I just reviewed the new guidelines. It appears that the offered additional items will not be covered with the reimbursement. So you might be out more than 87 cents.

@Goneshopping wrote:

I just reviewed the new guidelines. It appears that the offered additional items will not be covered with the reimbursement. So you might be out more than 87 cents.

Ouch, you are correct! I’ve done these jobs so many times, I made the mistake of not reading the guidelines before my shop. So now it will be better to order an entree that has an extra charge to maximize the reimbursement. No more spring rolls for me!

The language regarding the reimbursement not covering additional items has been in there for at least a few months. I didn't notice it either. However, I was still reimbursed for additional items up to the $9 limit back in July. Perhaps the MSC did not notice or has not updated their system.

Sometimes you have to ASK for the "big bonuses" and not just wait for it to drop out of the sky. "Dear Scheduler, I notice this shop has been on the board for some time.......". Dear Scheduler, I would love to get this bonused shop done for you for you today. Would you do a $___ bonus?".

They got me again. I just did their coffee shop and the guidelines have been changed that you now must order a beverage. In the past a bakery item alone was okay. Read those guidelines carefully, no matter how many times you have done the shop!

@Endora wrote:

@JASFLALMT, or others if you would like to chime in, I have a question for you. In a nutshell, it is this: To what degree are newcomers welcome to participate in forum chats?

I am a relatively new shopper (almost one year now), and new to this forum. I appreciate what I am learning, and participate if I believe I have useful insights. However, recognizing my low seniority position, I am doing more listening than speaking in order to learn. As a long-time academic, I've been part of communities not so different from those of long-time shoppers here, and understand the value of hearing from veterans who really have seen it all!

It's a new experience, then, to feel like the rookie as I come into this community of folks I would love to learn from. I'm 50+ and find that learning now is quicker than it was when I was in my 20s and 30s. Therefore, I would very much like to get integrated into this community of professionals, but am a bit nervous about whether there is an in-group and an out-group.

What advice do you have for us new kids, who are not so new age-wise?

I appreciate any and all feedback. Thanks!

Welcome to the forum, Endora. (She was the "good witch", right?) (Or the MIL from Hades on Bewitched, LOL!)

Yes, newcomers are welcome to participate.

There does sometimes seem to be some "clique-y" activity here. But I'm not a member of any clique.

But the out-group would seem to be anyone with...well, shall we say, lacking a moral compass?

It might shock you to learn that people CHEAT on their shops.

And they want to parse it, to convince others it's not cheating.

Personally, it not only wouldn't occur to me to cheat, but I wouldn't even know how. I was there at such and such a time, I remained until such and such a time, I observed this and this. Here's my photos, or my Geoverify code, etc. Here's my receipt(s). How to obfuscate those facts? I was either there, and observed, or I wasn't there, and couldn't observe.

Best of luck to you.

Got an email from them that they raised a shop to $7.50! I don't do these shops anymore since I tore up my knee and can't be on my feet very long. Last time I did the shop, it was 11. They emailed me to tell me they raised the fee to 7.50? Ouch!

I do not do any shop that is under $20. They are not worth the time. When you consider the time it takes to drive you there and back, the time you spend on the actual shop and the time it takes you to fill out the survey. You are not even making minimum-wage. Plus you have to purchase something that you really didn't want or need and that comes out of the amount you get paid. I wish people wouldn't take the shops. That would force shopper companies to pay us What we are worth.

my birthday was yesterday. MF sent me an electronic birthday card. No bonus included. Just a nice card that was appreciated.

I wondered if they were still doing birthday cards, I received nothing this year in July, no bonus, no card, nada .....
my birthday was yesterday. MF sent me an electronic birthday card. No bonus included. Just a nice card that was appreciated.[/quote]

I have decided on minimums for which I will accept certain shops, depending on how far it is, how much traffic on the way, how long it will take, and, basically, whether I really want to bother with it today. I give them my high-ball price. Quite often they'll say, "I'll have to clear it with my boss but you'll get an e-mail within 2 hours if you're picked". Most of the time I get the e-mail by the time I get off the phone, LOL! I must be the only one around who will do some of those shops out in the boonies. I've even said that I need another shop to make it worth my while and they've come up with another one for me! In my case, the scheduler looks back at my history and sees that they've paid me that fee before, so she's willing to ask for it again.

recent Market Force shop that I just did required an $11 purchase with only an $8 reimbursement needless to say I won't be doing that shop ever again

I'm also offended at marketsource has been calling me a lot and wanted me to do a shop that day or the next day and offering me less than what I could just take it for on the website

You are making a blanket statement which can't be applied to all shops. I've also found setting some arbitrary minimum can actually be shortsighted.

For instance, I took a route of 7 shops paying $10 each. From the time I left home until I was pulling back in my garage was 77 minutes. All 7 reports were completed in 8 minutes so I spent a total of 85 minutes for $70 with no required purchase. I regularly take some revealed gas station mystery shops paying $14. By carefully routing the shops, I can easily complete 2 an hour including the report and drive time between. The purchase is completely reimbursed making it $28 for an hour's work.

@rboggs127 wrote:

I do not do any shop that is under $20. They are not worth the time. When you consider the time it takes to drive you there and back, the time you spend on the actual shop and the time it takes you to fill out the survey. You are not even making minimum-wage. Plus you have to purchase something that you really didn't want or need and that comes out of the amount you get paid.

Hydra and others, I've recently (in the last 3 months) experienced a fresh wave of p-o'd managers at MFI. Without using their names (unless that's allowed here), a fairly inexperienced manager (I'll call him Wonder Kid) who was covering for the boss (out on medical leave for a few months--I'll call her Ms. K) replied to an email I sent Ms. K re. inappropriate, belittling behavior from an MFI manager (aka Ms. Meanie). I had no previous experience interacting with Wonder Kid. Clearly, he was feeling his new "authority" while the boss was away, and in the second sentence of his email response to me said "it is in the best interest of both you and us to terminate our IC relationship with you."

Thankfully, I've read enough threads on this forum to not take his "you're fired" personally. And not having MFI jobs anymore means I'm doing fewer, better-paying jobs as well as not having to seek constant clarification for poorly-constructed, ambiguous guidelines. Win-win. However I would not have quit MFI since the reports are so easy for the low wages.

My message is that there is some very thin skin in the management ranks at MFI, and getting rid of even long-time ICs continues as a first line of defense based on what I've read here, my experience, and what I've heard anecdotally from other ICs who were "let go"--always for asking questions or taking a different view of something. If you're relying on MFI for your bread & butter, I suppose the best route is to not make waves with MFI managers.

This may sound trite, but I feel sorry for MFI managers. I've never caught a glimpse of any kind of joy there, and life is way too short to be mad all the time. ; )

Anyone else have MFI run-ins lately?

@Endora wrote:

This may sound trite, but I feel sorry for MFI managers. I've never caught a glimpse of any kind of joy there, and life is way too short to be mad all the time. ; )

Anyone else have MFI run-ins lately?

I haven't spoken to anyone at MFI in the USA in ages. The reps in the PI are quite pleasant. The ones in the USA are probably getting whatever minimum wage is in AL or GA.

I only do gas and food for MFI. I have a 100 miles RT commute for my regular job, and I eat every day. I can't think of a report for them that I can't finish in under 10 minutes. I had a pair of gas station jobs rejected last year. I think it was their error, but I just let it go. I've made over $1000 since then, so it was worth it. (That's $1000 with very little effort on top of my real job, usually at lunch or on the way home.)

Lisa, I am SO envious right now. For me to do ANY route of 7 shops would require a minimum of 65 miles RT and at least 2 hours just for the driving. Just to do a route of the five closest postal shops (max for the day) took me 80 miles and 5 hours, 45 minutes RT for total pay of $60.

And I guess I must be still doing something wrong because I haven't done any assignments that take so little time to complete AND have reports can be done in just a few minutes. The closest I've come has been completing postal shops which can be done in less than 10 minutes if there is no line and the report can usually be done in 15 if I use the app. The next closest were some FF shops that took an average of 17 minutes to do the shop (though there were instances of over 45 minutes) and another 10-15 to complete the report, mostly because the MSC doesn't have an app and their website takes forever to upload the photos, and times out every few minutes.

The route I am doing today for CI will end up to be what I consider a bad financial result for me. The route will require 139 miles, 3 hours of driving and 5 hours to do the work. At least the reports will also be done when I walk out since you have to document pretty much every single step you take throughout the work on the app. (The assignments are taking 2-3x longer than the MSC estimated. And I now have a system and move pretty fast because I've already done 30 of the same type assignment.)
All of this will be for the grand sum of $75 - 5 @ $15 each, so the way I calculate it, my earnings look like this:
$75 revenue
-22 gas expense
-----
$53 + 8 hours = $6.62 per hour (which I still have to pay taxes on)

What types of shops are these that truly require so little time to complete and such simple reports that 7 can be done in 8 minutes? I am very eager to find a way to make my routes actually become decent paying instead of just beating up my car for less than minimum wage.

TIA - I'm going to start this as a separate thread too since this may not just be about the MSC for which this thread was started.

@LisaSTL wrote:

For instance, I took a route of 7 shops paying $10 each. From the time I left home until I was pulling back in my garage was 77 minutes. All 7 reports were completed in 8 minutes so I spent a total of 85 minutes for $70 with no required purchase. I regularly take some revealed gas station mystery shops paying $14. By carefully routing the shops, I can easily complete 2 an hour including the report and drive time between. The purchase is completely reimbursed making it $28 for an hour's work.

@rboggs127 wrote:

I do not do any shop that is under $20. They are not worth the time. When you consider the time it takes to drive you there and back, the time you spend on the actual shop and the time it takes you to fill out the survey. You are not even making minimum-wage. Plus you have to purchase something that you really didn't want or need and that comes out of the amount you get paid.

@Endora wrote:

Hydra and others, I've recently (in the last 3 months) experienced a fresh wave of p-o'd managers at MFI. Without using their names (unless that's allowed here), a fairly inexperienced manager (I'll call him Wonder Kid) who was covering for the boss
Anyone else have MFI run-ins lately?

My experience is not lately Endora but several years ago I did a shop on a Friday requiring a personal outlay of $30-40. The report was not in until the weekend and there was an issue unrelated to anything wrong I had done. I spoke with the weekend person who told me there was nothing they could do and I would not get paid ($125) or reimbursed for the shop. After a few emails back and forth things were not going uphill. I decided to wait for Monday at which time I was able to get in touch with the regular (not weekend) staff. By an hour after I contacted them on Monday all was made better and the weekend person even sent me a note of apology. I have seen her name since then and she has always been super nice when dealing with me. I think she must have been rather new at the time and was "retrained" just the way the client's team members are supposed to be retrained if we submit a report on them with a bunch of no answers. So my advice would be to try to contact someone else at the company and discuss your situation with them...facts only with no name calling, not even cute names.

The 7 shops was a one off project. The report was only 4 or 5 questions, including date and time, with one photo upload. The other gas station shops are fairly standard reveals, but without as many pics. I enter the data on my tablet as I go along then submit right before pulling out of the parking lot. Keep in mind, I am in a densely populated area with hundreds of businesses within just five miles.

Thanks, sandyf. The cute names were only for this board, never to MFI. ; )

Thanks Lisa.

I was really hoping there was some magic I just hadn't discovered :-) Well, other than moving from our rural area...as much as I'd like to, MS work doesn't pay enough to afford relocating my disabled mother and sister.

@LisaSTL wrote:

The 7 shops was a one off project. The report was only 4 or 5 questions, including date and time, with one photo upload. The other gas station shops are fairly standard reveals, but without as many pics. I enter the data on my tablet as I go along then submit right before pulling out of the parking lot. Keep in mind, I am in a densely populated area with hundreds of businesses within just five miles.

The only magic you need to discover is negotiating higher fees in exchange for the distance you need to travel. There are actually many shops I would not do for the base fee even if they are within a five mile radius. Those two were examples of shops without bonuses I could still make into profitable routes.

Keep in mind, a lot of us here have been doing this for years now. For a long time I actually had more than my share of without even making minimum wage



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2018 06:19PM by LisaSTL.

@Hydra777 wrote:

I'm also offended at marketsource has been calling me a lot and wanted me to do a shop that day or the next day and offering me less than what I could just take it for on the website

I have experienced this with Market Force as well--and just last week an even more outrageous maneuver from them. The payment for a FF shop on their board, normally $6 + reimb, had been raised to I believe $10+. I then received a Samantha email offering $12+ for this shop. I emailed back with a "yes, please" and selected a date from those available.

By the following day I had not received any response to my acceptance. What I did receive was a call from one of their schedulers offering me this exact assignment for the usual fee of $6+! Though he was willing to negotiate, the fact that MF was apparently trying to welch on its Samantha offer was entirely disreputable and offensive.

Unfortunately, this machination was not a one-off mistake of some sort; I have experienced the same thing with them in the past. Perhaps an appropriate response to this situation in the future will be to verbally rescind the acceptance of the Samantha offer and demand a higher fee.

In any case, do stay on your toes when dealing with these folks!

@roflwofl wrote:

@Jsherma5 wrote:

I gad a high rating and last week. I got canned. They said i was not entitled to know the reason.

That's what it means to be an independent contractor running his own business. If you decide you don't like one of the mystery shopping companies, you can stop accepting shops with them or completely deactivate yourself, and don't have to contact them to tell them why you don't want to work with them any more. You owe them no explanation. By the same token, if any mystery shopping company decides that it does not want to work with you any more, they don't owe you any explanation. In fact, most companies don't even tell you when they don't plan to work with you any more. You just suddenly don't get emails any more, you see nothing on the job board, and they don't answer your inquiries - you may think they lost their clients and no longer have shops in your area. Market Force is one of the few that actually lets a shopper know that he is no longer going to be offered shops. And in most cases, they do not tell you why.

@roflwofl wrote:

@Jsherma5 wrote:

I gad a high rating and last week. I got canned. They said i was not entitled to know the reason.

That's what it means to be an independent contractor running his own business. If you decide you don't like one of the mystery shopping companies, you can stop accepting shops with them or completely deactivate yourself, and don't have to contact them to tell them why you don't want to work with them any more. You owe them no explanation. By the same token, if any mystery shopping company decides that it does not want to work with you any more, they don't owe you any explanation. In fact, most companies don't even tell you when they don't plan to work with you any more. You just suddenly don't get emails any more, you see nothing on the job board, and they don't answer your inquiries - you may think they lost their clients and no longer have shops in your area. Market Force is one of the few that actually lets a shopper know that he is no longer going to be offered shops. And in most cases, they do not tell you why.

I had a shopper company post shops that I was interested in, that pay well and were in my area. I kept applying but never received responses. One day I was curious so I logged in only to find out that I had been deactivated. I called the 800 number and was told I was deactivated because of negative surveys. It was unusual because I gave positive reviews on my last two visits. She then asked me what my birthday was. I think I was deactivated because I turned 60 this year

rboggs - what company was that ?

@Pro Evals-Audits wrote:

Lisa, I am SO envious right now. For me to do ANY route of 7 shops would require a minimum of 65 miles RT and at least 2 hours just for the driving. Just to do a route of the five closest postal shops (max for the day) took me 80 miles and 5 hours, 45 minutes RT for total pay of $60.

The route I am doing today for CI will end up to be what I consider a bad financial result for me. The route will require 139 miles, 3 hours of driving and 5 hours to do the work. At least the reports will also be done when I walk out since you have to document pretty much every single step you take throughout the work on the app. (The assignments are taking 2-3x longer than the MSC estimated. And I now have a system and move pretty fast because I've already done 30 of the same type assignment.)
All of this will be for the grand sum of $75 - 5 @ $15 each, so the way I calculate it, my earnings look like this:
$75 revenue
-22 gas expense
-----
$53 + 8 hours = $6.62 per hour (which I still have to pay taxes on)

What types of shops are these that truly require so little time to complete and such simple reports that 7 can be done in 8 minutes? I am very eager to find a way to make my routes actually become decent paying instead of just beating up my car for less than minimum wage.

TIA - I'm going to start this as a separate thread too since this may not just be about the MSC for which this thread was started.

/quote]

Pro, are you remembering to factor in the (approximately) $0.55 a mile IRS allows for your business driving? At 139 miles, you'll write off about $70 for travel, which means you generated no taxable income.

And I still haven't mastered any of the apps that would allow me to submit my reports on site, so I face those hours of reporting after I get home, too.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2018 03:22PM by ceasesmith.

@LisaSTL wrote:

The only magic you need to discover is negotiating higher fees in exchange for the distance you need to travel.

Lisa, thank you for your advice. Also, I respect you totally for putting in so much time at lower wages--your experience speaks volumes to me! I think it's important for all of us--and by that I mean me!--to remember we all need to pay our dues. In my IRL job outside of mystery shopping, I regularly come across start-ups straight out of school who expect to be making at least double my salary because they're . . . whatever. Entitled, seems to me. ; )

Question for you, Lisa, or others with experience. With MFI, do you tend to go with one main person for negotiating and big questions? I've never really experienced MFI schedulers, per se. With other companies, I work with the scheduler for the job(s).

I have a quick scheduler question that I think I will use to start a new thread since it's outside of the current topic. THANKS!

I prefer "Make an Offer" over the "Samantha Offer" since I get to set a price with the former.

My apologies. I was mistaken, so I deleted my response.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2018 09:29PM by ceasesmith.