I wanted to chime back in; just because a HQ is closed on the weekends doesn't mean that an executive didn't decide until the weekend. Many, many times owners and executives will work 6-7 days a week, especially if they stores are open 7 days a week. It could very well be the scheduler didn't hear back until when they said they did. The executive in charge of this may not have had time/made time until they were away from the office.

@spicy1 wrote:

This is very similar to my post office shops. I understand they have a certain amount of shops per period and must shop a location at certain intervals. However, if a company lists a shop with available dates from Aug 1-10th, I apply, and then they assign it to me on Aug 11th for the period of Aug 11th - 17th......pffffff....I have moved on with my schedule already and, unfortunately, usually have to cancel the shop with them. Even as much as I like to complete them.

Spicy, I always email my scheduler for the post office with the locations I want and the dates I want to do them as soon as I apply for them on the website. She is always accommodating and responds within 24 hours.

@leaiso wrote:

I wanted to chime back in; just because a HQ is closed on the weekends doesn't mean that an executive didn't decide until the weekend. Many, many times owners and executives will work 6-7 days a week, especially if they stores are open 7 days a week. It could very well be the scheduler didn't hear back until when they said they did. The executive in charge of this may not have had time/made time until they were away from the office.

leaiso, that may be true, but I do believe in frodo's case the scheduler did not just find out this info that weekend. Especially since previous email inquiries were not responded to in a timely manner.

@leaiso wrote:

I wanted to chime back in; just because a HQ is closed on the weekends doesn't mean that an executive didn't decide until the weekend. Many, many times owners and executives will work 6-7 days a week, especially if they stores are open 7 days a week. It could very well be the scheduler didn't hear back until when they said they did. The executive in charge of this may not have had time/made time until they were away from the office.

I could definitely be wrong about the company rep responding on a Sunday but there really is no reason the scheduler did not answer my emails and say look, I haven't heard back yet and I know you wanted to start on Sunday but I will let you know Sunday for sure. It's so simp!e.

Just to reiterate, the scheduler stated at the beginning of the month, I would get 2-3 days notice and that was how the company behaved. I didn't have a problem with that. My problem is same day notice which may or may not include cancellation of shops.

Along with the changing guidelines, it doesn't feel like a professionally run MSC. I have to mitigate my annoyance and run my time like a business by not accepting that behavior.

I agree. I am sure she got the email and she certainly could have shot off a quick 2 line email letting you know something.

That's a problem for me as well. A scheduler emails or texts and asks if I can do a shop. I say yes and block out that time. Wait. And then find out the day of that they have someone else. It's like being on-call without being paid for being on-call.

FYI - today is payday for shops in July via paypal. I have received nothing ! I emailed my schedulers and no one has responded yet. I have to admit I'm worried because I have never worked for them before July of this year and it seems no one in this forum has reported on them.

I did receive payment about 45 minutes after I posted. I also received an crusty email that said they didn't know why I was asking about payment since they had another hour and a half to pay me. Wow ! My talents will be directed elsewhere.

I'm going to agree with the MSC on this one.......

I don't know, man. You're ringing your hands because this is the first time you've worked for this MSC and there's no information on here about it and they're supposed to pay today and, according to the time posted, it's past mid-day and you haven't heard anything so you email them and they send you a crusty email. It's easy enough to have a nice form letter (email) ready for these cases instead of answering personally and crustily! It's not a fun position to be in.

A nice form letter to explain the day isn't over and payment will be made on time? I would be rather crusty if my phone bill was due on the 15th and the company contacted me at 3 pm on the 15th to question why it wasn't paid.

Well, that's because that's where your head is, you don't have much to worry about. That is not the case with everyone. In fact, that's not the case with most mystery shoppers. Now they know a little more about this MSC and an insight into how they handle matters. I don't worry about my payments but it wasn't always true. I have never received a crusty letter, only crusty phone calls from mx. I appreciate that frodos made the circle complete in reporting the findings from beginning to end so I wouldn't tail it with a judgmental statement about how you would behave when in his/her position.

That's where my head is? Oh you must mean being realistic, reasonable and treating my customers the way I would like to be treated. Thank you.

I know you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, well there's a saying for that "Those who say a coconut is too hard to open are not hungry enough."

@frodosdojo wrote:

FYI - today is payday for shops in July via paypal. I have received nothing ! I emailed my schedulers and no one has responded yet. I have to admit I'm worried because I have never worked for them before July of this year and it seems no one in this forum has reported on them.

Look, I have to say emailing the day that your PayPal is due because you haven't gotten anything yet IS jumping the gun. I agreed with much of what you said earlier in this thread. This one, I don't. If after two days you haven't been paid, then a polite email inquiry might be okay. I personally would probably wait a week or so. Things happen. There have been hurricanes that have affected several states and those types of events sometimes have a ripple effect in other areas. If an MSC makes a habit out of being late (a week or more) month after month, I might choose to not accept shops with them anymore. If they are a few days late each month I personally wouldn't sweat it.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

@frodosdojo wrote:

FYI - today is payday for shops in July via paypal. I have received nothing ! I emailed my schedulers and no one has responded yet. I have to admit I'm worried because I have never worked for them before July of this year and it seems no one in this forum has reported on them.

Look, I have to say emailing the day that your PayPal is due because you haven't gotten anything yet IS jumping the gun. I agreed with much of what you said earlier in this thread. This one, I don't. If after two days you haven't been paid, then a polite email inquiry might be okay. I personally would probably wait a week or so. Things happen. There have been hurricanes that have affected several states and those types of events sometimes have a ripple effect in other areas. If an MSC makes a habit out of being late (a week or more) month after month, I might choose to not accept shops with them anymore. If they are a few days late each month I personally wouldn't sweat it.

I really was sweating because there was another project they advertised in conjunction with another company for which I didn't get paid. I had $60 out of pocket expenses, 4 hours of time and I couldn't tell you how much gas I wasted. There was several hours of report time as well and then two days later ACPV told me the shop was disqualified. Then they asked if I wanted to try again ! So, yes I was scared they weren't going to pay me at all and my shop total was $500 before I took on the other project which was disqualified.

I shopped for them for years and I recently left and asked them to remove me from their list of shoppers.

*Shop requirements would change AFTER the shop was completed. Ex: The shop instructions said to shop between 9am and 11am and you did, then you would be told it was supposed to be 2pm - 4 pm and you did the wrong time. Even when you pointed out what the assignment said, you were still wrong, but they would "accept it this time as a courtesy".

*Completed shops would disappear. They, like other companies, have a place where you can see shops assigned to you - whether they're done, pending, waiting for payment, or done. Toward the end, I was having problems where I would go to check the status of a completed shop and it would be gone. A couple of times, I did airport rotations, and ALL of the airport jobs disappeared. When I questioned it, I got a nasty email or completely ignored. A couple of times, there were over $300 pending for that month and they would all disappear and I sure wasn't going to just let go of that money. They always claimed it was a system problem or an IT problem, but I found it interesting that the cheap fast food shops never did this - only the multiple airport jobs.

*Payments were sometimes late, but when I would question it (days past the due date), I would get told that most months they paid me early, so I had no reason to complain.

*They wasted my time asking me to get an airport badge, giving me the wrong paperwork, asking me to come to their office to resolve during a certain date/time and nobody was there, and then telling me that they didn't need airport shoppers after all. I had to take time off work to go to the airport, pay parking, etc and then the form was filled out wrong or they gave me the wrong one entirely. The few times I was in their office, they tried to sell me a security system (apparently their other business?).

*When I would email or leave a voicemail for my one and only contact and get no response for several days, I would follow up with the manager... then, my contact would send me a nasty email about how I had no right to email the manager for answers when she received my email and was going to answer it.

At the end of the day, yes I did get paid for my shops, but I had to keep track of it and chase them down frequently. It just wasn't worth it to me, but maybe it is to someone else. I really loved doing the airport shops, and I was sad to leave, but I felt I had to. I hope when the airport job comes up for bid again that another company will pick it up.

Thank you so much for your post , @chemmy81. There is no info on this company in this forum except this thread. So hopefully other shoppers will be able to make an informed decision based on our experiences. I, too, have experienced changing shop instructions and Kim told me 2 of my rail shops were disqualified although I followed the instructions to the letter. Payday was the 15th and after I received payment at 10:30pm, Evelyn sent me an email stating she was up past her bedtime to make sure I got paid.

I worked for them for 2 months so I only expect one more payment October 15th. My fingers are crossed that it goes smoothly. I screenshot my approved shops, just in case. There are too many professional companies out there to spend time and talent on this one, in my opinion.

I did enjoy shopping for them for the first few years, but once I got to be quite busy with them, the rails seemed to come off a bit. I hope they can resolve it because I do miss the airport work - it was a lot of fun!

This happens (increasingly) with a LOT of MSCs. There seems to be an ever-declining respect for the IC's time and schedule planning. I have experienced this with MSC's as varied as Coyle and Maritz.This practice of not communicating and ignoring the IC's phone calls/emails wreaks havoc on route planning and even scheduling fill-in shops. It is just hard to reserve time in the hope of a MSC finally confirming a date that they asked you for in the first place!