the history log and they refuse to pay me. IPSOS claims that the plan was changed and the study ended without any notification in Dec 2016. If a shop ends early it is the responsibility of IPSOS to notify and pay for any outstanding fees incurred due to no notification and/or early termination fees! We all know mystery shop dates change and it is up to the company to let us know the updates and have them posted as an update on the assignment instructions! I am out $800, because I was on a one year contract. I only had this plan for the IPSOS study and of course they did not have me on a cheap plan. They even had their attorney contact me to scare me off and he did not even have the correct study dates on his letter. I had to email him the original job instructions and dates. summitscheduling.com was part of this nightmare as well. Anyone have any suggestions on how to collect this money from IPSOS.

You may have to file small claims if you have enough documentation about what happened, though they may force you into arbitration. That gets really tricky.

I received multiple emails about the closure and had a few conversations with the person in charge (initiated by her) making sure everything was closed out properly. I didn't keep them all but have one dated Dec 22 and a final one Jan.17th after everything was complete and final bill should have been sent by phone company.

I'm confused about a few things, the instructions I received said the shopper needed to purchase a month to month plan and not to get a contract. Did you and IPSOS make other arrangements and if so do you have that info in writing? When your January report was left on perma hold for more than one pay cycle did you contact IPSOS to see what the problem was? I'm not sure how you get your money back. You could try small claims especially if you have documentation they made you purchase a one-year contract then didn't pay for the year.

Thanks for your suggestion

You may be on a different study, my did not start until after Jan of 2016, therefore it would not end until after Jan 2017. You also seem to have had a good coordinator. As we all know payments from mystery shops are sometimes two months out. I did inquire about my payment, IPSOS failed to respond until I peppered them with emails. Thanks for your suggestion!

Wow your experience with IPSOS must be quite different from mine. Payments for me are done like clockwork twice a month and while a completed job can sit a while waiting for an editor and approval they haven't sat for more than a pay cycle since they switched to 2x month payments a year + ago. The program I was on started in early 2016 and was scheduled to last one year but was canceled early by the client in December. I have had problems getting a response from the company so I do know that frustration. Hopefully, you were paid more than I was per month. I don't think I would have taken the job for that pay if I had to commit to a one-year contract with the cell company.

Sorry to hear, It sounds like you are owed money as well. I was not aware that the shop did actually end early due to the client terminating the stud (I was just guessing it did). I have been doing mystery shops for 10 years and have never had payment issues until now, so it did not phase me to do a 12 month study. No notification was given to me that the study was terminated early, instead the attorney claimed I breached the contract so IPSOS does not have to pay me anything. Thanks for your feedback, I wonder how many others are owed money.

Sillyan, sorry that this happened to you. I hope you are able recover the money that you're out. I've always considered Ipsos to be fair, so I really hope things work out in your favor.

Thank you for your feedback! I also hope they do the right thing.

@sillyan wrote:

Sorry to hear, It sounds like you are owed money as well. I was not aware that the shop did actually end early due to the client terminating the stud (I was just guessing it did). I have been doing mystery shops for 10 years and have never had payment issues until now, so it did not phase me to do a 12 month study. No notification was given to me that the study was terminated early, instead the attorney claimed I breached the contract so IPSOS does not have to pay me anything. Thanks for your feedback, I wonder how many others are owed money.

How do they say you breached the contract?

IPSOS claimed I failed to upload my reports, but I have a copy of the payroll history showing pending reports entered that have not yet been paid. This shows the reports were entered. I have contacted their attorney and he has failed to respond after he tried to scare me off.

IPSOS had a year long mystery shop in which you were required to have a specific phone plan in which you pay first of course and then eventually IPSOS would reimburse you...or so they say.I was reimbursed for the first 6 months no problem and now they refuse to pay my for the balance owed.

I was never told the shop ended prior to the posted shop instructions that stated: You will keep the plan going for 12 consecutive months April 2016 to April 2017 and now they claim I breached my contract by claiming emails were sent to me or I failed to do something. I even have payment pending in the history log and they refuse to pay me. IPSOS claims that the plan was changed and the study ended without any notification in Dec 2016. If a shop ends early it is the responsibility of IPSOS to notify and pay for any outstanding fees incurred due to no notification and/or early termination fees!

We all know mystery shop dates change and it is up to the company to let us know the updates and have them posted as an update on the assignment instructions! I am out $800, because I was on a one year contract. I only had this plan for the IPSOS study and of course they did not have me on a cheap plan. They even had their attorney contact me to scare me off and he did not even have the correct study dates on his letter.
I had to email him the original job instructions and dates. summitscheduling.com was part of this nightmare as well. Anyone have any suggestions on how to collect this money from IPSOS.
Just found out through other posts that the client did actually cancel their contract with IPSOS and IPSOS failed to notify their mystery shoppers.I have been told that I am not the only one who was not paid!

It is sad that IPSOS fails to pay shoppers for completed assignments. Interesting that IPSOS has their own legal team, now why would a mystery shopping company need this unless this is their standard practice to hide behind for not paying. .I am located in Houston where were were devastated by Hurricane Harvey, I pleaded with the company to make payment, because I could really use the money to make repairs and they as usual have refused to do the right thing!

Having a legal team is a natural thing for any business to do. IPSOS is quite a large firm, with many branches, so of course they have attorneys. This is not evidence of ill intent.

IPSOS did notify at least some of their shoppers about the cancellation. As I said above, I received multiple notifications and was paid for all my completed reports for this client within weeks of submitting them. The client let me keep the phone as a courtesy and my scheduler double checked to ensure all costs of closing the account were submitted and paid off. Maybe you can get together with the other shoppers you mention that had problems and discuss the situation with IPSOS as a group or to file a claim in court.