A couple of days ago I noticed a retail shop a few towns away (30 min drive) which had a fee of $11 on the MF site. I received a Samantha offer of $16 and decided it wasn't enough for the bad part of town I'd have to shop in. Later that day a schedule calls offering me FIVE whole dollars do complete the shop. I told him I couldn't do it for anything less than $25 and he then told me $15 is the maximum offer. I declined the shop (for the first time ever.) My question is, did this schedule straight up lie to me about the fee max or does Samantha have the opportunity to offer even more than my scheduler? ( I know it was a dollar difference but it's the principle!)

To understand your question you also have to understand that you don't talk to MF schedulers. They call themselves schedulers because that's the title MF gives them, but they are not in any way schedulers. Also you have to understand that MF "schedulers" don't actually have the ability to tell you what the max fee is. The can only tell you what the max fee they know will be approved is. And those are entirely different things. Basically it works like this:

Let's take FF drive in shops.

When all of September shops get posted they have a fee they are posted at. As the month get's closer you will receive Samantha offers or Premium Fee offers from MF. Those are figured by a computer based on how close you are and how much the computer thinks the shop is worth right now. So let's say it's the 30h of August and no one has taken a shop yet. Their computer will know based on history how much they normally have to pay to get that particular shop done if it has not been taken by the 30th. They'll adjust from there (down? the same? up?) I honestly have no idea. And that's what your offer is. At the same time the overseas schedulers start calling shoppers. They have guidelines on what to offer for each shop. The schedulers are not allowed to put in offers over what their guidelines call for. In this case their computer says the shop is worth $16 but the scheduler's guidelines say they can't put in an offer more than $15.

Now, to explain what I mean by them putting in an offer, I'm not talking about what they offer you. When they say I can give you a shop for $15, what they really mean is they know if they submit an offer to the schedulers for $15 on your behalf it will get approved. That's also why I say they are not schedulers. Schedulers sit in some room and look at job offers all day. So what happens is a scheduler calls you, says I can offer you $10 (even though their guidelines say they can give you up to $15, they're trying to save money remember), you accept the offer, and they put in a request to a scheduler asking for the shop at $10. A scheduler then looks at that request, approves it, and the shop is assigned to you.

Back to the whole "Max Fee" thing. Many times you can get approved for more than what the scheduler says the max fee is. Again, that is just the max fee they can offer you. I once had a scheduler on the phone about a particular drive in that I get $65 for. She told me it was too early in the month and there was no way she could submit that offer, and that it wouldn't be approved anyway. After hanging up I submitted an offer on the website and it was approved immediately.

that's a lot of good information! thank you! i was under the impression that the scheduler calling had some control over it. Now I kinda feel bad. oh well.

Also, i was curious if you know that if a shop is offered onkine with an added fee for a while and no one takes the shop, do they cancel it and start over at base pay hoping someone will take it if it's "new?"

No.

I do some of the same shops where there is quite a drive for me to do them. They call me, sometimes as early as the 12th of the month and offer the shops at the usual fee that they have to pay to get these out of the way shops done. But, a few weeks ago, they put a 'submit offer' on one of these shops, so I submitted an offer of the fee that I ALWAYS get Every.Single.Month... They did not accept my offer and then sent me an email telling me how to have more success in getting my offers accepted which basically said, "Submit an offer of about $5 over the $5 we're offering, instead of the $45 we ALWAYS pay you and your offer will be accepted..." Alrighty then! It seems to me that every month over there, they try some new tactic so there is no way to figure out their current methods...

If they start lower than the current fee on the site, I start by bringing that up. I will then, if it happened, notify them if I received a Premium and/or a Samantha offer. Typically they will then make a higher offer. They will also follow their script attempting to get me to name a price. This tactic is to get the shopper to at minimum commit to doing the shop if the price is right. From there they offer the maximum they are authorized.

For this:

......Also, i was curious if you know that if a shop is offered online with an added fee for a while and no one takes the shop, do they cancel it and start over at base pay hoping someone will take it if it's "new?"

Actually, it depends on the shop. For example, there are buy a phone from a certain phone shop, return it and debrief. This shop has had offers, one from me in particular, and it just goes on from month to month with the same make offer button open or closed depending on the time of the month. My offer was a big fat $ amount. This shop, amongst others, DO go back on the board for the base pay.

Two and a half times what it is posted for and it is still up there on the board but I'm no longer interested in that job would need at least 5 times what they have it posted at.

my price goes up the longer they wait.

Does anyone ever tire of this system? I mean, I am tired just from reading about all the rigamarole that everyone goes through just to schedule a shop!

I like the MF system and the ability to easily search all locations and self-schedule whatever shops I want when I want. I like being able to automatically change the date of a shop (for most shops) so easily without involving a scheduler or the Help Desk. I like the ability to Make An Offer, although I seldom use it. I would say most MF shops are scheduled by shoppers themselves without using a scheduler and without any phone calls or negotiation. Things are rarely bonused in my area (not just with MF but with most MSCs) because there's an overload of shoppers here and few shops sit on the board very long. I'm a little envious that shoppers in some other locations get calls with higher offers. Of course, even if I got the calls and offers, I'm not willing to drive very far so I probably wouldn't take them anyway.

I don't work for MF, however, I see same shops over and over with a low fee, and they never raise it...they figure some poor shopper will eventually take it. Raises here, not happening. I see rates getting lower, not even staying the same, those that battle it out for 5.00 more, good luck.....I think the Schedulers are in a tricky situation with only so much money, seems to be out of everyone's hand except the client. ..reason for my retirement.

When I ask my scheduler about a bonus, she will tell me that she has to check with so and so first. I usually get what I request as long as it is reasonable.

I have now for the third time received a call and negotiated a well-bonused job with a desperate scheduler, gone through the entire "you are giving your 100% commitment to completing this job" speech then never received the email confirmation for the job and it never shows my job list. It always happens while I'm out doing other work where I have spotty internet connections. It's like they're Lucy with a foot ball and I'm Charly Brown.