I think YOU work for mf and are trying to see reactions to your rules! Yes, I've figured it out.

Actually, MF has a drop down menu with TODAY's date highlighted. You just click todays date. I don't know how a wrong year was put in...(at least with MF) whereas other companies might not have a drop down menu...

I do shops for MF and I like them. Have no idea what this fight all about. Don't like them - don't work for them. I never had any issue with them. Read the instructions and proofread your report before submitting, how simple is that? I do not understand why people blowing so much steam to @#$%& about a MSC rejected their reports- you failed, your fault. And yes, now someone will shut me up... this is the reason I am not posting on this forum.. too many negative individuals.

Here's the thing. If there are too many negative individuals and you are positive and not posting on the forum and everyone did that then only the negative individuals would post on the forum. Post on the forum so we have more positive individuals.

My co-worker said "no news is good news" when speaking about how often she hears from our supervisor. Well, that's just stupid. I want to hear good news also, not just the bad news. Our media sources do the same thing. I get to find out all the horrible things going on in the world with an occasional, concessional good story thrown in at the end of the newscast. Blah!

Make it happen! Turn this into a positive forum!

I am looking at all those problems with MSC from different perspective; I have a full-time position and doing MS only part time. From my full-time position experience, you mess up your assignment, you are "on a hot spot". Same approach should be here; everyone should treat all assignments as if your employment depends on it. Yes, of course we all making mistakes, but one mistake is okay, second one, similar, is something wrong. And complaining about your manager is stupid. They are always right, if you did not understand this statement, read it again, THE MANAGEMENT ALWAYS RIGHT. Just get better, get over, and learn from your mistakes. Do you think people who having full time are all happy and life is peachy? Heck no. We are happy by 4:45 pm on Friday knowing it is weekend and all miserable by Monday morning.... But we are not complaining and cursing our management and company in overall at least not in a discussion board, well, some do. We are working for leaving. Same should be here. Just because you can apply for a hundred MSC and work for all of them does not mean you should not respect them. Full time position is hard to get you can be terminated for a bad performance. Same with MS, the fact that you submitted tens of applications in one evening and ten MSC accepted your application does not justify your approach of not being respectful to them. They can terminate you "just because" in the same way as our full-time employees do. And, they always right. Deal with it, do your job better next time, and make your leaving with it.

I posted earlier on the same thread that MF rejected my shop for time overlap. I was checking my account and big surprise, they approved it!...I didn't even email them coz I figured they would never change the status once rejected. I think it was approved because the second shop which overlapped with the first one was cancelled by me.

@daveg43 wrote:

I had my first invalidated shop with Market Force because I mistakenly included a picture from the previous shop that I was doing the same day. I feel that it was an honest mistake that I could have easily corrected if given the chance. However M F did not allow for any cure option and rejected, not only, the shop with the wrong pic but the shop with the correct pic as well. Both were had good bonuses attached and were personally requested/offered to me by the scheduler. On top on this, the QC contact was very rude about the issue. Most companies that I work with are great about allowing corrections if they see issues.

Can anyone offer advice on trying get to M F to be easy to work with other than to be strictly exact in my eval.?

Good for you! You acknowledged that the error was made by you. You now have information for the future. You can find some way to separate your shop images and triple check the images before submitting your reports. When your work is accurate, it is easier for the various people at M F to do their jobs.

Without knowing the backstory, I can wonder if there was a strict deadline. They might have been annoyed if there was extra work for them to perform late or too late in the reporting period. Or, they might be coaching you with editorial tough love. Who knows? The main thing is that you are interested in making your work easier for them to work with in the future.

They sent an email when their new system came online that they cannot change or add pictures. That part of their system is locked to them. I don't know if the program creator did that on purpose for the clients and that was requested or if that is just a by-product of their new system creation. However, they did say not to leave out photos or put wrong photos on your shops because they cannot access them.

I'm a satisfied MF shopper. So it's 500,001. They offer the most shops in my area, they bonus well. I'm learning how to answer the offshore schedulers so our phone calls are much shorter. Their reports are straightforward with little to no commentary. They pay within a reasonable amount of time and on schedule. Since I will probably do most of my mystery shopping through them until I retire from it I have no doubt, at one point, I will have a shop invalidated for a reason that I disagree with. I'll have to deal with that when the time comes.

I did a shop on Monday that was invalidated on Tuesday because I did not shop before 4 p.m. The CPI clearly states 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., which are the usual shop hours. I even emailed the Help Desk to confirm the hours, because December hours were oddly changed to 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. They emailed back that the shop was approved and apologized for the confusion. A rare apology - maybe they have some new people in QC.

Just had one of my two gas station shops that I completed yesterday invalidated for "Duplicate photos with another shop". I label my pictures with the street name of the gas station and add "sign" or "bldg." to the label as well. I am careful when I upload the photos and double check the image after it appears in the report. I don't understand what went wrong and of course I cannot review my report. I did reply to their email and included the photos but based on the other posts here, I don't expect they will accept the shop. I will update this post if they do.

Update:
I received a response from MF that I submitted the same gas receipt for both shops. I was able to look at the receipts on the "View Assignment/Receipt Status page" and indeed I did make the mistake of sending the same receipt image for both shops. I was confused because they first said I submitted duplicate photos and I did not think that meant duplicate receipts. They said I could now forward the correct receipt via email. Kudos for MF for allowing me to correct my error.

Update 2
Received an email that both shops have been accepted.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2018 11:46PM by kenasch.

I had a heavily bonus shop that I failed to report within that allowed 8 hours time frame. I emailed help desk and asked if they could reassign the shop to me. They do so and offered that it's not something they normally do or will necessarily do in the future.

I was very grateful, as the shop fee is normally $7.50 and they put it back at my bonus rate.

@COMystery wrote:

What peeves me is there is no way to make a pdf of your report.

At the end, when you can do your report review on screen, why not just print it to your xps "printer" and save it? I've found that's probably the fastest, easiest way to save blank and completed surveys for reference....

I resisted signing up with MF for a long time--after reading many negative posts on this forum. I finally did, though, because I figured out they had the shops for a restaurant chain I was dying to shop. Nearly three years later, all I can say is, except for their low base pay on most jobs, I think they're a great company to work for. I've never had a shop rejected, and in a couple of cases where I submitted my report, then realized that something I wrote might seem contradictory or I hadn't known quite how to answer a question, I immediately wrote the help desk explaining the situation. In the first case, they replied that the shop had already been approved, so no worries. In the second, they wrote back, thanked me for the heads-up, and said they'd pass along the information to the shop editor. Shop was approved without issue. I think if you suspect there could be an issue with your shop, be proactive and alert them.

Also, I did two shops recently that required photos, and time/date stamps were on both. Not a problem.

The only thing for me is that I pretty much won't take any of their shops at base pay. Luckily, they must not have a lot of shoppers in my area, other than for the fast-casual joint. Lately I've been able to pick up some nicely bonused shops. Unluckily, those restaurant shops aren't being bonused as high as they once were, and I can't get them for what I used to. But I still can get a bonus that makes it worth it to me. Every so often I'll do one at base so that they'll keep calling with the ones they "have" to have filled right away! Good thing, though, that overall I'm not doing as many of those, 'cuz my cholesterol sky-rocketed when I was doing one or two a week every week. Went way down when I cut back!

I did the Chinese food shop, too. It was an online order. I didn’t include the lidded drink in my pic and the shop was rejected. I was surprised because...well it’s an effing cup with a lid. I took the entree pic and figured that was all they needed. Clearly, I missed a step but it seems asinine that you must take a pic of a lid.

Anyway, no biggie. I had accepted a string of hard to fill shops at the same time. Went back in and cancelled all of them. Not wasting my time and possibly not getting paid.

@saruhhh wrote:

I did the Chinese food shop, too. It was an online order. I didn’t include the lidded drink in my pic and the shop was rejected. I was surprised because...well it’s an effing cup with a lid. I took the entree pic and figured that was all they needed. Clearly, I missed a step but it seems asinine that you must take a pic of a lid.

Anyway, no biggie. I had accepted a string of hard to fill shops at the same time. Went back in and cancelled all of them. Not wasting my time and possibly not getting paid.

I'm sorry to hear you got a rejected shop, but I think you over-reacted by canceling all your shops because you made a mistake on one and it means you won't be paid for that one.

You should not have been surprised at not getting paid. The guidelines say "Take great photos! Be sure your pictures include EVERYTHING you received, including beverage (this includes free water), appetizer, and any other item you ordered with your plate!" The sample pictures show everything including the drink in the photo. The guidelines are pretty clear that they want the drink in the picture.

This is not quite true. On the review page, you can select all the text on the page and then print the selection to PDF. (Just printing ends up with blanks pages.) I use Chrome for this, but it will probably work in other browsers as well.

@COMystery wrote:

What peeves me is there is no way to make a pdf of your report.

@Iamme wrote:

@COMystery wrote:

What peeves me is there is no way to make a pdf of your report. If I've made an error on a report I want to be able to go back and see that error. Instead I have to take MF word for it.

If you use Safari you can make a pdf. Otherwise take screen shots. I goofed up one with another MSC when I first started, so now everything gets labeled and into separate folders. It keeps me sane, especially when I'm reporting 6-7 shops in the evening.

If you use Chrome what you do is when checking before submitting you highlight the enter think and select print to PDF and save it. It will be anywhere from 9 pages to 22 pages depending on how detailed the report is. I save the CPI and the report. The CPI first and then for the report I just click on the cpi as it is saved and then save it as submitted. Ie. I have a shop for Betty Lues meatloaf shop 123 Some st Anytown CPI finished report is saved as Betty Lues meatloaf shop 123 Some st Anytown submitted.

@MFJohnston wrote:

@m00nsafari
MarketForce is a reputable company and not at all shady. The company (like all companies) has its detractors as well as its fans.

From what I can tell from your description, you submitted a report with a very incorrect date. Yes, this will get you into trouble. Most MSC's are able to have you correct such a blunder, but one of Market Force's quirks may be that such corrections can be more difficult. Either way, the date error is your mistake.

I've made blunders on reports - we all do. MSC's tend to be pretty reasonable. However, this seems to have escalated pretty quickly. Is it possible that you pushed a little too hard? If you are planning to work with other companies, I would suggest not making hay. You have your money. You likely would not want to work with Market Force again anyhow. You have nothing to gain. However, you might turn other companies off to you.

Well, that sounds like a Krock you know why it sounds like a Krock because if you do not answer a question with the proper time in the drive to the ordering station they will have you correct it. As in if there are no cars ahead of you it should not take longer then 5 seconds to drive to the station, Uh excuse me I will not run over the car hops nor is my car big enough to just drive over the 4x4 that is backing out of the stall and is driven by a little old man that should have quit driving years ago, Or at least let his grandkids drive. By that criteria if the shop's date reported does not match today's date since they have to be entered within 8 hours they should flag it like they do taking to long to mosey up the driveway to order.
.

@saruhhh wrote:

I did the Chinese food shop, too. It was an online order. I didn’t include the lidded drink in my pic and the shop was rejected. I was surprised because...well it’s an effing cup with a lid. I took the entree pic and figured that was all they needed. Clearly, I missed a step but it seems asinine that you must take a pic of a lid.

Anyway, no biggie. I had accepted a string of hard to fill shops at the same time. Went back in and cancelled all of them. Not wasting my time and possibly not getting paid.

I'm going to be the bad guy here. Always read the guidelines. Follow the guidelines even when they do not seem to make sense. If you quit because of that then maybe this isn't the right line of work.

It's absolutely NOT that "If you quit because of that then maybe this isn't the right line of work." Which is what someone says when.....what? There used to be a forum member here who would say that to absolutely everyone whenever they said anything they thought was wrong, difficult, strange or otherwise not normal in their mystery shopping experience. Where does that get us when we're supposedly knowledgeable enough to understand that it is a mistake that will get you not paid, to tell someone who is so new that they don't know this TO QUIT? Where? No where but to shine the 'holier than thou" mirror in our direction. Is that really who you want to be?

What it is, is that this unfortunate mistake was made at the beginning of your career, or time, in mystery shopping. However, it's a great learning experience. It doesn't feel like it right now, but it will in time. Don't quit the company. In fact, don't quit any company. If anyone is not meant to work as a mystery shopper, the company will drop you. If you learn from your mistakes, most companies will forget in time. And in time you will realize that it is not a knock on you personally. It's just that you missed something. Right now you don't think it's a big deal but in time you will realize that it is a big deal and you will become better about the millions of things we need to remember to do and report on.

I had a shop invalidated from MF, it was a cell phone carrier but one of the things I had to ask about was internet. The closest location (from this carrier) that provided internet was 4 hours away. When the shop was denied because of this, I emailed MF and told them no one within my area would be able to do this shop. I didn't get any response but 1 week ago the same shop came up again but this time without the internet! I did it and got paid. I was pretty much set up for failure the first time but I'm glad that they passed my message on to the client.

That sucks that they didn't paid you on the first shop, especially if you followed all the shop instructions. MF is very finicky. I don't like how rigid they are but once you figure out how to work with them it gets easier.

I just had the same thing happen to me.