I have worked for MF part time for over 7 years. I don't make a lot of money. I have been terminated from 2 of their clients, but not the company. I was told they couldn't give me a reason. I figured that one was because I was constantly giving them negative results and the other for doing the same locations too much.

It just breaks my heart every time I read "After 5 faithful years of service......."

I think that I have been deactivated three times? I call and they reactivate me. Hasn't happened in awhile though, maybe a year or two? I started with them around 2000.

@misspocos75 wrote:

I have been working with Marketforce off and on for over 5 years. Just when I think I have a successful monthly route planned out, they cut me off without any kind of explanation. I had just scheduled 28 shops for the next 4 days and overnight they decided to deactivate my account. I emailed them and can you believe they actually said back, "We don't have to tell you why. You can quit at anytime without explanation and we can terminate your contract at any time without explanation." How childish is that?
They also terminated my husband's account without even sending him an email.
I was devastated for awhile but I put my big girl panties back on and I'm looking for new shops with other companies. There is no way I'll be able to make the same amount of money I was making with MF, mostly because most of the other ms companies don't have near the shops with the bonuses in rural Nebraska, western ks, western ok and northern tx as MF does.
Has anyone ever been able to get rehired with MF after termination?

As long as you do not violate rotations, gender requirements, or have any issues with meeting specifications or the overall quality of your work, which I can't imagine you would after five years of doing the same route, you should not have been terminated without explanation. It sounds fishy. If your grades and feedback are good, I would try taking the issue up with someone higher than a scheduler in the company and present your work record. Since you have worked well with them up to the latest interaction with the particular scheduler you mention, and enjoy your working relationship it might be something you could resolve a little higher in the organization.

What I have noticed in instances of routes, regular schedules, and higher volumes is there are often schedulers and editors who are given the option to self-schedule shops in addition to their primary job descriptions. They in some cases have been known to violate the first-come-first-serve rule and to cut a researcher who is doing volume they want to keep for themselves. When you get close to the thresholds for filing reports, they have also been known to cut researchers. The other issue is they often do not understand registrations very well, or pay attention to the active or inactive status of your registration. They will on ocassion count self-deactivated accounts wrongly as duplicates if you or your husband have more than one. Most of the time, the explanation is it is a "hog" move to violate first-come-first-served shops that a self-dealing scheduler or editor wants. I've seen it happen not only that they deactivate, but in some cases they cancel self-schedules if you log in at 5:00 AM and schedule them, and they...Yawn...get there at 10:00 AM. They have taken shops legitimately scheduled and then deactivated. I've actually had one of them remove needed data for shops in progress. Then go around the company trying to tell each scheduler not to work with me because I turned in 10s and did volume over $150 in a short period of days. What a nasty pig move? Yes. It is. "I wanted them for myself" is usually their little piggy motivation. It's the confession I've gotten most often, and had a few other schedulers tell me what it was about. Nice, fair and honest is not their forte. They have power-mad personalities everwhere. No surprise.

What to do about it is a matter of how much their accounts mean to you. You can push back. But is it worth it to your bottom line? You have cost of living. And let's face it, in most instances, you will make more money in a minimum wage job than you will working for unpredictable, unreliable, inexplicably rude, incompetent, or cut- throat people whose arrogance and ill treatment of others is far beneath you and not worth your time. You could probably go down to a big box store, a local gift shop, or any number of places locally, and do better working part time with folks who have far better manners and at least a little competence and perhaps a litlle conscience. I've had several experiences like you describe, with 10s across the board and happy clients and co-workers, and I can say personally, when the pig makes its appearance, it is generally not worth fighting with them, and something else almost always turns up that is better within a matter of hours or days.

But, if you want to try to make a success of what appears to lack the makings of success, and you are the persevering sort, you can do a few things to block their hideously low-level mis-management moves and their interference with your livelihood. If you are prepared to get mean and go a few rounds, here are a few suggestions.

First, for security and cross-verification purposes, establish back up accounts with complete and legitimate registrations under different EINs. Make sure you obtain them with unique registration addresses in your locale. You can get a PO Box for each or lease a low-cost virtual office, or co-working space. You can add suite numbers for a home-based business, or home office under most home-based business ordinances. Just inform your postal carrier and your municipal offices where you maintain your business licenses. You can place your husband in Suite A and yourself in Suite B, for example, to segregate your business use of space. You will register your Box, virtual, or home-office EINs with your Department of Commerce, or Secretary of State and report them properly if you exceed the total earnings threshold for your type of organization. Each organization type has a different earnings threshold and reporting frequency based on its for-profit, or non-profit status.

You will then add your backup registrations to the company website, and list them as active or inactive depending on your work flow. Be very careful to note all rotations if applicable, and be sure you do not violate any if you are managing more than one valid business registration. Do not enter any personal information. Enter only your legitimate business registrations. You can name your company anything you like, and you can enter company information only, just as long as you check the box that says, "This is my EIN." They have to accept it as long as you provide a complete and valid business registration.

They are not entitled to your personal information if you are registering a business. You will no longer provide it to any anonymous operators on the internet. Your US state and local offices maintain your registration under your EIN, and you alone are responsible for your reporting after your 1099 is issued to you should you exceed the thresholds for 1099 issuance. Give business name, telephone, business email, and business address. You can give an age and gender if asked but only if it is a specific requirement of a shop you have applied for and been assigned. Otherwise they are not entitled to it, Do not give your SSN. Do not give any personal photo ID. If asked, rather than give names, you can use researcher ID numbers to protect your personal data. The scheduler does not need any personal information. They can search your state registration, but it will only give them your registered business address, and your principals, not your personal information. You can register principals using a service address and name. Keep a business or corporate journal for your records. It helps deter identity theft, and it is a nice chart for you to track your activities and progress toward your business or corporate goals.

You'll note that many companies in this field, particularly those on the Sassie platform, currently run into problems when taking birthdate and other personal data from you because they are not on the job with regard to taking business information. Their forms do not contain the correct data fields to record a business registration in its entirety. You may have to enter default data because they do not have an incorporation or formation date field for your company. They have only a company name field and an EIN field. They are behind the curve significantly with the updates required to process Independent Contractor data. Several of them are also behind on verifying your EIN, so it may take weeks or months before you get your verification back. Some of them are coming back not verified even when you have received your EIN verification letter from the issuer and it is active immediately. Of the hundreds of them, they almost always lack an up-to-date field for date of business or corporate formation, and they lack a data field for the age range in which you are actively working as associated with a business registration, as opposed to a personal birthdate. So, you will have to take the day and date of your business registration and add a year to it that accurately reflects the age range you're in. If you formed your company on February 28th, you would use a "birthdate" of 2-4 and then your own birth year, or a birth year in the age range you typically are eligible to shop. If you research age 30-65 projects, then you would enter any year in that range. It's a little goofy to have to do that, but they are not current with MSPA guidelines for business registrations, so you are left with having to do a work around. They are just not up to standards. I know it's ghastly to those who are quality conscious and expect their business registration forms to be complete. You just have to breathe deeply and do the best you can if you intend to try and make a silk purse out of the sow's ear.

Once you enter your business registrations, they can not "phish" for any personal information from you, and you are not to give it. That will better protect you from third-party or in-house hacks. Also use longer passwords for your accounts when you register, at least 16 to 20 characters. If you can auto-enter 20 to 30 character passwords on your email accounts, by all means do it. It will make it that much harder for them to do their dirty baseless deeds by hacking your email as well. I have noticed far less third-party interference since changing all account passwords to strings of at least 16. We've had reports of 41 hack attacks per day here, so it goes on. There's no magic bullet, but you can make it harder for them. -- The hardest of all being leaving the internet all together. -- I realize people who play it clean and nice find all this appalling, and that is why I say you have to have a good reason to stick with the program, or it is just a mud wallow with pigs and you don't want to sink to their level, so your noble reason has to be above their pig behavior.

You will need to be aware that another way they hack your work flow is to display all of your shops on Mega-View in Sassie. You can test drive what they can see by adding a trial of Job Slinger Plus to your email, and looking at Mega-View. That is the equivalent of what they are seeing on your account all of the time. They are tracking your email and all your assignments across all boards. When they see the same email, the nasty sort of scheduler or editor who is self-dealing will try to limit what you are assigned by throwing a deactivation at your email to eliminate you from their competitors list if they are in the same area you are shopping in. Even though they state it is all up to you how much you work, or it is first-come-first-served on self-assign, they play pretty dirty. And the fact that they refused to give you any explanation tells me it's a dirty move. Legitimate, professional people will address issues. They don't dummy up when asked an honest question. That shouts dishonesty. It says low-life.

Be aware, they also monitor your race, so wherever there is an opt-out on race, or any other personal data, like gender, take it and answer "Other" or "I prefer not to disclose," on any registration. Unless a requirement of the shop it is not necessary to answer. It's about the data quality you produce, not what your racial background may be. But, they frequently use it to discriminate based on race or gender no matter how much they say it's to comply with requirements, or to qualify you for more shops. They won't send you more shops. You will get the same number and a lot more abuse. Always opt out, and choose your own assignments based on the descriptions and specifications as published. Do not let your personal, private data get to the invader-pig set. They will abuse it. They do it all the time. You will in particular get that type of abuse if anything you do routes international, or through South America, Mexico, or India, or to any foreign nationals. They are notorious for cut- throat and belligerent, nasty, arrogant behavior cloaked by what they think is anonymity. That is not to say there are not good, decent, honest people out there. There are. But realistically, there are numbers of people on scheduling and editing who are just not honest or fair. You have to be aware of the fact that you are not dealing with nice people all of the time. A few of them are. Most of them in this field of hundreds of companies are not. You will be lucky to find ten or fifteen of them that are.

You mentioned the devastation they cause. Your post is not unique in any way. What you describe is widespread and common. Tens of thousands of people have witnessed it. You are not alone. Lots of people who have done nothing wrong in least have seen the same abuses. So it's not anything you likely did or did not do. Don't bother asking yourself, "What did I do wrong?" It's a waste of time. The answer is "You did nothing wrong." You've just got pigs in the picture. If you know your work is good, don't start doubting yourself or getting devastated by a pig move. We all know what pigs are. We all know what they do. It's not about you. It's the nature of a pig to be a pig. Do not let them depress you, derail you, devastate, or discourage you. They do not determine your life course. They are insignificant nothings and nobodys in your life. They are like stepping in animal dung. You acknowledge it's unfortunate you encountered it, and that it stinks. But you scrape it off your shoe and keep walking. You don't let it stay there and stink up your life for any significant period of time. Don't you dare let their excremental behavior adversely affect you. Envision it returning to them. Many happy returns. As they say, "Same to you and also with you."

You might think about starting your own direct service company if you really love what you do. And it sounds like you do. There is nothing to stop you going to corporations and businesses directly and eliminating the dependency on any pigs who show up in the mix as a factor determining the course of your work life. You could go to each one of the same clients you shop, sit down with them in a face-to-face consultation, and develop a unique feedback survey they want to see. Go in armed with sample surveys, sample reports, and a needs assessment questionnaire they will fill out to determine what benchmarks and what feedback most interests them. You could have report delivery to them on an easy-to-maintain website, or on external storage media, or printed professional reports that are like corporate keepsakes and journals for them.

You could really get creative and do what you enjoy instead of letting these beasts depress you. I'm sure you could deliver individual and summary statistical reports that would knock their socks off. I've seen what many of these companies are delivering client side, and it is not that impressive. In fact, some of it is pretty poor as deliverables go. What I'm saying is you don't have a Mount Everest to climb if you want to deliver good data. You can do it if you have half a brain and 40 hours a week. So, that's a possibility. Forget the pig interference. Eliminate the possibility of getting mistreated by anonymous pigs on the internet entirely. It's something to think about.

Instead of asking yourself, "What did I do wrong," when it is not at all about you, ask yourself "Why depend on anonymous, unreliable, pigs to schedule your work and put up with them trashing your life and livelihood when you know you could do better on your own?" If you are planning a 28-site route in 4 days, you are organized enough to go get those accounts directly and develop them into your dream job so you can look forward to a life you created, not one that creeps keep trying to limit or hack for the sake of a hidden agenda. Call a spade a spade. And don't let them turn it around on you. They are pigs. They are dishonest. They are greed-based, ugly, invasive, and malignant. You are not what they are and do not want to be. You want nothing to do with that kind of character or behavior. You are doing your job and living your life. They do not have any right to interfere with you within the ground rules as they are stated. You are not there to be a target for their abuse or to accept any of that. Return to sender. You are non-stick.

What's more, you could earn literally ten times more offering your own direct services to your chosen client base. God knows their client choices are not everyone's. And their pay scales are so far from fair it's absurd. I know I was working for $2 per call on a phone-center project once years ago when I first started, and the client pay to the company was $25 per call. You deserve the $25 don't you?

You're doing the hours of work, the fielding, the traveling, having the expense, doing the data entry, the invoicing, and the follow up. Acknowledge you deserve better than the impoverishment they cause and perpetuate. You don't need to take abuse and poverty wages. You just need some initiative and some pro-active behavior. If you take your husband in, you'll probably land a ton of accounts together.

The good thing about pig moves is they often are the cloud with a silver lining. They put you in touch with what is more important, more effective, and better for you in the long run. Consider it a waving flag that says, "You're going to find something terrific on the horizon and be inspired to do your best work in a far better context than a pig pen or a piranah tank."

Remember, Columbus did not discover the new world because it was immediately in front of him and within his sight line. He charted a course and sailed until the day he could say, "Land Ho!" Don't let them sink your ship if you love your work in this field. You have value to offer. Just make it your own. They do not do anything original, unique, or better than you do. Have faith and confidence in yourself. Dumping a bunch of cut-throat pigs and realizing your own potential could be the next phase of independence, autonomy, freedom, and propserity for you. Don't be afraid to go for it. You have five years under your belt. You have a wide geographic region. You can succeed on your own terms. You do not live in a dictatorship. You are not in a communist block. You live in the free world, in a free country, in the United States of America. Fly and be pig-free. You deserve better. You deserve to like the people you work with. You deserve to be happy and look forward to every day of your life. You deserve to chart your own course for excellence and success. Go and do that. Put your business plan in front of you and make your numbers.

In the meantime, I noticed people suggested the pig move was about your shared IP address. To protect your privacy, so you don't get unwarranted hack decisions on your account, you can add what is called a VPN program to your computer. It will generate an IP address that is different for you or your husband based on the geographic location where you want it to appear. You can use a static VPN, or a rolling one. In some cases, a VPN program will allow you to show your IP as unavailable, or as a general US IP, so if you are sharing a device with your spouse, and can not afford to invest in more than one computer, they will not be able to hack or harm your accounts on the whim of the incompetent or piggish, in other words, for no legitimate reason. There are free VPN programs online. You can try a few and see what works best with your devices. Or you can purchase one at a retailer. They work fairly well and some protect your MAC address as well as your IP from prying, invasion, phishing and other malicious acts and abuse.

Best of Luck! Much Success!

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2018 08:54AM by Researcher01.

You can't have a rolling VPN and work with MF and many other msc. Too lazy to read the rest of the disappointment laden post.

@spicy1 wrote:

You can't have a rolling VPN and work with MF and many other msc. Too lazy to read the rest of the disappointment laden post.

Yes. It depends on the company. Most accept a static IP that you can change manually each time you create a new session. Rolling IPs work with some. I've logged them with a rolling IP. It did not seem to have any obvious effect. But who knows what happens on the hidden agenda.

I think it was more determination laden and supportive of another's success and development. That's the intent, not what you might read into it.

@interested wrote:

Wow, $1700 from them in a month. That's pretty good. Was it mainly fast food/casual dining restaurants? Or what kinds of shops? I had eight shops scheduled with them for $25 each, and they canceled them all saying that the client canceled. I was disappointed.

Did you verify their story on the cancellation? Try registering another test account and see what appears. If the shops show available then you have a Liar-Liar problem. If they don't then you know there is something legitimate about their response. I did that with another company with the same m.o. and found my account was being selectively interfered with. The cancelled client was not cancelled. Trust but verify. If they are harming your account you need to know and do something about it.

It sounds like someone pulled sexual harassment charge on you . I had this happen to me on a mystery shop in Phoenix three months after I did the shop they closed my account and if I had not pushed it I would have not got any response . I have found out that you cannot argue with MF were they do not and will not change their mind . Use one of the job apps to find out what companies are doing the most in your area and then apply to these for this is where I've had the best luck here in Colorado and I am doing 4 States as we speak . t

I'm also in rural Nebraska and haven't had any issues with Marketforce and can usually get my shops bonused. I don't do nearly the volume of shops that you do (mainly because it is rural and I have to drive a long ways to do any of them), and they call at least 1-2 times a week wanting me to take shops. The only time I had a problem from them was about 6 months ago when I gave a bad report about a certain fast food shop (which likely got someone fired, and rightly so after what happened) and they temporarily blocked me from doing that location. They started to offer it to me again, so they must be desperate.

I was deactivated and after contacting the PROPER LEVEL of Market Force the MISUNDERSTANDING was reversed. If you contact Market force below suggesting that there was a MISUNDERSTANDING as you are not aware of any reason why you should be removed at least they may give you a reason hidden deep in their paperwork.
Global Headquarters
Post Office Box 270355
Louisville, CO 80027
Phone: 303-536-1924
Fax: 303.402.6915

@lateraine wrote:

I have worked for MF part time for over 7 years. I don't make a lot of money. I have been terminated from 2 of their clients, but not the company. I was told they couldn't give me a reason. I figured that one was because I was constantly giving them negative results and the other for doing the same locations too much.

That's quite possible. I managed to deactivate them before they could me, but one can only take so much nagging from drive-in shop clients that only allow limited ordering over my findings before you just say "Enough!". I think I got bumped from some casual diners because they were consistently too good and/or I got found out being the only person inside for a late dinner shop. Oh well. If my findings aren't really relevant, why bother? I guess it beat the drastic pay cuts on the theater side...$12 for a "moderate" difficulty standee that took me six hours and once paid $30 and was done in two hours at that rating was my sign...

I had a situation where they temporarily suspended my account. I received a form email stating one of my receipts was not showing. The email stated that it could be their oversight as well as mine. I emailed the receipt and was activated. I did not argue. Since then, I take screen shots of all records with them on their websites.

MF is a minor player in our area. They only have 1-2 clients and the pay is pretty low. On the plus side they are quick and don't require a narrative. They have offer me fairly good cash for last minute deadlines and distance shops.

@Researcher01 "...Columbus did not discover the new world because it was immediately in front of him..." LOL. Should read, "Columbus did not discover the new world."!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2018 11:08PM by Dudester.

same with me a few years ago. they are EXACTLY LIKE the ENTIRE STATE OF COLORADO: they terminate you and it's LEGAL HERE! for absolutely NO REASON! NO ONE ever fights back here, but I DO, and they don't like it. We are trying to transition back to a more ?? educated and 'normal' state as I write. Some people/Co's are just A-Holes and you can't change someones mind nor opinion.. just have to live with it, or no longer socialize/work with them. sorry.

I HAVE NEVER, EVER MADE SO MUCH MONEY THAN IN THIS MONTH, AND IT'S NOT OVER.. I'VE MADE OVER $700. BY JUST TAKING ANY DECENT PAYING JOBS.. MY HUSBAND IS TOO B/C HE'S NOT WORKING NOW.

@amberngriffinco wrote:

I HAVE NEVER, EVER MADE SO MUCH MONEY THAN IN THIS MONTH, AND IT'S NOT OVER.. I'VE MADE OVER $700. BY JUST TAKING ANY DECENT PAYING JOBS.. MY HUSBAND IS TOO B/C HE'S NOT WORKING NOW.

That's $25 a day? I don't understand.

@lateraine wrote:

I have worked for MF part time for over 7 years. I don't make a lot of money. I have been terminated from 2 of their clients, but not the company. I was told they couldn't give me a reason. I figured that one was because I was constantly giving them negative results and the other for doing the same locations too much.

What happens when a client fires you, do/what do they tell you?

FWIW you're obviously not the only one. MF retail is infamous for being a bunch of jagg-offs when they feel like it. They're big enough that they don't have to care, and they don't care one bit. I think they're almost required to grind out a certain number of shoppers each quarter or something to bring in "fresh blood" or whatever. I do miss their burger chain shops, but otherwise I don't miss anything else about them.

None of this applies to MF theatrical. They're great.

They can terminate you if you made three mistakes in your reports. I mean, how can one learn if not by their mistakes? Just move on, you don't need that kind of aggravation. You can easily make more with other MSC.

Ive made quiet a few more than 3, yikes! lol, yikes

Do you guys still get paid when they terminate your account overnight?

Did they still pay you after they deactivated your account?

You do get paid for all completed and approved shops whether you are offered future shops or not.

@lateraine wrote:

I have worked for MF part time for over 7 years. I don't make a lot of money. I have been terminated from 2 of their clients, but not the company. I was told they couldn't give me a reason. I figured that one was because I was constantly giving them negative results and the other for doing the same locations too much.

How did you find out you were terminated from the client? I suspect I have been because none are showing on my board and I was recently questioned about an issue that happened three times in a row at a particular location. I answered honestly and never received a follow up so I assume it was okay. I've been questioned a couple more times from that same location in the last year. I'd even quit doing them for awhile because of it. Then again, there is a different but similar chain showing up two hours away from me that isn't showing up at all locally so maybe someone took all the local jobs but I kinda doubt it.

That's how you know, they stop showing up on your job board. They don't say a thing except maybe you are questioned about a shop.